The Public Interest

Perspectives on Health Care

Nathan Glazer

Spring 1973

IN an earlier article in The Public Interest (No. 22, Winter 1971), I explored some international comparisons in health care, pointing in particular to the fact that Sweden and England used less resources for health care than the United States, yet showed better health than the United States. I disputed the argument as to a doctor shortage in the United States by pointing out that the United States already had considerably more doctors per capita than England, and very many more than Sweden. I pointed to the oddity that Swedes saw doctors less often, but went to the hospital more often, and stayed there longer than Americans did-and yet Sweden had only one employee per hospital bed as against two and a half for the United States. All this was based on comparative studies by Odin Anderson of the University of Chicago and by Osier Peterson of Harvard, with a group of associates in England and Sweden. 

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