Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . . .

[MajGenl.Meade]

I'm no scholar (oh shut up!) but isn't the Bill of Rights concerned with STOPPING government from interfering with rights?

[Big RR]

Well, you tell me; one guarantee is a right to a trial by jury of your peers (7th amendment). that cannot exist unless the government and courts are organized to provide jury trials. Rights require both that the government not interfere with those rights and, as necessary, take affirmative steps to enforce them.

[Crackpot]

Uh oldr you give up certain rights in order to get licensed (you also gain certain protections). My wife has the legal obligation to render first aid if she should be first to arrive at the scene of a medical emergency

[dgs49]

One CANNOT have a legal "right" to another person's services. Their right of the provider to decline to provide the services prevails. If and when the Government takes over the provision of healthcare, we will have a right to be treated "equally" with respect to the provision of those servIces.

More importantly, OUR federal government CANNOT take over the provision of healthcare services without an amendment to the constitution.

And BtW anyone can cherry pick statistics for the purpose of bad mouthing the American healthcare system, but there is no country in the world where the seriously sick (e.g., cancer, AIDS) get better care.

[Crackpot]

say it emphatically enough you might even convince yourself it's true.

[Gob]

And BtW anyone can cherry pick statistics for the purpose of bad mouthing the American healthcare system, but there is no country in the world where the seriously sick (e.g., cancer, AIDS) get better care.

Easy to say that, care to show some figures?

Colorectal cancer 5-year survival rate

Rank Country Survival rate
1 South Korea 72.8%
2 Japan 68.0%
3 Israel 67.1%
4 Australia 66.2%
5 United States 64.7%

Cervical cancer 5-year survival rate

1 South Korea 76.8%
7 Australia 67.5%
19 United States 62.2%

Breast cancer 5-year survival rate

Rank Country Survival rate
1 United States 88.7%
2 Australia 87.7%
2 Canada 87.7%
4 Sweden 87.4%
5 Japan 87.3%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_O ... re_outcome

[rubato]

"...
And BtW anyone can cherry pick statistics for the purpose of bad mouthing the American healthcare system, but there is no country in the world where the seriously sick (e.g., cancer, AIDS) get better care.

Unless you don't have insurance or money, in that case you would be allowed to die untreated with cancer. Until Obamacare anyway.


yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

And BtW anyone can cherry pick statistics for the purpose of bad mouthing the American healthcare system, but there is no country in the world where the seriously sick rich (e.g., cancer, AIDS $millions, $billions) get better care.

FTFY

It's sort of like saying the Italian automotive industry is the best in the world because it produces Ferraris and Lamborghinis.

[dgs49]

Infant mortality. "One major concern is that the basic definitions of infant mortality are not consistent across countries. For example, babies who are not viable and who die quickly after birth are more likely to be classified as stillbirths in countries outside the United States, especially in Japan, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands, and France. This is especially likely for babies who die before their birth is legally registered. In the United States, however, nonviable births are often recorded as live births, making the US infant mortality rate appear misleadingly high. In a detailed study of medical records and birth and death certificates in Philadelphia, Gibson and colleagues found that infant mortality had been overstated by 40 percent, merely as a result of these nonviable births that were recorded as live births."

Life expectancy. "In the abstract, life expectancy (LE) could be an effective metric for comparing international health systems. But there are problems with this measure. One important flaw is that it incorporates infant mortality, which, as discussed above, is confounded by external factors and is not identically measured across all countries covered in the OECD report."

"Neonatal mortality is heavily influenced by social and economic factors, along with individual health behaviors, that are not strongly related to health care delivery. Overall life expectancy at birth, then, may be an unsuitable measure of health outcomes for the purpose of measuring productivity of health services."

General. "Unfortunately, major problems in OECD’s analysis render their conclusions—especially the country-specific conclusions—unreliable. Many external factors that influence health outcomes are either omitted or poorly measured. The net effect is to underweight the role that non-health care factors play in determining health. And since the United States scores relatively poorly on most of these external measures, omitting them or not adequately controlling for them increases the apparent relative inefficiency of the US health care system and probably biases the estimated productivity of health care as well. The OECD report controls to a limited extent for some lifestyle differences by gross measures (for example, consumption of alcohol, tobacco, fruits, and vegetables). It adjusts one health measure—PYLL—for violence and accidents, but does not use that measure for country-specific efficiency numbers. As explained above, we believe that these controls and adjustments are inadequate."

