John F. Burns is an outstanding reporter but his article in the New York Times, on rising opposition to the Afghanistan war in Britain, makes me question how much he or other Britons know about their own history. He writes:
Partly because of Britain’s 19th-century history of catastrophic military ventures in Afghanistan, when it sought to secure the outer defenses of British imperial rule in India, the government faces an uphill task in rallying public opinion to the current conflict.
I realize this fits in with the popular myth about Afghanistan being the “graveyard of empires,” but the historical record doesn’t live up to the hype. Britain had precisely one “catastrophic military venture” in Afghanistan. That was the invasion of Afghanistan in 1938, which culminated in the massacre of the British column on the retreat from Kabul in January 1842. More than 15,000 people — mostly camp followers and Indian sepoys, but also including some 700 Europeans — were wiped out by Afghan raiders and the bitter cold. But that was hardly the end of the story. An Army of Retribution soon came marching through the Khyber Pass. British soldiers briefly occupied Kabul and destroyed its Great Bazaar along with much else as an act of vengeance.
In 1878, another British army marched into Afghanistan and after some setbacks managed to emerge with what the British government wanted: a treaty that in effect made Afghanistan a British protectorate. Afghan foreign policy would henceforward be under British control and Afghanistan would become a buffer state between the British and Russian empires. That arrangement lasted until 1919, when following another brief uprising (the Third Afghan War), the British finally let Afghanistan go its own way — a move that had no detrimental impact on British security.
Was Afghanistan a nuisance to Britain in the nineteenth century? Certainly. Did Britain suffer a military catastrophe there? Yes. But that is far from saying that Afghanistan was the graveyard of the British empire or a place where the Brits were constantly defeated. That would be like saying that the United States had a history of “catastrophic military ventures” against the Native Americans because of the defeat suffered by Custer at the Little Bighorn or by General Arthur St. Clair in Ohio in 1791. Those were certainly serious setbacks (the Ohio defeat — little remembered today — was actually far more costly than Custer’s Last Stand) but they did not represent the entirety of the Indian Wars which, as we know, ended in a victory for the United States, not for the Sioux and Cheyenne.
Afghanistan is without doubt an extremely challenging place to fight in, and British, American, and other NATO troops have their hands full today with the Taliban and other enemies. But let’s not exaggerate the scope of the threat either today or in the past.
Why don’t you ask the people on Medicare(Socialized Medicine) how miserable are they?,and then tell them that to put them out of their misery,you’re going to replace their Medicare with a solid private health policy,say,from Kaiser Permanente? And,let’s post their medical benefits to the stock market.
My friend works full time in UK and has full medical benefits there, but she is still paying for private insurance in the US, because that is where she will go if she really needs help. She knows the difference first hand.
The left believes in socialized medicine because the pain — health care rationing, inefficiencies, poor services, etc. — is shared equally. In Britain limits are even placed on what private care is available so that the wealthy can’t wriggle off the hook — unless the travel to the U.S. for treatment.
Punch-drunk Obama knows better.
Someone should ask Natasha Richardson how satisfied she is with Canadian health care.
Oops, sorry, you can’t ask her.
Apparently, with free health care, you get what you pay for, and in her case it was worthless.
It’s not an equal system now. Teddy Kennedy gets the kind of treatment only a few receive.
Under socialized medicine, the Teddy Kennedys of this country will still get better care.
The uninsured who go to emergency room will like that a lot better than when they’re sent to their neighborhood clinics.
BTW, people with medicare generally have private insurance as well. It’s the law.
#5,
Is there any evidence anything could have been done for her that would have saved her life that was not done by Canadian doctors? I doubt that is a good example to use against Canadian health care.
Great list, I’ve always wondered why it’s so important to change the fundamentals of one of the world’s best health care delivery systems. I don’t understand why my doctor and I can’t cooperate to build a relationship that works for both of us better than some bureaucrat who lives clear across the country.
Here’s my prescription for a IMPROVING our already excellent healthcare system.
1) Stop elective abortion for all cases but the very rare cases where the mother will suffer death or physical disability. This will save 50 million lives over the next 40 years. Yes, this means stopping deliberately jamming scissors through the baby’s skull during delivery, aka, “partial-birth abortion. That doesn’t improve anyone’s health outcome.
2) Take euthanasia, aka, “death with dignity” and “assisted suicide” ala Oregon and Washington state’s current programs, off the table. That doesn’t save anyone, is very sordid business, and is a Pandora’s box which should never have been opened. Think intelligent, 27-year-old woman with anorexia nervosa and anxiety disorder put out of her “misery” by a Dutch physician.
