Still want national health care?

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

Health Care and Education in the US become the subjects of intense debate and noise, but what often gets overlooked is that they are, if not clearly superior to what the rest of the world does, at least among the best. Sure, there are aspects that can be improved, often by applying common sense where it has been abandoned, but I don't see that a radical new approach is needed.

Actually that's incorrect. Our education and health care outputs are mediocre at best in the western world, and in some cases of health care near the bottom.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by Bubba Wheels

Up in Buffalo yesterday (quaint little burg) and was listening to a Canadian radio station. Apparently many Canadians are dying while awaiting the necessary surgery with waits as long as 2yrs. Private options are strictly out. Anybody still in love with this idea for the U.S.?

Yes.

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by SFL Cat

They may have lower costs (see above post about artificial caps on prices), but whether they have better output is debatable. I know care is rationed in these countries, and that you often have to wait a lot longer for several medical procedures than you would in the US.

I don't understand your artificial caps point. Who are you saying have artificial caps? US or other countries?

On nearly every benchmark (infant mortality, average lifespan, etc) we rank mediocre at best and in most cases near the bottom of western countries, horror stories from the Gingrich's of the world of waiting forever for surgeries notwithstanding. The only thing the US is really good at is really high end care, the stuff that costs a ton of money that does relatively little. Other countries are starting to pass us in that regard though, with research into cloning and stem cells.

[GMO]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

That's a patently false statement. Single-payer health care systems exist, and work, in many countries, including most of Western Europe, Scandanavia & Australia and New Zealand. There's a fair amount of variety amongst these systems, and they work to different extents, but to say they've all failed is just simply wrong.

Also, as you note, the system in Canada isn't failing because of the system, per se, but because of the ridiculously bad decisions made by the provinces administering the system.

Using that logic, I could say that energy brokerage is a failed enterprise simply because Enron went belly-up.



If you can't afford health insurance in the United States, you're in exactly the same boat, except that you won't eventually get the procedure. That's a pretty big difference, if you ask me.

Most of Western Europe has a mixed public-private system, not a government monopoly.

If a private company makes bad decisions, then it goes bankrupt, but there's other private companies still around that make good decisions. People have a choice. If the government makes bad decisions in a government-only system, then people have no other choice except to still go with the government-only health-care system.

[GMO]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

My government run national security is doing pretty well.

If the government runs things so well, then perhaps we should give the government a monopoly to run all the stores and all the industries in the USA. Just like the old USSR.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

Actually that's incorrect. Our education and health care outputs are mediocre at best in the western world, and in some cases of health care near the bottom.

I can agree with on the public education in compare with the rest of the world, but I not sold on that health care crap. One thing our country has is R&D and state-of-the-art technology, and higher medical standards in terms of qualifying doctors. As for health care, it does need reform. I think that the idea of a government and private system would be great. We need to fix our malpractice structure (Sweden's model could be good), placing hours on residents and doctors to prevent them from working on overload (which I believe we just put in place?), the high costs of becoming a doctor (college, medical school) and start seeing doctors not as greedy enemies, but as ours life-savers. Also, I've heard stories of insurance companies covering plastic surgery procedures (not referring to cases where patients have an actual need for plastic surgery-breast reduction, scar repair, ect.). Is this true?

I'm on the fence of a national health care system. I love the idea, but I don't want to see taxes skyrocket to cover it nor health care become cookie-cutter. Massachuttes, perheps the most "public health care system" in our country with Mass General, does a fanastic job in supporting it's hospital system (of course, having Harvard as its affilate might help) and is rated one of the top in the country.

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by GMO

If the government runs things so well, then perhaps we should give the government a monopoly to run all the stores and all the industries in the USA. Just like the old USSR.

Strawman. Nobody is advocating that all stores and industries get taken over by the government. If a system of government healthcare is put into place that does not mean that every industry would be better off under the government.

