There is more than meets the eye to those cancer survivablity figures. This is an excellent article(pdf file) by Jonathan Cohn looking at various international comparisons between health-care systems:
The same goes for the stats that the US has more of this or that piece of technology. Technology isn’t the only or even the most important input in medicine and in any case outputs are more important inputs.
The bottom line is that while the US may be superior in this or that niche its overall performance is below that of the best OECD countries especially when you consider the universality of access. When you take into account that the US spends vastly more than any other country you have to conclude that its system is highly inefficient as well which is backed up by plenty of other evidence.
Oh and the argument that other rich countries pay the price for UHC by having lower growth rates is pretty bogus as well. There might be something to this argument if they were spending more than the US but of course it’s the opposite. The US spends around 15% of GDP on health, other rich countries around 10%. It’s awfully hard to argue that spending less on health leads to lower growth rates particularly when overall health outcomes are superior in those countries.
There’s a link below to a blog that I enjoy reading from time to time. In it, a few articles down, the blogger writes one called ‘A Bug in Health Care, a Feature in Everything Else.’
What he questions is the notion that somehow spending 15% of GDP on healthcare is ‘bad’. The US spends a great deal more money (maybe not normalized by GDP) than other countries on lots of things…cars, I imagine for one. But that is considered a sign of wealth and the ability to choose healthcare as a discretionary expenditure. But too many people immediately look at it and say it’s bad.
Although after reading Sam’s list above from Volvo, I come to the same general conclusion that foolsguinea did. That doesn’t look like anything other than bureaucratic nonsense to me, with no real impact on health or safety.
There has never been a time in the entire history of Canada when medicine was entirely paid for by government programs, unless you’ve got a very strange definition of “medicine.”
Britain spends a lot of time discussing how to make the NHS better. Not whether it should be thrown out. An important distinction you seemed to have left out.
The point is that the US isn’t getting a whole lot for that 15%. There are other rich countries which spend 10% of their GDP and get better health care and universal coverage for good measure. For what it pays the US should be getting the best health care system in the world but that is not remotely the case. The reason is that the US system is highly inefficient and wastes lots of resources.
This articleby a couple of economists looks at the efficiency of the US system compared to other OECD countries. From the abstract:
May I jump in here? It’s easy for people to denigrate “the poor.”
However: many uninsured people are not poor. They also have not made bad choices, or are uninterested in taking care of their own bills, or are moochers, or have poor planning skills when it comes to their own financial future, or any of the other things that seem to jump to people’s minds.
This stereotype - that uninsured people are poor and/or lazy and/or stupid - makes it seem like all these hard-working Americans (cue flag waving patriotically in a stiff breeze) are going to be paying the medical bills for people too poor, lazy, or stupid to provide for themselves. Then you get people howling about “socialism.”
We have so many uninsured people in this country because after WWII, health insurance became tied to your employer. There is no logical reason to do it this way. If you work for yourself, or lose your job because your position got outsourced to India … you’re screwed, kid.
As I found out when I got laid off last year.
I’ve been planning for my future and funding my retirement, I watch my diet, exercise, etc. and I’ve been supporting myself as best as I can (so I’m not stupid) and I’m currently working 6 days a week (so I’m not lazy) and I’m able to mostly keep up with bills and rent (so I’m not poor) but I have no insurance and no access to affordable health care.
Please explain why some people are so anxious to preserve this system. Is it because they’ve never been screwed over by the health care system? Is there more to it than that?
It’s because theories are more appealing when you digest them into one sentence, and it’s hard to wade through The Wealth of Nations so people assume it says what other people say it does.
I would argue that a vast, vast amount of healthcare spending in the US is discretionary spending. Are you arguing otherwise? It’s hard to tell from your post.
That’s true, which is why so many people say “Wouldn’t it be nice if the government stepped in and made it all fair,” without considering the relevant tradeoffs.
As Paul Krugman pointed out, it is a very different story if you look at something like MEDIAN income. I.e., the problem with GDP per capita is that in a country with a very unequal wealth distribution, the people at the median income will be much worse off than a GDP per capital number implies. It is like the story of the room containing Bill Gates and 50 homeless people, and how, on average, the people in the room are billionaires.
Is that an actual fact or a WAG? Doesn’t really matter, cause is a classic fallacy. If everybody else was jumping off of a bridge, would you think it was a good idea? If all other first world countries mandated all first born children be taken by the state for organ parts would that make it a good idea?
I guess it’s different in each country. Another fallacy here anyway. Something being good for one party doesn’t make it good for another. Water is deeply needed for somebody dying of thirst in a desert, but it’s the last thing a guy drowning in a lake needs.
That’s a pretty generalistic and loaded question. Where do you shop, at FALLACIES R US? " All" is pretty inclusive, and why do they all have to be all suffering terribly. I think it’s a stupid question you’ve asked. It’s not about “suffering terribly.” It’s about whether it would be an improvement and the best choice for us, here, in the US.
