5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

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By T.R. Reid

As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.

I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.

In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.

Continued: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778.html


T. R. Reid was recently interviewed on Fresh Air/NPR and his Frontline documentary is a must see. Can't wait to read his new book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.:

August 24, 2009

Journalist and author T.R. Reid set out on a global tour of hospitals and doctors' offices, all in the hopes of understanding how other industrialized nations provide affordable, effective universal health care. The result: his book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.

Reid is a foreign correspondent for The Washington Post — in whose pages he recently addressed five major myths about other countries' health-care systems — and the former chief of the paper's London and Tokyo bureaus.

Reid was the lead correspondent for the 2008 Frontline documentary Sick Around the World, which examined five other capitalist democracies, looking for lessons on health-care delivery. His books include Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West and The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112172939

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=112172939&m=112173424

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1. This guy has so much info to share, I hope others catch him

I'm kicking this in case there are others who want to listen to his interview on NPR, or watch his Frontline program if they missed it.

It's incredibly interesting to hear him discuss how other countries implemented their health care programs, the details of how they operate, how much money they spend, comparisons to US, etc. What's also interesting is his discussion about various treatments available for his shoulder condition, including alternative medicine that is covered under other countries' health care programs, such as acupuncture in Japan and Ayurveda treatment in India.