Income inequality and health care access

As is obvious from this blog, I really appreciate good data analysis and good data presentation.  The professionals who blog at The Incidental Economist (see here) do some of the best work out there and keep up with others who do so as well.  Aaron Carroll points us to a very interesting statistical graphic that attempts to summarize "needs-adjusted probability of a doctor's visit."  The graph below (click to enlarge) is from an OECD working paper (see here).

Carroll makes the following comments (bold emphasis is mine) about the graph:

"The first thing to note is that the average rate of a visit to the doctor varies among all these countries from a high of 91% in France to a low of 68% in the United States. Think about that the next time someone tells you how our problem is that we consume too much health care."

"The second thing to note is how much variation there is between those at the upper and lower end of the economic spectrum. In the UK, for instance, there is almost no difference in utilization between the rich and the poor. All see the doctor equally. In most other countries, though, there is some inequality based on income."

"None as great as the United States, though. The difference between the probability of seeing the doctor for the poor and wealthy is greater in the US than in any of the other measured countries."

"People like to believe that we don’t ration care in the US. We do. More than just about any other country, we ration by cost."