Originally Posted by WarChild

No of course it doesn't mean each person spent that. It does however mean that's how much was spent on each person. So in the US you're spending twice as much as we are in Canada on each person, while only making on average $1500 or so more.

The fact is the private insurance layer in the US simply adds costs overall while not covering as many people.

Now I recognize that while when taken as a whole, US healthcare does not rank very high but despite that some of the best helathcare is available in the US. That is to say, if you have money and you get cancer, well fuck yeah you want to go to the Mayo Clinic. However, if you're a regular joe working 9-5 in the US that's probably not a real option for you. So for maybe 5% of the population the US has the absolute best healthcare in the World. Unfortunately, for everybody else it's mostly below average and in some cases dismal.

I'm an advocate of a two-tier system. Offer fundamentally sound public healthcare and allow for private healthcare by choice.

Another way to start slashing money out of the "wasted" portion of your Health Care spending would be to make some fundamental changes to your Tort laws. That's a topic for an entirely different thread though.