The fake freedom of American Health Care

In fact, the United States has shorter life expectancy, higher infant mortality and fewer doctors per capita than most other developed countries. When it comes to outcomes in some illnesses, including cancer, the United States does have some of the best survival rates in the world — but that’s barely ahead of, or even slightly behind, the equivalent survival rates in other developed countries. In breast cancer survival, for example, the United States comes in second, after Sweden. Third-best is Norway, then Finland. All three countries have universal, government-run health care systems.

For colorectal cancer, the five-year survival rate after diagnosis in the United States brings it to a not very impressive ninth place in the O.E.C.D. statistics. Ahead of the United States are South Korea, Israel, Australia, Sweden and Finland, all with some form of government-managed universal health care. And when it comes to cervical cancer, American women are at a significant disadvantage: The United States comes in only 22nd. Meanwhile, life expectancy at age 65 is higher in 24 other developed nations, including Canada, Britain and most European nations.

Americans might still assume that long waits for care are inevitable in a health care system run by the government. But that’s not necessarily the case either. A report in 2014 by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation specializing in health care research, ranked the United States third in the world in access to specialists. That’s a great achievement. But the Netherlands and Switzerland did better. When it comes to nonemergency and elective surgery, patients in several countries, including the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, all of which have universal, government-guided health care systems, have faster access than the United States.

It’s not just American patients who endure endless bureaucratic hassles. American doctors were also significantly more likely to report as major problems the amount of time they spent on dealing with administrative burdens related to insurance and claims, as well as on getting patients medications or treatment because of restrictions imposed by insurance companies, compared with doctors in most of the other 10 countries studied — including Sweden and Britain.

Overall, Americans spend far more of their hard-earned money on health care than citizens of any other country, by a very wide margin. This means that it is in fact Americans who are getting a raw deal. Americans pay much more than people in other countries but do not get significantly better results.

The trouble with a free-market approach is that health care is an immensely complicated and expensive industry, in which the individual rarely has much actual market power. It is not like buying a consumer product, where choosing not to buy will not endanger one’s life. It’s also not like buying some other service tailored to individual demands, because for the most part we can’t predict our future health care needs.

The point of universal coverage is to pool risk, for the maximum benefit of the individual when he or she needs care. And the point of having the government manage this complicated service is not to take freedom away from the individual. The point is the opposite: to give people more freedom. Arranging health care is an overwhelming task, and having a specialized entity do the negotiating, regulating and perhaps even much of the providing is just vastly more efficient than forcing everyone to go it alone.

What passes for an American health care system today certainly has not made me feel freer. Having to arrange so many aspects of care myself, while also having to navigate the ever-changing maze of plans, prices and the scarcity of appointments available with good doctors in my network, has thrown me, along with huge numbers of Americans, into a state of constant stress. And I haven’t even been seriously sick or injured yet.

As a United States citizen now, I wish Americans could experience the freedom of knowing that the health care system will always be there for us regardless of our employment status. I wish we were free to assume that our doctors get paid a salary to look after our best interests, not to profit by generating billable tests and procedures. I want the freedom to know that the system will automatically take me and my family in, without my having to battle for care in my moment of weakness and need. That is real freedom.

So is the freedom of knowing that none of it will bankrupt us. That is the freedom I had back in Finland.

Here is my appeal to Republicans: If you really want to free Americans and unburden American employers, why not try, or at least seriously consider, some form of government-managed health care, like almost every other capitalist democracy? There are many ways of giving people choice and excellent care under government management. Universal publicly managed health coverage would even free America’s corporations and businesses to streamline their operations, releasing them from bureaucratic obligations that to me, coming from Finland, I have to say look weirdly socialist. Would this mean they would have to pay more in taxes? Possibly.

Many countries require employers and employees to contribute to the health care system through payroll taxes, more than the United States does. But again, Americans are paying far more for health care than anyone else, and America’s businesses are stuck managing this mess. It’s true that in countries with universal health care the cost of hiring a new employee can be significant, especially for a small employer. Yet these countries still have plenty of thriving businesses, with lower administrative burdens. It can be done.