My Head Hurts, Herr Doktor

This week a Belgian company, InBev, purchased Annheuser Busch for $52 million. Hearing about this got me to thinking: why couldn’t a European country, particularly one that has had a long history of managing health care for its citizens, run our health care system? Why not totally outsource our third party quasi- government/private health care-financed miasma to a country like Germany, which has been in the social security business since Otto von Bismarck designed the first modern public welfare system in the mid 1800’s?

Before you conclude that I have had one too many Bud (er, excuse me, InBev) lites, consider that many of the western European countries, including Germany, France, and Spain, have high-speed intra- and inter-country rail service. Europeans drive more gas-efficient automobiles and get their health care taken care of in technologically up-to-date and clean facilities.While still small in number, more and more Americans are traveling for medical care to western (and eastern) Europe, as well as to Thailand and India, because out of pocket costs are lower, even including the travel portion. And it’s a well-established fact that western countries with standards of living similar to ours have better morbidity and mortality statistics than our own in many of the leading health care indicators.

According to the travel web site www.justlanded.com:

“The German health care system has the reputation of being one of the best in the world. There is an extensive network of hospitals and doctors covering even the remotest areas of Germany. Waiting lists for treatments are rare. Medical facilities are equipped with the latest technology and the statutory health insurance scheme provides nearly full cover for most medical treatments and medicines. Almost everybody in Germany has access to this system, irrespective of income or social status.”

This by no means is to say that Germany and countries like it have solved the problem of financing health care. In fact, according to justlanded.com, Germany’s medical costs are among the most expensive in the world. The difference is that more of the dollars spent on health care go toward the provision of care as opposed to paying for the bloated overhead and administrative costs associated with our crazy-quilt third party payment “system”.

Oktoberfest is just around the corner, so hoist one high, all you consumers of 16% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. This one’s for you!

--Be well. TMW