"It is overreaching to interpret country-specific variation in health outcomes as a measure of health care system productivity. In reality, the country-specific estimates reflect all differences in country-level influences, whatever their source and measurement issues. As econometrician William Greene stated in a similar context, there are considerable differences among countries that masquerade as inefficiency. More carefully calibrated research is necessary to identify these differences."

Anyone can cherry-pick statistics for the purpose of bad mouthing the American healthcare system. The question is, why would you want to?

Wait...I know...it's "patriotism."

[MajGenl.Meade]

Survival rates are not always indicative of quality or quantity of healthcare services. Personal choices regarding diet, activity, exercise and environment are highly (highly) contributory.

[Gob]

So Dave, where are the statistics showing the US has a better healthcare system?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well I'd think there must be some data out there about rich people flying to the USA for treatment (say from Saudi to Cleveland Clinic) rather than jetting off to Korea or Australia. Probably rich people in Korea and Australia come here too. Kamsa hamnida!

[Crackpot]

Then again there's plenty of data about people flying from the U.S. to India for treatment as well

[Gob]

Well I'd think there must be some data out there about rich people flying to the USA for treatment (say from Saudi to Cleveland Clinic) rather than jetting off to Korea or Australia. Probably rich people in Korea and Australia come here too. Kamsa hamnida!

I'm sure rich people are able to buy all sorts of things on a whim. However that says nothing about a country's medical system.

1. We Spend the Most Money on Health Care, But Get the Least in Return

The US spends more on health care than the next 10 biggest spenders combined: Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain, and Australia, yet the US ranks last in health and mortality when compared with 17 other developed nations.

Sadly, 30 cents of every dollar spent on medical care in America is wasted, which amounts to $750 billion annually. That is the same amount the Department of Defense estimates we spent on the ENTIRE Iraq War! This $750 billion of waste is made up of inefficient delivery of care and excessive administrative costs, unnecessary services, inflated prices, prevention failures, and outright fraud. The largest defrauder of the federal government is the pharmaceutical industry.

2. Our Chronic Disease Rates Are Extraordinarily High

Americans have the second highest rate of chronic disease of the seven countries examined, with Australia being number one. With all of the money we're spending, what are we missing? This statistic reflects poor preventative care and lack of attention to lifestyle habits, such as diet, exercise, stress, sleep, and "electron deficiency" (insufficient contact with the Earth).

The majority of Americans (adults and children) are becoming insulin-resistant due to their junk food based diets, loaded with sugar, processed grains, and chemical additives. Insulin dysfunction is putting many in a state of perpetual inflammation and driving up the rates of chronic disease. Americans consume nearly 4,000 calories per day on average—more than anyone else in the world.15 Yet, they are malnourished because most of these calories are from processed food, therefore devoid of nutrition.

3. Poor Coordination of Care

This issue is tied to the problem of waste. We drop the ball when it comes to managing patient care, especially if you have a complicated illness requiring multiple providers. As a result, we have poor access to medical records, duplicate testing, gaps in communication, confidentiality violations, and rushed and fragmented health care. According to an infographic based on data from multiple sources, created by Jonathan Govette:16

3 out of 10 lab tests are reordered because the results can't be found
68 percent of specialists receive no information from the primary care provider prior to the referral visit; 60 to 70 percent of referrals go unscheduled; and 25 percent of appointments are missed
7,000 people die every year from sloppy physician handwriting

4. Most Americans Do Not Have a Primary Care Provider

One of the reasons Americans' health care is so poorly managed is that they are least likely to have primary care providers. There are 0.5 general physicians per 1,000 people in the US, but the average among OECD nations is 1.23.17 Americans are also the most likely to say that their physician doesn't know important information about their medical history, which has dire implications for quality of care and increases the likelihood of medical errors. And, speaking of errors...

