Those are the exact words.
To me, it sounds like you’re splitting hairs in an effort to avoid having to face the actual meat of the debate which is that the US has an overpriced, brutal system and that letting the public sector run it would make it cheaper and more humane.
I can’t speak for broomstick, but it was pretty obvious she meant why the US is the only wealthy nation that doesn’t. Yes the US has better healthcare than Uganda, but we have a per capita income of almost $60,000. So I’d hope we have better healthcare than Uganda.
But virtually every high income nation has better healthcare than us on various metrics (including how humane, reliable and affordable the system is). That includes nations with per capita incomes far lower than ours. Greece has a per capita income 1/3 of ours. South Korea has a per capita income 1/2 of ours. And I’m sure most people in those nations wouldn’t want our health care system in their countries.
Other than the US, virtually every nation with a per capita income above 20k has a UHC system from what I can tell (and many in the 10-20k range either have a UHC system or are building one). The US is about the only outlier.
As I have said here a dozen times, I am 100% in favor of Universal healthcare. That’s why I am against this silly argument, as it does nothing but drive people away. It’s a really bad argument. It is you guys that are splitting hairs to keep using a bad argument.
She said nothing about “*wealthy *nations”. She said the US is the *only nation. * No words between “only” and “nation”.
If all the countries that had universal healthcare were desperately trying to dismantle it because of its colossal failures, I’m guessing people would cite that as evidence that universal healthcare isn’t a good idea. Do you think doing so would make for a “counterproductive” argument? Personally, I think it would be crazy to pretend actual test cases don’t exist.
Yes, there are differences between the US and the countries that have universal healthcare. The way you deal with this isn’t to completely ignore what those countries have done. You deal with the differences by coming up with a program that borrows the best policies from the existing systems while adding new policies that cater to American-specific issues.
My mistake. I misinterpreted your criticism.
But I think most people understand the unspoken assumption that we are talking about UHC among nations with the wealth and infrastructure to provide UHC. Uganda and Syria do not have the wealth or infrastructure for UHC.
That is why the US is an outlier. Virtually every nation with the wealth and infrastructure to have UHC has a UHC plan, or is working on one. The US is about the only outlier. As I mentioned, I believe virtually every nation with a per capita income above 20k has UHC, and many nations in the 10-20k range also either have UHC or are working on a UHC plan.
So it appears pretty much every nations above 10k has UHC or is working on it (including virtually every nation above 20k), except the US. If you had to do a graph of a nations per capita income and their probability of having a UHC system, it would start out low with most poor nations not having UHC, jump dramatically at about 5-10k per capita income and be nearly guaranteed above 20k. The US is the only outlier at that level of wealth.
…those “exact words” are literally not the “exact words” Broomstick said.
The “only nation” that does what?
In as far as I made a concrete claim, it was a negative one “You don’t see…”.
I cannot “cite” a negative.
However, let’s dial it back a shade. It was just a general observation. Probably there are examples of countries saying “We aren’t country X, therefore their policy Y would not work here”. It’s rare though, because it’s just not a logical way of thinking.
It’s much more logical to see that an example of policy Y working gives us reason to think it might work elsewhere, and we need good reason to believe otherwise. Not being the same country is not, in itself, good reason.
So *you *are suggesting it may be unworkable. And, to be fair, at least giving a reason: that the US is very big.
So, to that point, pointing out that Canada is bigger than the United States but has UHC is absolutely relevant. Then you might say that Canada doesn’t have as large a population as the US, so I might point to a populous country like Japan.
And we’d probably carry on until an excuse is found.
This is a lot like the classic “I’m prepared to accept that climate change might be a problem, but you guys need to repackage your message / stop being so shrill about it”. It’s just an attempt – conscious or otherwise – to deflect from the point.
Yeah, my exact words* minus every other word in the post.* Nice editing. :rolleyes:
Excuse me, but I think you just offended the crews of hospital ships. Glucose bags at dawn, sir!
OK, good doctor. You’ve made this point several times in this thread.
You’ve also said, several times, that you are not arguing that UHC isn’t a good idea. So is it a good idea? And when somebody says it isn’t a good idea and it won’t work in the USA, how do YOU respond?
Preventative medicine is almost always a good idea, but it will not save money.
The biggest healthcare myth is that the US can easily save money on healthcare without large disruptions in care. If you look other country’s systems they are all UHC but they vary alot by country. There is no one way to control costs. The best correlation is between how rich a country is and how much they spend.
For example, Greece spends 34% less than what Italy does per capita and has longer lifespans than Italy. They spend less than one third of what Switzerland, Norway, and Luxembourg does. The reason they spend so little is not because Greece has a hyper efficient medical system but because it is the poorest country in Europe and so spends much less than the rest of Europe. Rich countries spend more on services because of Baumol’s cost disease which states that efficiencies in one area of the economy push up prices in other areas of the economy. So Luxembourg and Switzerland, the two richest countries in Europe spend the most on healthcare per capita and the most on education per capita. The US is much richer than the rest of the world, actual individual consumption in the USis 16% higher than in Luxembourg and 36% higher than in Italy which is average for Europe.
Thus in order to actually save money you either have to get healthcare professionals to to agree to be paid like people in a poorer country or get people to accept a standard of care of a poorer country. The good news is that much of healthcare spending is wasted so getting less healthcare won’t necessarily mean worse health. But the bad news is that we don’t know what parts of healthcare are waste and thus cutting healthcare will probably mean worse health.
Originally Posted by **Broomstick **
*It’s that “Denmark does it better” or “Germany does it better”, it’s that Denmark AND Germany AND France AND the UK AND Australia AND New Zealand, and Etc., and Etc., all do it better.
