6 Conviviality

6 Conviviality

1. Tom Healy and Sylvain Cote, The Well-Being of Nations: The Role of Human and Social Capital (Paris: Center for Educational Research and Development, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2001), 41.

2. Health care spending percentages cited here are from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of the Actuary, 2003 Expected to Mark First Slowdown in Health Care Cost Growth in Six Years (press release, February 11, 2004, available at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/media/press/release.asp?Counter=961).

3. The World Health Organization published the first comparative analysis of the world s health systems in 2000. Using five performance indicators to measure health systems in 191 member states, it found that France provides the best overall health care, followed among major countries by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria, and Japan. The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its GDP than any other country, but ranks 37th out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report found. World Health Organization Assesses the World s Health Systems (press release WHO/44, June 21, 2000, available at http://www.photius.com/rankings/who_world _health_ranks.html).

4. About one in five Americans has some form of CVD; more than twenty-six hundred Americans die of the condition each day. Apart from the human suffering involved, the costs are enormous. One estimate in 2002 put the direct and indirect costs of CVD at $253 billion a year. This number includes direct costs, such as hospital and nursing home care, physicians and other professional services, drugs and other medical durables, and home health care;