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

I can agree with on the public education in compare with the rest of the world, but I not sold on that health care crap. One thing our country has is R&D and state-of-the-art technology, and higher medical standards in terms of qualifying doctors. As for health care, it does need reform. I think that the idea of a government and private system would be great. We need to fix our malpractice structure (Sweden's model could be good), placing hours on residents and doctors to prevent them from working on overload (which I believe we just put in place?), the high costs of becoming a doctor (college, medical school) and start seeing doctors not as greedy enemies, but as ours life-savers.

You call our higher standards of qualifying doctors a feature, and then in the next sentence call them a bug and advocate for taking those standards away (money and resident hours). The US has a good system for high-end care, but fails on normal preventative care and intermediate care.

Originally Posted by Galaxy

I'm on the fence of a national health care system. I love the idea, but I don't want to see taxes skyrocket to cover it nor health care become cookie-cutter.

Well, taxes will skyrocket, but there won't be any more health insurance or medicare costs for you or your place of employment. All in all it should be a net gain, since all signs point to the costs being decreased in the long run.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

You call our higher standards of qualifying doctors a feature, and then in the next sentence call them a bug and advocate for taking those standards away (money and resident hours). The US has a good system for high-end care, but fails on normal preventative care and intermediate care.


Well, taxes will skyrocket, but there won't be any more health insurance or medicare costs for you or your place of employment. All in all it should be a net gain, since all signs point to the costs being decreased in the long run.

I said that we have high standards to become a doctor here. Medical school, residency, and the licensing process. You want your doctor to work on you when he's on 4-6 hours a sleep a night? That has nothing to do with what kind of health care system it is. How am I taking money away? Wanting to lower the costs of medical school and malpractice insurance?

As for Taxes, you want to become like France, economy-wise?

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

I said that we have high standards to become a doctor here. Medical school, residency, and the licensing process. You want your doctor to work on you when he's on 4-6 hours a sleep a night? That has nothing to do with what kind of health care system it is. How am I taking money away? Wanting to lower the costs of medical school and malpractice insurance?

The limiting factors for med school are high cost, low medical school spots, and insane residency hours (which are kept in place by the AMA to artificially inflate salaries of doctors due to low supply). It doesn't really make for better doctors. Doctors from Canada or France have to learn just as much.

Originally Posted by Galaxy

As for Taxes, you want to become like France, economy-wise?

France's GDP is right in line with ours, adjusting for their lower work-week. They work less and earn less proportionally, there are good and bad things about that. They do have high unemployment though, but do you have any research that shows that that is due to nationalized health care? Sweden, UK, Norway, etc., are all around 4-5%.

[MrBigglesworth]

How will paying less money overall but paying it directly to the government instead of your HMO ruin the economy??

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

How will paying less money overall but paying it directly to the government instead of your HMO ruin the economy??

Haw can you be so sure that everyone will be paying less overall?

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

How will paying less money overall but paying it directly to the government instead of your HMO ruin the economy??

Because that sounds COMMUNISTIC and shit...

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

I said that we have high standards to become a doctor here. Medical school, residency, and the licensing process. You want your doctor to work on you when he's on 4-6 hours a sleep a night? That has nothing to do with what kind of health care system it is. How am I taking money away? Wanting to lower the costs of medical school and malpractice insurance?

As for Taxes, you want to become like France, economy-wise?

I strongly agree with the capping of hours on Medical Student's and Resident's shifts. Even though I'm done residency and medical school and there is an attitude among some of my colleagues that since they had to go through it, so should future physicians. I remember my relationship with my wife (fiancee at the time) almost falling apart during the 2 months I was on a surgery rotation. I remember making so many mistakes because I was sleep deprived. 4 hours of sleep was the max on a good night! I was on call every other night and even when I wasn't on call, I was in the hospital from 4AM to 11PM usually. The medical school I went to wasn't that atypical either. The long hours led to burnout, mistakes, and in no way made me a better doctor IMO. I'm just glad I only had to do that for 2 months. I can't imagine how the surgery residents who did that for 5 years. The only other rotation that was close to as demanding was OB/GYN.

Fortunately, we do have a cap of 80 hours averaged over any 4 week period on residents and medical students now. Of course, this is a self-reporting system.. At least it is somewhat of an improvement on previous situations.

