Universal Coverage Leads to More Physician Care

It is reasonable to assume that a country that covers its entire population will experience more physician visits per capita than a country, like the United States, which covers only 83 percent of its population.  

The study Multinational Comparisons of Health System Data, 2009, funded in part by Commonwealth Fund and conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers  Gerard F. Anderson and Patricia Markovich supports that assumption.  

Here's a graph showing physician visits per capita for 11 countries.  The United States has, on average only 60.3 percent of the physician visits as the average Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country studied.  (Click to enlarge graph.)

Some have worried that as government plays a larger role in the health care system, the supply of physicians will shrink.  After all, physicians in nearly every country around the world earn less than physicians in the United States.   Without a strong financial incentive, why would anyone endure a long course of study in medical school and years of work in a residency program?   

The following chart seems to dispel that concern.  Of 12 countries studied, the average OECD median number of practicing physicians per 1,000 population was 50 percent higher than the number of practicing physicians in the United States, as seen in the following graph.  (Click to enlarge graph.)