Idiotic writers...

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by kazbates

To be honest, I don't know what the true motivation is, but I don't think it's as altruistic as a lot of the politicians are presenting it. The've also said it's need to help lower the costs of healthcare, which are admittedly high.

Ok, now I'm quite lost. How can it lower the cost that they increase the government health care?

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by Laz116

Ok, now I'm quite lost. How can it lower the cost that they increase the government health care?

Excellent question! And one for which they have NO answers.

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by Laz116

I'm just trying to understand the reasons by the reluctance towards government health care.

I believe this is due to a strong preference in the U.S. for negative liberty (freedom from interference by an outside body) -- a feeling that people should be left free from government interference. So they should be left free to choose their own heathcare etc.

Meanwhile, in Europe, we have a strong feeling for positive liberty (freedom to be able to do things) so have allow governments to provide healthcare etc, so that citizens are in a position to maximise their options. (Your choices are very limited if you're chronically ill.)

The founding fathers of the USA had read their Locke (Two Treatises of Government) and believed that the state should only play the smallest role in individuals' lives. It should be a "night watchman" and see that life, liberty and property are defended. But going beyond that is an infringement of individuals' rights. Hence, in the 1970s, Robert Nozick argued that taxation for welfare purposes was slavery: the citizen was spending hours working for the government, not for him/herself.

Personally, I can't really understand the U.S. position. The richest country in the world seems to allow millions of its citizens to be without easy access to healthcare.

And it is (to me) an inconsistent position. The state provides free schooling, rather than leaving it entirely to individual families to buy an education for their children. If it allows free schooling, then why not free healthcare? In both cases people could choose whether to opt in or out--just as they can in Europe.

[Madam Broshkina]

Originally Posted by Laz116

But the average life expectancy rate is not higher in the US than it is in most developed countries with "socialised" medicine.

It's not like the US system is keeping people alive longer.

Stanford University-Hoover Institution published the following article.


http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/49525427.html

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.
3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:

• Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
• Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians.
• More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).
• Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent).

5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health (11.7 percent) compared to Canadian seniors (5.8 percent). Conversely, white, young Canadian adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower-income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”
6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long—sometimes more than a year—to see a specialist, have elective surgery such as hip replacements, or get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In Britain, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.
7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”
8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared with only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).
9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain. An overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identify computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade—even as economists and policy makers unfamiliar with actual medical practice decry these techniques as wasteful. The United States has thirty-four CT scanners per million Americans, compared to twelve in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has almost twenty-seven MRI machines per million people compared to about six per million in Canada and Britain.
10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. Since the mid- 1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to U.S. residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past thirty-four years did a scientist living in the United States not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.
Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and care for the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.

[Patricia]

And isn't it just a little bit strange that the USA - the richest country on this earth - has higher infant mortality rates than Cuba?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/health/07stat.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/GlobalH...ory?id=1266515
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...mortality_rate

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by Patricia

I believe this is due to a strong preference in the U.S. for negative liberty (freedom from interference by an outside body) -- a feeling that people should be left free from government interference. So they should be left free to choose their own heathcare etc.

Meanwhile, in Europe, we have a strong feeling for positive liberty (freedom to be able to do things) so have allow governments to provide healthcare etc, so that citizens are in a position to maximise their options. (Your choices are very limited if you're chronically ill.)

The founding fathers of the USA had read their Locke (Two Treatises of Government) and believed that the state should only play the smallest role in individuals' lives. It should be a "night watchman" and see that life, liberty and property are defended. But going beyond that is an infringement of individuals' rights. Hence, in the 1970s, Robert Nozick argued that taxation for welfare purposes was slavery: the citizen was spending hours working for the government, not for him/herself.

Personally, I can't really understand the U.S. position. The richest country in the world seems to allow millions of its citizens to be without easy access to healthcare.

And it is (to me) an inconsistent position. The state provides free schooling, rather than leaving it entirely to individual families to buy an education for their children. If it allows free schooling, then why not free healthcare? In both cases people could choose whether to opt in or out--just as they can in Europe.

Well put. And it's my general feeling as well. What I have trouble understanding is that the sentiment against anything government run seems to run in the very veins of (a lot of) americans. And it's just outlandish that everything that is just a slight regulation of free market is judged as being socialistic or communistic.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Meanwhile, in Europe, we have a strong feeling for positive liberty (freedom to be able to do things) so have allow governments to provide healthcare etc, so that citizens are in a position to maximise their options. (Your choices are very limited if you're chronically ill.)

But policy on co-payments (top-ups) appears to reduce NHS patients' options for fear of producing a two-tier system.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7458908.stm

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by Patricia

I believe this is due to a strong preference in the U.S. for negative liberty (freedom from interference by an outside body) -- a feeling that people should be left free from government interference. So they should be left free to choose their own heathcare etc.