Again, that’s a poorly stated, loaded question. I think it’s probably impractical elsewhere, and not necessarily fine everywhere else. But, to answer the spirit of the question, I believe things are a little bit different here than elsewhere. We as a country expend nonrecoverable costs in innovation that other countries with socialized medicine can benefit from. A free market environment means that it can make sense for a US company to invest billions of dollars in research and development into a new drug or medical technology, because the potential for return is many times greater. A country with socialized medicine can then reap the benefits of that drug without the societal cost of developing it. Some other countries with socialized medicine do indeed produce new drugs or technologies, true. The US represents a huge market for new high end drugs and medical technologies. There is danger of impairing or eliminating that market by socializing our system, thus disincenting innovation.
But there is another reason, more important in my mind.
We are the fucking land of the free. Home of the brave. The government is not our mommy. We take care of ourselves. Our heritage is that of an independent self-reliant people. That freedom comes with responsibilties and risks. Getting sick and arranging to take care of ourselves is one of those risks and the attendant responsibility. That is the price of motherfucking freedom. If nobody gets to tell us what to do, we are responsible for ourselves.
The loss of freedom far outweighs any benefit in my mind.
The problem with these ideas is that they sound nice, but in reality they are slavery. If you want healthcare some particular way, that’s fine with me. But that is not what you are asking for. You are telling everybody that they have to do it your way. You don’t have that right to take that freedom from me just because you have a preference for an alternate form of healthcare. Or, at least you shouldn’t.
Gay marriage isn’t for me, but I support it for those who want it, because it is not for me to tell other people how they must live.
Universal healthcare isn’t for me. Why do you want to shove it down my throat?
You already asked this question once in this very post.
Jeez. Another bad question. Why not “public underwear?” Why not “public food” where we are required to show up at designated locations to eat our meals? Just because one thing is ok, doesn’t mean that all things that sound like it are ok.
Having two school age children “public school” is a pretty strong argument against “public medicine” as far as I’m concerned. The schools here, suck. They are overcrowded wasteful bureacracies.
The private school I send my children spends 25% of what the public shools spend per child in this area. The class size is 8-10 versus 40-50 in public schools. I have a say in my children’s education, and the teachers there serve at will. There are no gun problems, no drug problems, and no bullying problems. The public schools around here can’t say that.
The private schools here are much better in terms of quality of education, cost per child, test scores, parental involvement and what have you.
I recognize that this is not true everywhere. I have some friends that live near DC, and there children attend excellent public schools. This does not hurt my argument. I recognize that I am fortunate because I have the means to a choice. However many people around here do not happen to live in an area where there are excellent public schools, and they do not have the means to a choice, and their children are condemned to mediocrity by the system. They are forced to pay school taxes to send their kids to a poor school. If they were not, some might be able to afford an alternative. They have lost freedom and they and their children are paying for it.
The government should do the minimum and should impair freedom to the minimal extent possible. The government is not Santa Claus who gives us presents. The government cannot give us anything. The government takes from us. It takes our money, and it takes our freedom. Some of this is necessary. Anything that is not absolutely necessary should not be done by the government. We should do it for ourselves.
That’s all very nice. But how many special needs children does your private school serve? This might come as a surprise to you, but some children cost a lot more to educate. Private schools can opt out of serving those children, and then appear to being saving money relative to the public schools. On the other hand, public schools are disproportionately stuck with the special needs children, and the associated costs. So, yeah, it’s more expensive to fund a public school.
Hey, guess what would be neat? Maybe I can join a private health insurance program that opts out of covering sick people! Or at least anyone who gets more than a cold. Boy could we save money then!:rolleyes:
Along similar lines, Medicare by definition covers the “special needs” health cases. So, yeah, it’s expensive. What do you suppose would happen if some healthier populations were mixed in? Maybe it would be more affordable for everyone, including the government.
Regarding education your hypothesis is that the burden of special needs results in the discrepancy between cost per student in Private versus public school. Let’s apply a “shit test” to that.
If we arbitrarily guess that special needs represent 1% of the public school population than that would mean that a special needs student would require $300 for every $1 spent on a non special needs child in order to account for the 4x cost difference in the school district described. That would account for the discrepancy if the private versus public schoolchildren were receiving an equal education. As they’re not, the cost per special needs child would need to be greater than 300 to 1.
Using the rolleyes while making such an asinine assertion is ironic.
On top of being wrong, it’s also besides the point. My issue is not primarily about cost, it’s about freedom.
I am fully aware of the concept that healthcare costs for sick people will likely be higher than for healthy people. It’s not exactly an enlightening concept. My primary objection is much more basic:
Is it the responsibility of the government to manage our healthcare? Is it responsible for our health and well-being?
My answer is “no.”
Supporters of universally health care wish to take the responsibility for my own basic physical well being from me, and place it in the hands of the government.
And the UK system of private and public coverage, which costs much less then ours, with better outcomes, is bad because?
If your answer includes “taxes is slavery”, please explain how paying taxes is just like real horrors real slaves face and faced, such as spending their childhood chained to a unsafe machine, that making it safe costs more then the slave is “worth”, having their bodies sold for sex against their will, or being whipped and beaten because “master” had a bad day.
Also please explain why if taxes is slavery, but being stuck at a job you hate but can’t leave for a better one lest your medical condition turns into a catastrophically priced, unaffordable, preexisting condition isn’t slavery.
