Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to wrong assumtions

Clarification...
TB — (archived)

That number from Canada is the amount that Canada actually spends, on average, on each person. It's an average of the whole population. Obviously, some individual people cost a lot less, and some cost a lot more, in a given year. Maybe some people don't cost anything.

It's basically their overall health expenditures divided by the population, although it's not quite that simple. It's a useful number.

I use Canada in these arguments because I am constantly told that if we nationalized the health care system, costs would go radically down. This is an astounding leap of faith, considering the government's record in other fields, but I've found it useful to grant the premise before proceeding with the discussion. So I use Canada as a best case, which, as a national health care system, should already be enjoying the lower cost factor according to the liberal theories. It deflects one typical objection.

I could have used the current U.S. average per-capita health costs in the calculation. That would be a lot worse.

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