Mitt praises socialized medical care

Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney offered praise for the Israeli health care system today — a medical plan that has been socialized since its founding in 1948.
Romney, who championed the Massachusetts health care mandate, but is an opponent of the federal mandate passed by President Barack Obama, marveled at how little Israel spends on health care relative to the United States.
"When our health care costs are completely out of control. Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the GDP in Israel? 8 percent. You spend 8 percent of GDP on health care. And you’re a pretty healthy nation," Romney told donors at a fundraiser at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, speaking of a health care system that is compulsory for Israelis and funded by the government. "We spend 18 percent of our GDP on health care. 10 percentage points more. That gap, that 10 percent cost, let me compare that with the size of our military. Our military budget is 4 percent. Our gap with Israel is 10 points of GDP. We have to find ways, not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to finally manage our health care costs."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/rom ... h-care-sys

Hard to compare healthcare costs from nation to nation. You don't know how much people get for the 8%. Full ride? Months of waiting for specialists? Is the country healthier than the US?

Well, he did such a good job with RomneyCare, I can see why he would admit that it's a better way to go.

FredHayek wrote: Hard to compare healthcare costs from nation to nation. You don't know how much people get for the 8%. Full ride? Months of waiting for specialists? Is the country healthier than the US?

Actually, it's VERY easy...And the charts showing how far down the U.S. is in overall performance against the rest of the world in healthcare is widely known, and the charts are posted here on a regular basis.

"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you."

Much healthier with one of the highest life expectancies in the world.

They also are guaranteed:
Rights of the Insured under the National Health Insurance Law
-—Every Israeli citizen is entitled to health care services under the National Health Insurance Law.
—Every resident has a right to register as a member of an HMO of his/her choice, free of any preconditions or limitations stemming from his/her age or the state of his/her health.
—Every resident has a right to receive, via the HMO of which he or she is a member, all of the services included in the medical services basket, subject to medical discretion, and at a reasonable quality level, within a reasonable period of time and at a reasonable distance from his/her home.
—Each member has a right to receive the health services while preserving the member’s dignity, privacy and medical confidentiality.
—Every Israeli resident has the right to transfer from one HMO to another.
—Each member has a right to select the service providers, such as doctors, caregivers, therapists, hospitals and institutes, from within a list of service providers who have entered into an agreement with the HMO to which the member belongs, and within the arrangements in place for the selection of the service providers, and which the HMO publishes from time to time.
—Each member has a right to know which hospitals and institutes, and other service providers, are included in the agreement with the HMO, and what are the selection processes at the HMO.
—Each member has a right to see and to receive a copy of the HMO regulations.
—Each resident has a right to receive from the HMO complete information concerning the payment arrangements in place in the HMO for health services as well as the HMO’s plans offered for additional health services (CIP).
—Each member has a right to complain with the Public Inquiries commissioner at the medical institute that treated the member, to the person in charge of investigating member complaints at the HMO of which s/he is a member, or to the complaints commissioner for the national health insurance law in the Ministry of Health.
—Each member has a right to file suit at the district labor court

Israel’s health care system is an instructive exercise in all that rankles American conservatives — replete with government mandates, price controls and centralized payments funded mostly by high taxes.

Reformed in 1995 on the basis of a European model, Israelis are forced to buy insurance from one of several competing not-for-profit plans, which are heavily regulated by the government, according to the journal Health Affairs. The state requires them to cover everyone regardless of health status, and establishes a broad benefits package insurance policies must provide, updated annually by a committee of appointed experts. The government pays the full cost of these policies, mostly through higher taxes. The state also caps the level of annual revenue hospitals can earn from an insurance plan. Care is largely delivered through government-owned facilities; there are private providers, but they tend to charge more.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/ ... hp?ref=fpa

Moreover, under many criteria, Israeli citizens appear to be getting better care for their lower expenditures. Israel has an infant mortality rate that is only 57% of that in the United States, and a life expectancy from birth of 82 years, compared with 78 years in the United States. Its mortality rate due to heart disease is only half that of America’s. Many other indicators having to do with specific diseases are similarly favorable or, at worst, roughly equal.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/158550/isra ... z228Klm3Cm

So, is this another gaffe, or a slip of telling the truth instead of pandering to the base?

Dog,
Better infant mortality rates and heart disease might not be related to the quality of health care. It could simply be because the citizens of the nation live healthier lifestyles.

People living on the coast from Spain to Greece to Israel seem to have less heart disease and diets from those areas have been popular in the US for a long time.

But it certainly does not mean that their health care system is worse than ours. There is nothing that indicates that the Israeli system is worse than ours, and by most indications, their health care system is the equal or better at half the cost and with higher percentage of its citizens covered.