Meanwhile, in Europe, we have a strong feeling for positive liberty (freedom to be able to do things) so have allow governments to provide healthcare etc, so that citizens are in a position to maximise their options. (Your choices are very limited if you're chronically ill.)

The founding fathers of the USA had read their Locke (Two Treatises of Government) and believed that the state should only play the smallest role in individuals' lives. It should be a "night watchman" and see that life, liberty and property are defended. But going beyond that is an infringement of individuals' rights. Hence, in the 1970s, Robert Nozick argued that taxation for welfare purposes was slavery: the citizen was spending hours working for the government, not for him/herself.

Personally, I can't really understand the U.S. position. The richest country in the world seems to allow millions of its citizens to be without easy access to healthcare.

And it is (to me) an inconsistent position. The state provides free schooling, rather than leaving it entirely to individual families to buy an education for their children. If it allows free schooling, then why not free healthcare? In both cases people could choose whether to opt in or out--just as they can in Europe.

You say, "tomato", I say "tomato".

We call that being a Libertarian here. It's not really negative liberty, we just don't want the govenment in every aspect of our business. We consider that True Liberty. Frankly, Americans have a general distrust of government. It is the reason we broke away from Britain in the first place. When we see the way many of our politicians behave, we feel pretty justified in our distrust.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Patricia

And isn't it just a little bit strange that the USA - the richest country on this earth - has higher infant mortality rates than Cuba?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/health/07stat.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/GlobalH...ory?id=1266515
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...mortality_rate

I would bet serious money that what the US labels as a premature birth Cuba calls a spontaneous abortion. If not that then I suspect the statistics are biased in similar manner.

[vivaldirules]

I'm anxious to see basic, affordable medical coverage made available to everyone that is delivered sensibly (not all of it in a hospital emergency room paid for by whatever means the hospital can muster including gouging insurance companies and self-payers). I'd be happy to pay higher taxes, if necessary, to do that for those that can't afford it. But I don't have much appetite for enforcing that all coverage be identical for everyone particularly if our government is going to be the only operator. I'm also fearful that may employers may drop the coverage they provide to employees under other provisions that have been proposed. And I'm afraid of what will happen with Medicare (our federally run system of providing health care to everyone over 65) which is destined for insolvency if costs are not controlled or the system changed and properly funded. I have zero faith that these will be handled sensibly. Either many people will suffer unnecessarily or taxpayers will bear the brunt of costs that will be too high and that will pad the pockets of someone undeserving, I'm sure of it.

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by Madam Broshkina

Stanford University-Hoover Institution published the following article.


http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/49525427.html

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.
3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:

• Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
• Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians.
• More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).
• Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent).

5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health (11.7 percent) compared to Canadian seniors (5.8 percent). Conversely, white, young Canadian adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower-income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”
6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long—sometimes more than a year—to see a specialist, have elective surgery such as hip replacements, or get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In Britain, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.
7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”
8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared with only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).
9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain. An overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identify computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade—even as economists and policy makers unfamiliar with actual medical practice decry these techniques as wasteful. The United States has thirty-four CT scanners per million Americans, compared to twelve in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has almost twenty-seven MRI machines per million people compared to about six per million in Canada and Britain.
10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. Since the mid- 1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to U.S. residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past thirty-four years did a scientist living in the United States not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.
Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and care for the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.

Was that post provoked by me saying that you didn't have a higher life expectancy rate than other developed countries?

I don't get it. I have already stated that USA presents the best in medicine and gathers the most competent researchers from around the globe. That does not mean that there isn't severe problems in the american health care system seen from the perspective of an ordinary, average American (not to mention, from the perspective of an underpaid or even illegal resident in USA, of which I think you have about 8 million).

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I would bet serious money that what the US labels as a premature birth Cuba calls a spontaneous abortion. If not that then I suspect the statistics are biased in similar manner.

This is based on deaths of infants under one year old.

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I would bet serious money that what the US labels as a premature birth Cuba calls a spontaneous abortion. If not that then I suspect the statistics are biased in similar manner.

Actually Cuba is renowned for it's health care system. It's not as good as it used to be (partly due to the embargo). But for a country no one is allowed to trade goods with it's very very good.

Don't think everyone besides the USA is backwards.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Laz116

Was that post provoked by me saying that you didn't have a higher life expectancy rate than other developed countries?

I don't get it. I have already stated that USA presents the best in medicine and gathers the most competent researchers from around the globe. That does not mean that there isn't severe problems in the american health care system seen from the perspective of an ordinary, average American (not to mention, from the perspective of an underpaid or even illegal resident in USA, of which I think you have about 8 million).

The average American already gets better care than the average Canadian it Brit. If you think that means our system has severe problems, then what does that say about GB and Canada?

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I would bet serious money that what the US labels as a premature birth Cuba calls a spontaneous abortion. If not that then I suspect the statistics are biased in similar manner.

In Denmark it's 4.3 per 1000, in the US it's 6.3.

USA are great at some things and worse at other things. It's as simple as that. No biggie.