Reddit World's Happiest Country Discussion and commentsReddit Front PageLink to article:
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-happiest-countries-united-nations-2019This article started out talking about Finland, the country it considered the happiest country, but it also listed it's top ten happiest countries. Thought it would be nice to examine what kind of health care systems each had:
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World's top ten happiest countries:1. Finland - Single-payer health care services, as opposed to single-payer national health care insurance like Taiwan, Canada, or our Medicare. It is the municipality or county which collects the money, the tax, to pay for health care. And it's the municipality or county which then spends that money too.
2. Denmark - Single-payer national healthcare insurance, much like our Medicare which is publicly funded but privately delivered. However the hospitals are run by the 5 regional districts.
3. Norway – Single-payer national healthcare insurance, much like our Medicare which is publicly funded but privately delivered. However Norwegian hospitals are owned and operated by the 19 different county councils.
4. Iceland - More like our VA system (Veterans Administration), publicly funded system with universal coverage, the state as payer is also the owner of most organizations providing health care services.
5. Netherlands – Multi-payer mostly NON-PROFIT insurance companies, with universally-mandated private insurance (national exchange) - government regulates and subsidizes insurance.
6. Switzerland - Multi-payer NON-PROFIT basic insurance companies – supplemental insurance is allowed a profit, universally mandated private insurance (regional exchanges); some federal legislation, state government responsible for provider supervision, financing through subsidies.
7. Sweden – Single-payer national healthcare insurance, much like our Medicare which is publicly funded but privately delivered. However almost all hospitals are owned by the county councils.
8. New Zealand – Nearly single-payer, with 76% publicly funded and 7% of health expenditures covered by NON-PROFIT private insurance, on the other hand, responsibility for planning, purchasing, and provision devolved to geographically defined District Health Boards.
9. Canada – Single-payer national healthcare insurance, much like our Medicare which is publicly funded but privately delivered. Canada’s hospitals are owned and operated by NON-PROFIT, voluntary organizations.
10. Australia – Nearly single-payer, much like New Zealand’s system, 68% publicly funded, 11% of health expenditures covered by NON-PROFIT private insurance
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SUMMARY: A common theme of 8 out of 10 of these countries is they all have some sort of single-payer system, or near single-payer system. The two main outliers, the Netherlands and Switzerland, have multi-payer systems. However even they don’t have much allocated for for-profit insurance as we do here. At the risk of repeating myself, the for-profit insurance companies make money by keeping premiums – not by actually paying for health care!
But getting back to the 8 out 10 of the above countries that have single-payer systems, Finland appears to exert more local control, but it is still one government entity paying the bills in a region. Iceland exerts the most national control with a system not only paying the bills but also owning most of the health care organizations – much like our Veterans Administration. Medicare-for-All wouldn’t go that far here. Also before dismissing Medicare-for-All and single-payer maybe a person ought to examine
some facts and myths about single-payer.
I suppose though if you fear happiness, you ought to fear single-payer! (Or Not)
Topic: REVIEWED: This is the world's happiest country in 2019 (and the 10 happiest) (Read 253 times)