It just went live on the Lighthouse website a few weeks back, and we got good feedback from our German clients. As with many universal insurance system, overall health care expenditures rose to more than 10% of GDP in recent years. German legislators are trying hard to contain costs, and with the ever-ageing German population, they will have to double their efforts in the future.

A little teaser to entice you to follow the here above link.
You will discover that the German system:

1. is very decentralized ;
2. is the oldest universal health care system in the World;
3. lets individuals choose among the statutory funds in their region;

A little teaser to entice you to follow the here above link.
You’ll discover that the Swiss System:

1. mandates its residents to buy healthcare;
2. lets individuals choose from a choice of health plans;
3. lets management of these plans to private insurance companies;

I have to admit it was the most difficult one to summarize so far; it is the most integrated healthcare systems I’ve studied yet, its admin side is awfully messy, and its “patient” one is so dead simple it was difficult to follow the structure I set up for the previous pieces. Still, I am happy with the end result, which you can check here: British NHS.

Need a teaser like last time?
By reading it you’ll discover that the British System:

1. Is most cashless;
2. Is so good private insurances only insure 11% of britons;
3. Is much more efficient than the French or the Australian one at managing its cost

A MIDDLE-AGED man felt chest pains. As an executive at IBM, an information-technology firm, he had excellent health insurance, so he went straight to a specialist. His cardiologist put him through a bunch of tests, including a computerised tomography scan. A radiologist noticed something odd in his neck, so he went to a neck surgeon, who checked him out and found nothing. He went back to the cardiologist, who gave him an angiogram, which caused dangerous complications and landed him in hospital for a while. In all, he ran up more than $150,000 in medical expenses before the chest pains disappeared on their own.

When they reappeared several months later, he spoke to Paul Grundy, the head of health-care technology at IBM. Dr Grundy, a doctor of preventive medicine by training, asked him if his lifestyle had changed recently. The executive mentioned that he had taken up gardening again. Dr Grundy quickly established that his chest pains sprang from a muscle he had strained through overzealous weed-whacking.

The here above is an extract from the Life is expensive – A special report on business in America article by The Economist. The US health system is much discussed lately – with good reasons. I highly recommend any who wish to enter this discussion to read this article as it reflects pretty well where the system is today, and may open some eyes.

I also recommend this article as I laughed for a good five minutes when I saw this photo. You’ll understand why when you read its excerpt