[eru]

Well, the NHS might be better than what the US has, but that doesn't mean it's good.

So Britain as a whole spends roughly half (in terms of percentage of GDP) on healthcare as the US. That includes both public and private expenditure. At similar health outcomes.

Now Singapore spends roughly half of what Britain spends (in terms of percentage of GDP), and our population is no worse off for it.

[amiga386]

You need to look at PPP-adjusted per-capita stats, and also accept that there are limitations in a simple measure of "health outcomes" (e.g. average life expectancy)

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-health...

What you can see though, is a cluster that vaguely fits "spend more, better life expectancy", with two outliers:

1. The USA, massively outspending every other country, but having same life expectancy as China spending a tenth of what it does

2. South Africa, spending roughly as much as Mexico or Columbia, but 10 years less life expectancy. I suspect it needs more targeted spending with its HIV crisis, rather than measuring average spend vs average life expectancy

[myrmidon]

Another thing to consider about South Africa is that wealth inequality is insanely high; it seems very plausible to me that most money is spent on like the rich 30% of population, and the majority of the country is basically on Namibian levels of care.

Public healthcare expenditure is also likely to be wasteful; governmental corruption and languishing infrastructure is a comparatively big problem there (compare power infrastructure, rail network, postal service), so the pure dollar value spent on healthcare is systematically off.

Thanks for the link btw-- I would not have expected such a clear trend in this, especially given how noisy metrics like life expectancy are; very interesting.

[randerson]

South Africa's poor life expectancy is more a function of poverty, violence, and HIV, than anything to do with their healthcare system.

[eru]

Interestingly, if you plot disposable income against healthcare spending, the US falls squarely on the trend line.

See https://www.econlib.org/is-the-us-an-outlier-on-health-care-... for a discussion.

[cma]

You can also get cheap dental and haircuts in Mexico: what's Singapore's purchasing power parity compared to the UK? Maybe not an extreme difference since Singapore has has such a high GDP or even worse, but if it is more that can explain a lot even for advanced services.

[eru]

Purchasing power parity depends a lot on what basket you compare.

Eg owning a car or cigarettes are very expensive here. But eating out starts much cheaper than in the UK. (There's no upper limit in either place, of course.)

[supermatt]

The GDP per capita in Singapore is roughly double that of the UK, so health spending per capita is similar. I cant find latest figures, but it seems it is somewhere around 20% higher spend in UK.

On the other hand, there are EU countries such as lithuania and estonia, that spend less than half per capita of Singapore, and are ranked with a higher healthcare index.

[eru]

Depends on how you measure. Lots of health spending is labour costs, and our labour costs are higher. So percentage of GDP relatively closely tracks percentage of total working time.

Also perhaps our more enlightened policies are helping us achieve that higher per capita GDP?

[jeeeb]

> Also perhaps our more enlightened policies are helping us achieve that higher per capita GDP?

Singapore’s GDP per-capita is likely fairly inflated as it doesn’t correct for the effect of multinational tax planning by large corporations on the GDP statistics , unlike say Ireland.

See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_gross_national_inco...

[eru]

Yes, though we are also doing pretty well in terms of eg wages, not just GDP.

[supermatt]

Well, im not measuring anything. Im just saying that the spend per capita is mostly equivalent for Singapore and UK.

No idea why you are equating enlightenment to per-capita GDP. I don’t quite understand that equation. Singapore may have a high per capita GDP, but that isn't resulting in a higher median individual incomes. Given the extremely high cost of living, the purchasing power of an average Singaporean is actually comparable to that of someone in the less affluent EU countries that have 1/4 of the GDP per capita and equivalent (or better!) healthcare. So while the GDP figure looks impressive, it doesn’t fully reflect the financial reality for most residents. Is that your "enlightened policies" at work?