The data provided by you is specious? Well, you provided it, so who am I to argue... :wink:
Health Care Summit
- Thread starter Bodhisattva
- Start date
The providor from which you pulled your data realizes that he has fallen prey to the most nefarious of debate shenanigans.
I will reiterate that our system is not perfect, however I will also reiterate that if one needs and can afford it, the absolute best of care is available. It's not as though we typically send our top injured athletes off to Europe for care is it?
I do take offense to you calling my conclusion absurd though. On this board, well before my mother-in-law's last bout with cancer I posted about the MRIs. That's not absurd, that's not made up, that's reality. Now, you explain to me why she laid there dying because her immune system couldn't handle the chemo, they still were finding tumors. Explain why she hadn't been given another MRI, something that can be so readily available here in America.
Since you won't directly address any of what I said, I'll instead address something you said. You addressed Canadian prescription drugs. Why are some people so intent on killing the goose that laid the golden egg because there aren't enough golden eggs to go around? You do know the primary reason their drugs are cheaper, right? Price controls and generics.
Rather than explain the simple and logical long term consequences let's give another example that people might more readily understand. Let's pretend we are talking about cars. Let's say people got fed up with how expensive Mercedes Benz are. They think they should be entitled to such nice cars at more reasonable rates. So, they institute price controls. They say Mercedes now can no longer sell cars for more than $20,000 USD. Mercedes would probably comply and for a little while the cars might be better than another comparably priced cars, sooner or later you're getting a car that's vastly inferior to what you were getting before.
That's not enough to some though. They think 20 grand is still high for a new car, they want the things a Mercedes has for less. So, they say that Mercedes has to give up their patents, that other car companies can use these patents and pretty soon you are seeing Kia with cars using former Mercedes patents. So now Mercedes "quality" is available to almost everyone... but what of Mercedes? Does anyone seriously think they'd continue to make new innovations and inventions at the same paces? Can anyone seriously argue that their cars would continue to be built with the same level of quality? Of course not... the entire thing would have become meaningless, looting a great company for short term gain.
Why on earth would anyone want to do this to prescription drugs? Do we not understand that these drugs are not mana from heaven? As I said in the post you wouldn't address, our health care machine powers much of the medical innovations in the world. We allow Canada to have those cheap drugs, we allow Africa to get those drugs free of cost... but if you kill our system, you kill the goose that's been laying the golden eggs. Why that's desirous to some people is absolutely beyond me.
Your posted conclusion was that the Premier using American health care proved that our system was superior. That is what I linked, and that is what I addressed, and that is what I consider to be absurd...
No I didn't, it was one piece of evidence, just a single example. You once again don't address the content, you picked one statement, which did support my argument but rather than being the basis was put at the very end because it was supporting the argument, not making the argument.
Nice how you completely skipped what I had to say again...
I told you, I have already addressed that in other threads. Not to be rude, but I just don't feel like covering this ground again. I hope that you understand. In the end, you won't change my mind, and I won't change yours. I respect your opinion as long as you don't go saying that a single person coming into America for treatment proves anything...
:cheers2:
I've addressed the issue before, just as I addressed the college football playoff issue untold times. It didn't mean the cause for discussion was over. No matter how this goes down it will have great consequence and I for one am willing to participate in the debate. In the very least I can say I tried to understand what was happening and the potential consequences.
Give me some credit though, I'm intellectually honest in my discussions. I won't support a argument if I don't truly believe (and I feel I have no choice in what I believe) what I'm saying and if I see the truth in a different point of view I am bound by logic to accept it. I didn't start out a Libertarian agnostic, I started out the child of a ordained union man that took me on lobbying trips to the state capitol.
So... if I'm here I'm ready to debate the subject. If I stop responding I probably lost interest...
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I
It's On A Slab
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Their kids are usually party animals. But they tend to settle down a bit for adulthood.
toledoblade.com -- The Blade ~ Toledo Ohio
It might shock you to see how many people are flown to America for medical care. Did you even look at the criteria for the list you provided or do you really think Cuba's health care is only two spots below the United States?
