How the world sees Greece
The Greek coalition government is currently working on new healthcare policies to expand free and subsidized health coverage. According to a ministerial decision uninsured Greeks and migrants residing legally in Greece who were denied healthcare in the ...
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by NEOnline/GK Today, Europeans enjoy a much longer life expectancy than the previous generation, but large inequalities in health remain across and within countries. These are largely due to disparities in access to and quality of care, as well as individual lifestyles and behaviours, according to a new joint OECD/European Commission report. Health at a Glance: Europe 2014 shows that life expectancy in EU member states has increased by more than five years on average since 1990. But the gap between those countries with the highest life expectancies (Spain, Italy and France) and those with the lowest (Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania) remains around eight years. Within all EU countries, highly educated people are likely to live several years longer and in better health than those with low level of education. This is particularly the case in Central and Eastern Europe. This makes it all the more important that all European countries put in place effective public health strategies to prevent diseases and contribute to the reduction in health inequalities. Inequalities in access to health care contribute to inequalities in health In most EU countries, universal health coverage has ensured continued access to health care during the recent economic crisis. But in Bulgaria and Greece, many people lost their insurance coverage, at least temporarily. Several countries have seen their coverage for certain health services and goods reduced, and out-of-pocket payments by patients have risen. The new OECD/EC report shows that, on average across EU countries, the proportion of low-income people reporting some unmet needs for medical care and dental care is two-times greater than among the population as a whole, and four-times greater than for high-income groups. Such unmet care needs may have long-term health and economic consequences. Quality of care continues to improve, but there remain large gaps Quality of care has generally continued to improve in recent years in most European countries, despite the crisis. For example, mortality rates for people suffering from a heart attack have decreased by 40% and strokes by 20%, on average across EU countries over the past decade. But large gaps remain in the chances of surviving these life-threatening diseases. For example, a person admitted to a hospital for a heart attack is twice more likely to die 30 days after the hospital admission in Hungary and Latvia than in Denmark and Sweden. Survival from different types of cancer also varies substantially across EU countries. Efforts are needed to improve the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other life-threatening diseases in countries that are lagging behind. Key other main findings of Health at a Glance: Europe 2014 include: The crisis has had a mixed impact on population health and mortality: while suicide rates rose at the start of the crisis, they seem to have return to pre-crisis levels in most countries in recent years. Mortality from transport accidents has declined following the economic crisis, and so did the exposure to air pollution, although some air pollutants seem to have risen again in recent years. Between 2009 and 2012, expenditure on health in real terms (adjusted for inflation) fell in half of the EU countries and significantly slowed in the rest. On average, health spending decreased by 0.6% each year, compared with annual growth of 4.7% between 2000 and 2009. This was due to cuts in health workforce and salaries, reductions in fees paid to health providers, lower pharmaceutical prices, and increased patient co-payments. On average across EU countries, the number of doctors per capita increased from 2.9 doctors per 1 000 population in 2000 to 3.4 in 2012. This growth was particularly rapid in Greece (mostly before the economic crisis) and in the United Kingdom (an increase of 50% between 2000 and 2012). In all countries however, the density of doctors is greater in urban regions than in rural regions, resulting in growing shortages in certain areas. There are wide variations across EU countries in waiting times for non-emergency surgical interventions. While some countries have been able to achieve progress in reducing waiting times for planned surgical interventions over the past few years, waiting times have started to rise following the crisis in other countries such as Portugal and Spain. Joint statement by Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, and Angel Gurría, Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development “We are delighted to unveil the comparative data on health and health systems covering all 28 EU Member States contained in the Health at a Glance: Europe 2014 report. The report highlights key trends in health status, health spending, health inequalities, health determinants and health care resources as well as quality of care and access to care. It also explores the impact of the economic crisis on health. There are many interesting findings in the report. For example, life expectancy is steadily increasing in the EU, reaching 79.2 years on average in 2012 (82.2 years for women and 76.1 for men) – an increase of 5.1 years since 1990.However, inequalities persist with a gap of 8.4 years between the highest and lowest Member State. The chapter on health expenditure is extremely relevant, as although we are emerging from the economic crisis, the squeeze on health budgets continues in many European countries. Average health spending in the EU was 8.7% of GDP in 2012. Health spending per capita has decreased on average by 0.6% per year since 2009, adjusted for inflation. The countries that reduced health spending made cuts mainly to fees paid to health providers, pharmaceutical spending and health workforce and salaries. However, regarding the health workforce in the EU, since 2000, the number of doctors per capita has increased in all EU countries except for France where it has remained stable, and the number of practising nurses has increased in all but two Member States. Finally, overweight and obesity is a grave concern for the EU. 53% of adults are now either overweight or obese. Obesity, which presents even greater health risks than being overweight, currently affects one in six adult (16.7%) in the EU, an increase from one in eight a decade ago, with considerable variations between countries. This state-of-play on Europe’s health is an important input for public debates on policies to improve population health and health system performance across Europe. It shows that EU policies and strategies are needed to promote healthy lifestyles, protect healthy living standards and improve the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of diseases in countries that are lagging behind. The beginning of a new Commission mandate, when EU added value to common health concerns is being discussed, is an opportune moment to release this data. Our hope is that the Health at a Glance report will help stimulate further actions so that European citizens of all socio-economic backgrounds can enjoy longer, healthier and more active lives.”
