A healthy bottom line

Think Progress offers a look at the shitty results of our massive spending on healthcare. Among the lowlights:

health spending per person was at least 24 percent higher than that of Luxembourg (the second highest spending country) and over 90 percent higher than countries considered global competitors.

Americans on average die at a younger age compared to the average age of death of comparable nations. Japan has the highest life expectancy.

The U.S. infant mortality rate is 6.9 deaths per 1,000 live births, while Japan and Sweden have rates below 3.5 deaths per 1,000 live births.

But, on the plus side, Aetna reported that it made $476 million from July to September of 2006, and nearly $1.3 billion for the first nine months of 2006. And that's while the company was shedding customers.

Aetna's full-service health care plans had 15.38 million members, up about 730,000 from a year earlier but down about 24,000 from the second quarter.
The company cut its 2006 forecast for membership growth to about 650,000, down from the 700,000-750,000 it had projected in July. That July forecast had been reduced from Aetna's previous expectation of 900,000 to 1 million new members.

That's very little bang, and a whole lotta bucks.