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I doubt that anyone actually believes those rankings. They even acknowledge that the task of ranking is essentially impossible, thus they've quit trying.
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Let's review just a tiny bit of the criteria:
"[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif]and the smallest feasible differences among individuals and groups – fairness.[/FONT][/FONT]"
Read that and then read that again. What about that could possibly rank a countries quality of health care? They are saying that even if you have the best health care on earth, if they perceive that it's not available to some it's actually a bad thing. This means that your care could be atrocious and you'd still be ranked well in this criteria provided everyone has atrocious care. Having outstanding care should not cause your ranking to do down...
"Fairness" is a continued theme with the WHO criteria, which once again rewards mediocrity provided it's "fair".
"[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif]Brazil, a middle-income nation, ranks low in this table because its people make high out-of-pocket payments for health care.[/FONT][/FONT]"
What they are saying here is that your health care system is somehow determined to be worse because people actually pay cash for their health care. That has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of care! For the record under this asinine criteria America was ranked low and Cuba was ranked high.
"[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif]In many countries, some if not most physicians work simultaneously for the public sector and in private practice. This means the public sector ends up subsidizing unofficial private practice. [/FONT][/FONT]"
This was listed as a criticism... I find it both ridiculous and a overt statement as to the way the WHO views private practices, which is with hostility.
"[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif]One key recommendation from the report is for countries to extend health insurance to as large a percentage of the population as possible. WHO says that it is better to make "pre-payments" on health care as much as possible[/FONT][/FONT]"
Health insurance is not health care! The WHO clearly has a agenda with these statements and rankings. America's health care system is being ranked lower because the WHO does not like the way we have our health insurance. It's imbecilic to point to these rankings as a indicator our the quality of health care in America when the rankings often do not even consider that a factor!
"[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Sans Serif]In designing the framework for health system performance, WHO broke new methodological ground, employing a technique not previously used for health systems. It compares each country’s system to what the experts estimate to be the upper limit of what can be done with the level of resources available in that country.[/FONT][/FONT]"
I could keep going but I'll stop with that one. They openly say they are not ranking on the quality of care relative to what they view the resources of the country to be. This not only has nothing what so ever to do with the actual quality of care, but it actually punishes a country like America that has the strongest economy in the world.
If you truly believe this report to reflect the actual quality of health care you were either naive, misinformed or lack basic cognitive abilities. There is no way to logically view the criteria and then view the rankings of a country like Cuba and come to the conclusion that they actually attempted to rank the best health care in the world. Rather, they were pushing a social agenda. If you really think the difference between our health care and Cuba's is negligible you are blind to reality.
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American health care is not the best in the world it is the most expensive. Those who have healthcare provided to them by their employer will continue to say there is nothing wrong with health care in America while the millions who can't afford healthcare beg to differ. The medical profession, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and hospital expenses are out of control. The billing, procedure process and paperwork is rediculous and many of the health laws are outdated.
I'm not saying the US health care sucks just that it is overpriced for what you get and that causes some people to not be able to afford prescriptions, follow up visits and treatment. America is an obese nation, worst in the world, which adds to the problem and a huge number of homeless and illegals crowd the ERs in hospitals. Infant mortality rates in the US is also extremely high and many people aren't getting the preventive care that makes for a healthy population.
I also live under the French medical program, it is not socialized medicine, it covers everyone and those who can afford it buy supplemental insurance. Many things i would have to go to a doctor for in the US I can get at a pharmacy or a paramedic can attend to me. I find it a much cheaper and user friendly health care system. There are also no long waiting lines you hear about in some countries. I seldom have to wait more than 10-15 min to see my doctor.
I will close by saying those running the medical industry in America need to be taken out and beat with a length of surgical tubing then stabbed in the eye with a syringe. You talk about big government, they have big medical.