3) Allow some non-physician healthcare providers to start taking on some tasks currently reserved for physicians. Train and then allow psychologists and Social workers with counseling certificates to prescribe anti-depressant medications under defined conditions. Allow pharmacists with advanced training to prescribe some medications, such as anti-biotics for bladder infections. Perhaps these could start as the right to “re-prescribe” for patients who have had this prescription for a recurring condition. Pharmacists have PhD’s in pharmacology, and know much more about medications than your average physician. Allow people to see physical therapists as their first point of contact for an obvious muscular-skeletal condition. Again, many PT’s have PhD’s in diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal injuries, which is much more than the average M.D. or D.O. The point of this program would be to decrease barriers to getting these services.
4) Have a pathway that allows people to graduate through a series of competencies that would serve as an alternative to medicals schools. This would be a nursing pathway that would allow people to move from LPN to RN to Physician’s Assistant to Nurse Practitioner to something even more physician-like. Heck, it could be a specialized doctorate program for people who’d already demonstrated excellence in the nursing field for 15 or 20 years. We already have the basics of this pathway in place (albeit with very limited number of schools to support it,) and it would potentially allow us to give people cheaper access to some health services, and possibly make access easier in rural areas. We could basically increase the number of people providing healthcare by expanding the number of high schools with LPN programs, and then build a common pathway through many university systems that would allow people to progress to a well-trained healthcare provider who can operate in a physician-like role, but hopefully at a reduced cost.
5) Always keep in mind that the healthcare system we have in place is a very good one, that most people in this country have access to good medical care. It boggles my mind when we have a mediocre attorney show up on the political scene and claim that he can “fix” healthcare. If President Obama was so smart, he would have been a successful attorney. As is, he’s a failed attorney who claims he knows how to fix healthcare. Newsflash Mr. President, the healthcare system is a very complex system that has evolved to deal with an extremely complex set of challenges on a massive scale. It is not something that mediocre or failed attorney should expect to successfully reconstruct in a few years time.
The problem with our healthcare system isn’t the quality of care, it’s access to preventative care, and compensation for the medical healthcare system.
I can have no insurance, get in a terrible accident, go to an ER and receive excellent care and end up in bankruptcy with the hospital not receiving compensation, me losing my home, or both. In either case, I would still have excellent care, the problem is the post facto cost of the care.
There isn’t a free solution to this problem.
As far as access to preventative medicine, or low cost treatments, e.g. finding out if your son who fell out of the apple tree broke his arm or not, or treating a bladder infection, I think we do have efficient improvements that we could make. Not free, but cheaper than the current system. These alternatives could be built in such a way as to continue the overall level of excellence in delivery that, generally speaking, characterizes our healthcare delivery system.
Sure, let’s play “list.”
Per Rasmussen:
63% of votes support affordable health care for every single American
Only 29% give the US system good or excellent ratings
Almost half say health care should be free for all Amerians.
Almost two thirds says the US healthcare system needs major changes.
Per Fromma Harrop on Rasmussen:
“The Business Roundtable has found some remarkable disparities in health-care spending and quality between the United States and four other leading industrial democracies (France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom).
1) The Group of Five’s employers and workers spend 63 percent of what the United States does on health care.
2) American workers are 10 percent less healthy than the G-5 average.
A most amazing number is $8,000. That’s a recent estimate of how much America spends on health care for every man, woman and child a year. It is twice the average of other rich countries. And the $8,000 includes the 47 million Americans with no insurance. The other nations cover everyone.”
On the issue of healthcare, Republicans don’t stand a chance. Nothing has eaten into the middle classes standard of living more in recent years than the costs of health care. And, typically, you have no new ideas. Tax credits anyone? Litigation reform? Let’s see how your brain-dead oldies play in this debate.
#6: “Teddy Kennedy gets the kind of treatment only a few receive.”
So does John Boehner. But only one of them gives a damn about the uninsured.
RCAR, was interrupted during our conversationh here the other day, and didn’t have a chance to thank you for your posts. Thanks. -MiP
Re #10: per Rasmussen: “Almost half say healthcare should be free for all Americans.”
How on earth was this not 100%? I’d like free healthcare, free automobiles, free housing, free food, free college, and free internet. Don’t I have a right food, shelter, medical care, free transportation, and free education?? And when I say free automobiles, I mean two, because no American should have to live with the fear of not having a back-up vehicle should the first one not work properly.
BTW, when people agreed with the statement that they would like “major change” in the healthcare system, did they specify what that change was? Was it Obama’s plan for bureaucratic, inefficient state-run healthcare? Or did they mean we should get rid of abortion? The devil is in the details.
