France and Healthcare

Courtesy of Dr. Mark J. Perry at Carpe Diem, complete with multi-colored graph (by way of Coyote Blog):

On a PPP basis, all European countries in the graph except the U.K. have per capita GDP below America's poorest state. In other words, if Italy, France, or Germany left the European Union and joined the U.S., they would be the poorest of the U.S. states, and the same would apply to the European Union as a group, and the same would apply to Japan. 

Coyote uses the graph to ask So Why Are We Benchmarking Health Care v. France? and his answer is succinct and perfect:

On a purchasing power parity basis, France, Japan, and Germany would all be the poorest states in the United States, based on per capita GDP.  People on the coasts don’t benchmark their education or health care spending against Mississippi, except perhaps to make the case that Mississippi is spending too little.  So why do they benchmark their spending against Germany or France.  Of course we spend more on health care per capita – we spend more than these countries per capita on everything from TV’s to cars to movie tickets.

Also, get yourself over to Coyote Blog to see his rather brilliant answer to Kevin Drum's assertion of the need for government health care. Using the same chart Kevin does (not the one from Carpe Diem), Coyote pretty much demolishes Drum's argument and answers the question whether our very high level of spending on health care is A Bug or a Feature?