You have to wonder why the US is the only one that doesn’t… and it’s not because we’re getting better results because we aren’t.*
Originally Posted by **Broomstick **
*It’s that “Denmark does it better” or “Germany does it better”, it’s that Denmark AND Germany AND France AND the UK AND Australia AND New Zealand, and Etc., and Etc., all do it better.
You have to wonder why the US is the only one that doesn’t… and it’s not because we’re getting better results because we aren’t.*
So tell me how the rest of your post changes you claim that the USA is the only nation that doesnt have UHC?
I have several times said that UHC is a good idea.
I show them the facts, without resorting to the ridiculous and counterproductive argument that Denmark has it so should we.
(And fercrickiessakes, it’s Dr Deth, where did you get the idea I was a “good” Doctor? 
)
…thanks for confirming that your claim and Broomstick’s words are not the same. But I knew that already.
My question again: the US is the “only nation” that does what"?
It’s not “they have it, so should we”, it’s “they have it, so can we”.
When I see that dozens of other countries were able to implement UHC, I believe that we can, too.
From a “should we” standpoint, it isn’t the fact that other countries have it that suggests we should have it too, it’s the comparison of their systems to ours that suggests we should have it too. They apply a far smaller percentage of their GDP to health care than we do. Their people are universally covered and are not subject to the stress, uncertainty, confusion, financial pressures, or lack of access that we have here.
Personally, I have been covered by health insurance for every moment of my adult life, over 20 years of continuous coverage. The amount of stress and confusion I have had to deal with over the financial aspect of health for me and my family has been ridiculous. Dealing with bills for things that I wasn’t responsible for, or was technically responsible for but really shouldn’t have been, or not knowing whether or not I was responsible, but I’ll just pay anyway to make it go away. Uncertainty about what I was going to have to pay out of pocket, or what coverage was changing. Uncertainty about the cost for procedures, is this test my doctor recommends a $50 test or $500? Or the realization that I didn’t structure my care smartly enough and cost myself a bundle.
It’s lunacy when I think that, for all that nonsense I’ve had to deal with over 20 years, while having good insurance, folks across the pond have to deal with none of that, AND PAY LESS for the privilege.
‘Good doctor’ was an attempt at levity. No offense intended and it was obviously a poor choice of words.
I’m glad you think that UHC is a good idea.
But in all seriousness, what facts do you show them? I’ve used the ‘Canada has it’ argument, and it hasn’t been well received. So I am genuinely curious: what facts should I be citing to back up my claim that UHC is a good idea?
So, let’s look at each one individually and see how big of a “howler” it is. I think #1, 6 and 7 are howlers. I think #’s 2 through 5 are either not howlers, or there’s better ways to phrase things:
-
I haven’t heard this one before. If anyone has said that, it is a howler. The attached link show the US military expenses vs US government healthcare expenses in 2015. Clearly, healthcare is larger:
Federal Spending: Where Does the Money Go -
“More medical research per head”? I haven’t heard it worded that way. But here’s a better way to phrase it: The US has an outsize share of global innovation in the healthcare sector. I’m borrowing that wording from the attached column in the New York Times:
Quoting from the link:
*First, let’s acknowledge that the United States is home to an outsize share of global innovation within the health care sector and more broadly. It has more clinical trials than any other country. It has the most Nobel laureates in physiology or medicine. It has won more patents. At least one publication ranks it No. 1 in overall scientific innovation.
Strong promotion of innovation in health care is one reason the United States got as far as it did in our recent bracket tournament on the best health system in the world. Though the United States lost to France, 3-2, in the semifinals, it picked up its two votes in part because of its influence on innovation, which can save lives in the United States and throughout the world.*
- Poor performance in US infant mortality is definitely not entirely due to “different way of recording it”. But it does have something to do with it. Our infant mortality has improved over time, as has the rest of the industrialized world. But we lag behind other nations. See attached links:
From the 2nd link, it explores differential reporting of births. It appears that it does not offer a complete explanation, but it is quantitatively important, according to the authors of this study. So, #3 is not a “howler”. Quoting from the 2nd link:
This exercise yields a number of findings. First, consistent with past evidence (MacDorman and Mathews, 2009), differential reporting of births cannot offer a complete explanation for the US IMR disadvantage. However, accounting for differential reporting is quantitatively important. Compared to the average of the five European countries we analyze, limiting to a comparable sample lowers the apparent US IMR disadvantage from 2.5 deaths per 1000 births to 1.5 deaths. This finding highlights the importance of conducting cross-country comparisons in a setting where reporting differences can be addressed, which is typically not possible in the types of aggregate statistics compiled by the World Health Organization and the World Development Indicators (World Health Organization, 2006; World Bank, 2013).
- And 5)….These are similar claims, with one focusing on Canada and the other on other countries overall, and both discussing US folks going to either Canada or somewhere else. And I don’t believe for one second that more come to the US than vice versa.
Medical tourism among Canadians has increased in recent years, but it’s not a crisis or anything:
US medical tourists are more than enough to fill a cruise boat, over a million:
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(18)30620-X/fulltext
It seems that people leaving the US for medical care are trying to save money. Very often, people coming to the US are looking for better technology or innovative treatments, and so forth. But in any event, there’s not a flood of people from Canada coming to the US, nor from other countries.
- And 7) are howlers fairly obviously. We pay alot in the US, and in many areas, our outcomes lag behind.
If you can’t figure out that from context, I am at a loss.
It’s cheaper.
It’s more fair.
Fewer people go bankrupt from medical bills.
It’s the Right thing to do.