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Poor Britons healthier than rich Americans | 61 comments (61 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
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This is all the more striking as:

The USA actually spend more public money on healthcare than the UK does, in addition to tons more of private money ( (Source - click on pic for bigger version):

The UK actually has the highest obesity rates in Europe, with numbers not that different from the USA (Source (pdf)):



As the Yahoo article points out, there is no obvious explanation for that difference. Maybe all the private money being spent is the explanation - people are just sick of it...

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 11:20:43 AM EST
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Wow, the US has the third highest public per-capita PP expenditure!

Then again, a lot of that may be because health care workers (and doctors) have higher salaries in the US than in most other countries. I think expenditur as a fraction of GDP are a good way to correct for that effect.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 11:28:55 AM EST
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It's corrected to some extent by the use of PPP numbers.

They are spending incredible amounts on healthcare, yes.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 11:36:21 AM EST
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I noticed the PPP. But the labour costs in the US health sector may be higher than in other countries, even measured by PPP. Definitely higher than average for the OECD.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 11:37:54 AM EST
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So 4 out of the 6 fattest rich nations on that chart (I removed Mexico for not being 'rich') are "anglo-saxon", while 2 of the 4 least fat ones have French as a national language?

// alex throws this heaping steam of manipulative nonsense into the room and then runs out through a backdoor

by Alex in Toulouse on Thu May 4th, 2006 at 04:45:31 PM EST
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Poor Britons healthier than rich Americans | 61 comments (61 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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