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by sabotai

Haw can you be so sure that everyone will be paying less overall?

I'm not sure of it, but since we already pay something like twice as much as per capita as any country with nationalized health care, it's only logical that unless ours is the most lousy designed system ever (which may be the case if the people who drafted the Medicare Part D bill draft the universal health care bill) that costs will go down.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

I'm not sure of it, but since we already pay something like twice as much as per capita as any country with nationalized health care, it's only logical that unless ours is the most lousy designed system ever (which may be the case if the people who drafted the Medicare Part D bill draft the universal health care bill) that costs will go down.

Where can I find really detailed information and stats on our health care costs and that of other countries with nationalized health care?

[Jesse_Ewiak]

[Eaglesfan27]

I wonder how much of our cost of care is driven up by the very expensive procedures which are more readily available here than in some other countries. For example, I believe we have one of the highest rates of Cardiac Bypass Surgeries if not the highest in the world. Of course, this is also affected by the fact that Americans (myself included) tend to be more obese than in most countries. This drives our average life span down despite the high rate of Cardiac Bypass Surgeries, because Americans as a whole are developing heart disease at younger ages than most countries.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

I wonder how much of our cost of care is driven up by the very expensive procedures which are more readily available here than in some other countries. For example, I believe we have one of the highest rates of Cardiac Bypass Surgeries if not the highest in the world. Of course, this is also affected by the fact that Americans (myself included) tend to be more obese than in most countries. This drives our average life span down despite the high rate of Cardiac Bypass Surgeries, because Americans as a whole are developing heart disease at younger ages than most countries.

I wouldn't call myself OBESE, but yeah, I'm overweight. I wouldn't contribute that to a failed health care system though. That's just me eating more than I should and not exercising as much as I should. Both of which I am trying to correct.

And Jesse, I was looking for just a bit more than just a simple table (with 4-5 year old data). If I just wanted those numbers, I do know how to use google.

[Jesse_Ewiak]

We're more obese, but we smoke a lot less. So, the health thing is a wash I believe. At the end of the day, we don’t "purchase" more things such as doctors and hospital stays, we don’t have better health outcomes. In fact, we got the worst infant mortality and life expectancy numbers of all the industrial nations I examined. Plus, we’re neither more nor less intrinsically healthy than other countries. So, what are we paying twice as much per capita for?

[Jesse_Ewiak]

Originally Posted by sabotai

And Jesse, I was looking for just a bit more than just a simple table (with 4-5 year old data). If I just wanted those numbers, I do know how to use google.

Here's an overview of various countries, with links to more specific information.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by sabotai

I wouldn't call myself OBESE, but yeah, I'm overweight. I wouldn't contribute that to a failed health care system though. That's just me eating more than I should and not exercising as much as I should. Both of which I am trying to correct.

And Jesse, I was looking for just a bit more than just a simple table (with 4-5 year old data). If I just wanted those numbers, I do know how to use google.

I wouldn't say that it directly contributes to a failed health care system. I'm just suggesting that the many complications of obesity lead to more costly procedures than other countries which cause a skewing of the statistics. The issue of smoking cancelling that out in other countries is an interesting one. I don't know the various smoking statistics, but I know I've seen statistics that we are more obese as a nation than most other nations.

[Jesse_Ewiak]

Well, one could make the point that with a true national health care system, there'd be more preventative medicine done, and things like heart disease would get caught before people need quadruple bypasses. :-)

Yeah, we are by far the most obese country. :-)
Here's a link to comparison of smoking & obesity rates - http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2005/0...-part-iii.html

[sabotai]

Ok, so Europe smokes more than the US. What is the rate of people getting lung cancer in England and France? (If the nonsmokeres are to be believed, then there's nothing you can do to prevent getting lung cancer if you smoke. That is, there's nothing you can do to reduce your risk of getting it). They smoke more, but do they have a higher risk of getting health problems caused by smoking? (If you ever smoked a european cigarette, you know there is a huge difference between a european cigarette and an american one. Wondering if they have a much lower rate of diseases caused by smoking because of the cigarettes)