# California proposes UHC again, another empty promise to give false hope to their voters? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 8, 2022, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-proposes-uhc-again-another-empty-promise-to-give-false-hope-to-their-voters/957413 "2022-01-08T07:03:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 28
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-proposes-uhc-again-another-empty-promise-to-give-false-hope-to-their-voters/957413/28 "2022-01-10T17:54:29Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Do you have a cite for this? Because on it’s face, it sounds like an absolutely ridiculous assertion. [https://www.policymed.com/2011/01/pwc-medical-technology-innovation-scorecard-us-falling-behind-in-the-race-for-global-leadership.html](https://www.policymed.com/2011/01/pwc-medical-technology-innovation-scorecard-us-falling-behind-in-the-race-for-global-leadership.html) > **[The Most Innovative Countries In Biology And Medicine](https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/03/23/the-most-innovative-countries-in-biology-and-medicine/?sh=4074bcd21a71)** > > Is the U.S. really losing its edge in biology and medicine. > **[United States: #4 in the 2020 World Index of Healthcare Innovation](https://freopp.org/united-states-health-system-profile-4-in-the-world-index-of-healthcare-innovation-b593ba15a96)** > > America’s leadership in health care choice, science, & technology is marred by a fiscally unsustainable system of government-run care. The first link notes that the US is 40% of global medical device sales. If you could single out newer innovations, I’d venture to guess that the US would be an even larger percentage. And let’s look at how much we’re spending above Europe. Using a sample breakdown of “where the money goes” from Wales (good enough for a ballpark): > **[How much does NHS Wales spend?](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-30951803)** > > Economics correspondent Sarah Dickins looks at how money is spent in the NHS in Wales. Last I checked, salaries in the US for medical workers were relatively similar between the US and Europe - maybe a little higher, like 10-15% or something - drug prices are doubled, and I’m not entirely sure on medical devices, premises, and the other things. (Unfortunately, many of [my cites on the question](https://publius2point0.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/the-cost-of-health-care-part-4/) are now dead) You have to make that chart cost twice as much without expanding the Staff slice by more than 10-15%. Do we spend more, per capita, on public health and social services than an average European territory? Probably not and our spending on drugs on indicates that we’re ready to throw down for tangible assets; we had multiple vaccines ready to go before anyone else; and you can clearly see that US hospitals are far more decked out with tech than European ones: UK: > **[NHS hospitals face record levels of 'bed blocking'](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/25/nhs-hospitals-bed-blocking-figures)** > > New figures show total number of bed days lost because of delayed transfers of care hit 70,124 in December 2013 > **[Some Facts About British Hospital Care](https://oanapetrache.medium.com/some-facts-about-british-hospital-care-17718bca2417)** > > Happy New Year, everyone! 2019 started off in style for me… with a visit to the Pembury Hospital which resulted in an appendectomy and my… US: [https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-hospital-bed-crunch-capacity-18e22c81-006b-4654-a74c-40ff86488431.html](https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-hospital-bed-crunch-capacity-18e22c81-006b-4654-a74c-40ff86488431.html) > **[‘Nursing Is in Crisis’: Staff Shortages Put Patients at Risk (Published 2021)](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/health/covid-nursing-shortage-delta.html)** > > “When hospitals are understaffed, people die,” one expert warned as the U.S. health systems reach a breaking point in the face of the Delta variant. By process of elimination and grouping things that seem more similar to one another (things vs. people vs. coverage differences), it’s likely that the grand majority of the double-spend value of the US versus other countries comes down to physical objects like medicine, medical devices, and cool looking, futuristic hospitals with big fountains out front. If the EU’s percentage of money spent on tech is roughly 15% of the total and that totals say $30u (arbitrary unit) per twerk (arbitrary time frame) that would say that their total spending is $200u per twerk and consequently that the US’s total spending is $400u/t. If 67% of $200u/t of that is for staff and we can only pay them 15% more, then our staff cost is $154u/t, 18% of $200u/t is for non-object spending ($36u/t) if we’re assuming similar costs to European, and the remainder of the $400u/t is for stuff. The US ends up spending $210u/t for tangible objects vs Europe’s $30u/t. Some of that will be for making cooler, fancier looking hospitals and that money goes to the construction industry instead of to drug and medical equipment sellers and some of it will go to non-innovative tech like gauze and band-aids (and maybe the US does buy and use things like that in a more wasteful way than Europe, I can’t say). But it seems difficult for me to believe that we’re not spending many times greater than Europe on innovative technology and buying the lion’s share of first gen tech. How much of a hit the medtech center would take, if the US started buying second and third gen, I can’t say precisely with the numbers that I’ve been able to find but I’m sure that it would be a pretty strong gut punch to the industry. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-proposes-uhc-again-another-empty-promise-to-give-false-hope-to-their-voters/957413)._