Thursday, May 15, 2008

Health care anecdote

Last night I was talking to a girl from Spain who works as a physical therapist here in D.C. When I asked why she lives here and not back in Spain the first reason she cited was Spain's socialized health care system, noting that she makes 4 times as much money here as back in Barcelona. Now, given that physical therapists typically make mid-to-upper $50s, that places the pay scale in Spain at around $20K if we assume that DC hospitals pay more and she is making around $80K.

This shouldn't be too surprising. After all, in Spain the government-run health care system is basically a monopsonist, meaning they can pay people what they want since they are the only game in town. According to this girl, you pretty much get what you pay for too, with the state of the art in Spain consisting of "Lift your leg 10 times, now the other 10 times, ok you are done." She also noted that her hospital has 10 physical therapists on staff, while a similar-sized one in Spain would have about 3.

I believe that Ron Paul has said that a government-run health care system in the U.S. is not hard to imagine -- after all we already have one with the V.A. Given how synonymous the VA is with waste and poor treatment -- this for our heros -- why would we expect a national health care system to perform any differently? This anecdote would certainly seem to dovetail with Paul's theory.

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