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The United States spends more on healthcare than any other developed nation. Having a baby here costs more than it would in any other country. Yet Americans lead far shorter lives than residents of other developed countries. American infants have a lower chance of surviving past infancy than those born in eight other affluent nations. What explains these striking incongruities? Here are 11 charts that might help. 1. Americans don’t live as long as we should. In terms of overall life expectancy, the United States ranks 26th out of 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries. Americans enjoy fewer years than Slovenians and Koreans, living just a tad longer than Czechs and Chileans, who used to rank far behind us. 2. The US spends the most on healthcare and drugs of any developed country. Nearly a fifth of America’s gross domestic product goes toward healthcare spending, putting us above the Netherlands, France, Germany, Canada and Switzerland, where actual health outcomes are much better. 3. Americans are still dying from treatable disease. Americans are more likely to die from asthma than people than in Brazil or Costa Rica, even though the disease is equally prevalent in those countries. 4. Americans with those diseases are more likely to end up in a hospital — and more likely to die once they are admitted. We send more adult asthma sufferers to the hospital to be treated than any other developed country, coming in just under the Slovakian Republic. The soaring cost of asthma medication in the US (a Qvar brand inhaler, for example, costs 18 times more in the US than it does in Greece) is partially to blame for this problem, but access to preventative care also plays a role. Uninsured asthma patients are far more likely to die in the hospital than those with insurance. 5. US life expectancy varies by skin color. In 2009, the average black American could expect to live to just 75, the same life expectancy white Americans enjoyed 30 years earlier in 1979. Today, Black Americans remain far more likely than white Americans to die from heart disease, cancer and diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 6. It’s too easy for Americans to opt out of vaccinations, leading to new cases of preventable diseases. Low vaccination rates can lead to outbreaks of diseases like measles and Hepatitis B, especially among susceptible populations such as the young and the elderly. A handful of wealthy southern California schools have lower vaccination rates than South Sudan — a troubling trend that extends to New York City private schools as well. 7. Doctors in the US spend very little time with patients. In comparison to physicians in the Czech Republic, New Zealand, France and Israel, doctors in the US spend far less time consulting with patients and do a far worse job explaining to them what’s wrong. 8. Life-saving prescription drugs cost a fortune. The US spends a huge chunk of its budget on pharmaceutical drugs. Unlike other countries, whose governments regularly haggle with pharmaceutical companies to reduce drug prices, Medicare is forbidden from engaging in such negotiations. This is why a cancer drug like Gleevec, which costs about $1,000 in New Zealand and Canada, costs an average of $6,214 in the US. Even the common pain medication Celebrex, which runs for $51 in Canada, can cost anywhere from two to nine times that amount in the US. 9. Standard lab tests are far pricier, too. An MRI in the US, for example, can cost 10 times as much as it would in Switzerland. 10. American babies are the most expensive in the world. Giving birth in the US — including hospitalization and a normal delivery — costs an average of $10,002, nearly five times more than the cost of birth in Argentina or Spain. 11. Babies born in the US are far less likely to survive past infancy than babies born in many other developed countries. In 2004, the latest year that data are available for all countries, the US ranked 29th globally in infant mortality, with the same rate of infant death as Slovakia and Poland. NOW READ: One Map Shows Exactly What Obamacare Has Done To The Country DON'T MISS: The Ebola Crisis In Dallas Exposes One Critical Gap In The US Public Health System Join the conversation about this story »
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An increasing number of Greeks are seeking some form of private health insurance to supplement their state health cover, according to the results of a nationwide survey which pointed to a 60 percent rise in citizens opting for private care. This year a to... ...
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