5. Americans Are the Most Frequent Victims of Medical Errors

It can be argued that medical errors are leading cause of death in the US—higher than heart disease, higher than cancer. The latest review18 shows that about 1,000 people die EVERY DAY from hospital mistakes alone. This equates to four jumbo jets' worth of passengers every week, but the death toll is largely ignored. Types of errors include inappropriate medical treatments, hospital-acquired infections, unnecessary surgeries, adverse drug reactions, operating on the wrong body part—or even on the wrong patient! One in four hospital patients are harmed by preventable medical mistakes in this country, and 800,000 people die every year as a result. Of those 800,000, 250,000 die as a result of medication errors.

6. Fewer Americans Are Receiving Health Care

Americans do have shorter waits for non-elective surgeries, compared with other developed nations. Only four percent of us wait more than six months, which is considerably less than the Canadians (14 percent) or Britons (15 percent). However, when you consider how many Americans lack access to any health care at all, the wait-time advantage disappears.

Nearly one-third of Americans are uninsured or underinsured.19 Twenty-five percent do not visit a doctor when they're sick, due to the cost. Twenty-three percent can't fill their prescriptions. This is far worse in America than in any of the other countries surveyed. In Canada, only five percent skipped care, and in the UK only three percent. As you know, I'm not a fan of using the standard health care approach in every situation. However, if you become acutely ill or injured, lack of access to care can be devastating.

7. We Don't Pay Physicians in Proportion to Their Quality of Care

Most other countries reward physicians for good care with financial incentives. For example, in the UK, 95 percent of physicians are paid, at least in part, according to the quality of care they deliver. In Australia, it's 72 percent. The US scores lower than anyone else, at 30 percent.

8. Our Health Care Is Inconvenient

Americans' access to after-hours services (early in the morning, later in the evening, and on weekends and holidays) is just mediocre. For access to evening hours, we lag behind Australia, Canada, Germany, and New Zealand. A full 67 percent of Americans—more than in any other country—say it's difficult to get care on nights, weekends, or holidays without resorting to the emergency room, where care is costlier and, if your injury is not life threatening, inefficient and time consuming. Only 30 percent of Americans report that they can access a doctor on the very day they need one, as opposed to 41 percent of Britons and 55 percent of Germans.

9. American Physicians Don't Listen to Their Patients

About 70 percent of Americans are satisfied with their physician's "bedside manner," which is lower than the Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders. But we are five percent more satisfied than the Britons, and well above the Germans or Dutch. However, when you look at specifics, we compare less favorably. Americans are less happy about how well their physicians explain things to them, how long they spend with them, or how smoothly their appointments go, with respect to things like coordinating records and scheduling.

10. Most Americans Are Dissatisfied with the Current System

You've probably heard reports claiming that Britons and Canadians are highly dissatisfied with their health care system, but this survey proved that Americans have them beat by a substantial margin. Americans were the least likely of all seven countries to report relative satisfaction with their health care system.

Only 16 percent of Americans report being happy, compared with 26 percent in the UK and 42 percent in the Netherlands. Thirty-four percent of Americans want a complete overhaul in the health care system, whereas only 12 percent of Canadians and 15 percent of Britons say the same. So we pay the most for our health care, but we have the lowest satisfaction ratings—even lower than those who spend more time "waiting in line." Ezra Klein of the Washington Post makes an excellent point:20

"There is no other area of American life where we collectively accept such a bad deal. We spend more than any other nation on our military, but our military is unquestionably the mightiest in the world. We spend the most on our universities, but our universities are the best on the planet. But we spend the most on our health care—twice as much as anyone else—and our health system is mediocre-to-poor, with 47 million of us lacking the insurance necessary to easily access it."

[BoSoxGal]

Received the paperwork in the mail today for my COBRA extension of medical insurance, should I choose to elect it.

The policy is platinum, but it appears the platinum policy I enrolled in under ACA (Montana Health Co-op) is almost identical.

COBRA premium: $1193/mo.

ACA premium: $368/mo.




Honestly, why can't we just have single-payer??? It would be better for everybody, including employers.

[rubato]

Received the paperwork in the mail today for my COBRA extension of medical insurance, should I choose to elect it.

The policy is platinum, but it appears the platinum policy I enrolled in under ACA (Montana Health Co-op) is almost identical.

COBRA premium: $1193/mo.

ACA premium: $368/mo.




Honestly, why can't we just have single-payer??? It would be better for everybody, including employers.

Obamacare rides again. It isn't single-payer but it is the next best thing.


yrs,
rubato