EU’s bedste sundhedsvæsen

Hvor får man den bedste health care i EU?

Ifølge en ny undersøgelse fra Boston Consulting Group findes det bedste sundhedsvæsen i Holland, Schweiz… og Danmark! Men kommer dette sygehusvæsen i virkeligheden med for store omkostninger? The Economist har dette syn på undersøgelsen:

THE private provision of health care comes in several forms across Europe. In Germany and the Netherlands it provides coverage for those not on government schemes; in Britain and Ireland it duplicates state-run systems; and in France it tops up cover from official programmes. But do private health schemes lead to better care overall? A study by the Boston Consulting Group concludes that countries relying mainly on insurance—such as France, Germany and the Netherlands—provide better care than those, like Britain, Italy and Spain, that are chiefly funded by taxes and which spend less on health care as a proportion of GDP.

Vil man gøre det danske sundhedsvæsen endnu bedre, kan man altså enten lægge sig mere op af det hollandske system (der giver bedre service for de samme penge) eller Irland (der giver ringere, men stadig over gennemsnittet, service til væsentlig mindre penge).

Samme tal, forskellig statistik = politisk retorik

Går det fremad eller tilbage for USA’s økonomi? To statistikker ud fra de samme tal giver to vidt forskellige indtryk.

Mistede jobs pr måned:

Mistede jobs i alt:

Begge statistikker viser en opbremsning i jobtab. Men hvor fornemmelsen af tydelig fremgang og ‘gode tider’ er markant i første graf, viser anden graf snarere en ramt økonomi på sit absolutte lavpunkt.

Manden bag sammenligningen, Pollster’s Charles Framklin, skriver:

One can think of these two charts as data displays that reveal different aspects of data, but also as graphical political rhetoric. The different aspects of data are the sharp reduction in the rate of job loss shown so well in the OfA chart and the terrible cumulative loss to employment in the country that has not yet started to rebound that is shown in my chart. Both of those are “true facts” about the jobs data. They use exactly the same data, so differences are entirely matters of perspective and perception rather than “apples to oranges” comparisons. But while both are true stories, their substantive interpretations are quite different– one is a story of an administration’s success is stemming the tide of recession, the other is the high water mark of that tide, which has yet to begin receding.

Og den opbyggende morale:

Same data, two charts, two different impressions, both fundamentally true yet also fundamentally misleading in opposite ways.  When data and politics mix beware the power of graphs to imply their own conclusions, even with the same data. And appreciate the rhetorical success of a graph that does it’s creator’s bidding.

Hat tip her.