I'm not saying the US health care sucks just that it is overpriced for what you get and that causes some people to not be able to afford prescriptions, follow up visits and treatment. America is an obese nation, worst in the world, which adds to the problem and a huge number of homeless and illegals crowd the ERs in hospitals. Infant mortality rates in the US is also extremely high and many people aren't getting the preventive care that makes for a healthy population.
I also live under the French medical program, it is not socialized medicine, it covers everyone and those who can afford it buy supplemental insurance. Many things i would have to go to a doctor for in the US I can get at a pharmacy or a paramedic can attend to me. I find it a much cheaper and user friendly health care system. There are also no long waiting lines you hear about in some countries. I seldom have to wait more than 10-15 min to see my doctor.
I will close by saying those running the medical industry in America need to be taken out and beat with a length of surgical tubing then stabbed in the eye with a syringe. You talk about big government, they have big medical.
I'll just say this. Are you prepared to recognize that the list you provided was not a objective view of health care worldwide? We can honestly disagree, but I think we owe it to ourselves to be forthcoming. I don't think you were trying to provide misleading information, but you provided a list that was misleading based on the criteria. It's those types of things that are not helpful to the debate because they provide misinformation.
Now... as I said previously, if you can afford it America has the best health care in the world. Nothing you said nor anything the WHO said dispelled that. Here's another reality, the absolute best in virtually anything is horribly expensive. There's a arch that reaches a particular point in which keeping someone alive starts to become obscenely expensive. Some versions of socialized medicine look poorly upon this and many (highly ranked by the WHO) countries simply lack the means to do this at all. This is a testament to what the American health care system is capable of.
There is tons of waste. There's fraud and bureaucracy and so on. I'd point to Medicare and Medicaid as major reasons but I would also point to the fact that America literally and indirectly subsidizes medical training, advancement, R&D, etc.. (America has the most medical schools of any country). This might be reflected in "free" drugs to Africa or in countries like Brazil which wait for America to subsidize the creation of new drugs then makes generics and in doing so contributes nothing to future drug development or to cover the cost of the existing drug's development. I could go on but America is bearing more of a burden than they should, but if we stop doing it the drugs and innovations would drop dramatically as well.
As far as America being obese or the like, agreed but that has absolutely nothing to do with health care. If you want to get fat, get fat. It's not my obligation to take care of you once you do though. Illegals access to our health care is a concern as well but once again this is the problem of another sector, it's a burden our health care system is unfortunately bearing but it's not the fault of health care itself. It's not as though a new health care bill would ban them from access to our hospitals is it?
We can debate a lot about health care and how one likes this or that. We've had part of this debate before. The fact is the America system is the muscle behind much of the innovations and training the world benefits from. It's always easier to loot than to produce. However, what we should be doing is pushing the system towards a truly equitable and fair system. You should only bear the costs of your own care, not others. You should only pay for your drugs, not others. You should not pay to a bureaucrat who contributes nothing to your well being. Ultimately though, in regards to our current system... we can not fault our system for the fact that people choose to willfully do things that harm themselves. We can not discredit the quality of care simply because people who have done nothing to contribute to their own care are draining the system.
I'm not sure what it is you want out of health care, but I want to get what I pay for. That's all I ask for. That's not at all what agencies like the WHO want my health care to be and that's not that big government advocates want either. We should pay more cash out of pocket to be honest. We should have more of a financial connection with our care, not less. Our system could be made better, but by reminding and reconnecting how the transaction really should go.
It should be between myself, my care provider and our exchange of services for money. It is the remnants of this that still powers our system, but we've been working very hard to bring our health care down to the level of countries like Cuba, if we keep praising them and emulating them we'll get there eventually.
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I would wager I spend more time with doctors and use more medical supplies than you can imagine. I am end stage COPD, just finished a cancer operation and have a few lesser ailments I am being treated for so anyone who doesn't think I have any experience with both US and French medicine needs this wake up call. I'm not talking about the sniffles or a hang nail.
Great, you got yours but my stand is many people need help even those who have insurance are getting raked over the coals with added expenses.
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