Saying that people want change is not the same as saying they want anything to do with Obama’s actual policies. If he had a mandate, he could have told us what he planned to do, rather than obfuscate, mislead and appeal to the very vague “Hope,” “Change” and the higly specific, “making things better” slogans.
Michael,
What does that all mean. How does the 63% define “affordable” health care? Based on the trend of the last election, if they pay anything, many people consider that “too much”. People expect to pay more for repair of the car in an accident than they expect to pay for medical care.
Similarly, what basis of comparison do people have to deteermine whether our system is good or excellent? The vast majority have never experienced anotheer system, so their judgement of quality is meaningless.
I think your third statistic covers it all…everything should be FREE! If you had put that at the top of your list, there would be no need for your other statistics. Since about half of the people pay no income tax, why shouldn’t they believe everything should be FREE? I suspect the demographic breakdown of your statistics would correlate highly with people’s income tax burden.
Why wouldn’t 60+% believe we need major changes when 50% think it should be provided FREE?
Your defense of radical changes to our system are based on wishful thinking, not facts that Dr. Atlas based his article on.
Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. – Mark Twain
One of the problems with creating socialized medicine in America is that it will cut off the much needed medical care that people from countries with socialized medicine come here to receive. Seattle Hospitals, for example, have no shortage of Canadian patients who are getting the knee replacements that they needed, but couldn’t get under their own socialized medical system. They have to travel hundreds of miles and pay out of pocket here to receive the medical care which anonymous bureaucrats, acting on committees, have decided they don’t need. They also have to cross the border to get something as simple as physical therapy, which again, government bureaucrats say they don’t need. Where will these people go for their necessary healthcare if we adapt a similarly inflexible and bureaucratic healthcare system.
There’s an economic angle to this as well. If we move to a Canadian style system, we lose healthcare as an “export” income generator. Right now, citizens of countries with socialized medicine are willing to pay American individuals and corporations out of pocket for their healthcare. That generates money for the American economy.
I wonder why I don’t hear Conservatives complain of the power that insurance companies have to practice medicine without a liscense,to disrupt the patient-doctor relationship with their intrusions,and finally,to arbitrarily,not make payment on legitimate claims as a general practice.
#10 is the key fact. Innovation exists in the private sector. Sceloris is the result of government-run enterprises. What the Michael Moore’s of the world fail to realize is that to the extent the socialist programs deliver decent medical care, that care is largely attributable to the developments and innovation from the private sector. For example, people boast of Canada’s great deals on life-saving drugs without noting that the drugs were developed – and paid for – here. Without our market, the drugs would never have been developed – or at least not all of them.
Government creates nothing and is parasitic by nature. Remove the private sector and our medical care will become frozen in time with as many steps back as forward. Hoping for a cure for what ails you or your loved one? If it doesn’t exist when Obama gets his way, your odds just became very long indeed.
16 I don’ think that anyone thinks we have a perfect system. If you really want to complain you can complain about why we can’t take our health plans which we like from one job to another, why it is that we can’t put all our information on a smart chip to carry around, why doctors, hospitals, labs etc each have their own stupid billing systems that don’t communicate with other billing systems. Interesting that health care and health insurance are two of the most heavily regulated industries by governments state and federal – - next to the financial industry that is. Funny that. We don’t have a free market for health care – -its one that government has meddled in and it shows.
RE: #16 “I wonder why I don’t hear Conservatives complain of the power that insurance companies…. I wonder why I don’t hear Conservatives complain of the power that insurance companies.”
Might I suggest that it’s because you don’t hang out with conservatives often enough? Those are legitimate complaints. However, if my insurance company pulls those stunts, I have options right now. I can move to a different system or take them to court. If we remove the insurance companies and replace them with government bureaucracy, I don’t have access to those options. I’m stuck with what the bureaucrats decided, and there’s not much of a chance to go elsewhere or take it to a court of appeal. I guess there would always be Mexico, India, and Thailand, if the government prevents me from receiving medical care.
Nothing would interfere with the doctor-patient relationship on such a massive scale as putting the healthcare system under the complete control of the federal government.
It will be the same with health care as with everything else. We’ll get “change,” and then people will realize how good what they used to have was. It’s already happened with our quality of life. Only now are people recognizing how good they had it under the trickle-down economy — before “change we can believe in” came to power.
This fascinating paragraph is another wonderful example of demagogic argument:
“A most amazing number is $8,000. That’s a recent estimate of how much America spends on health care for every man, woman and child a year. It is twice the average of other rich countries. And the $8,000 includes the 47 million Americans with no insurance. The other nations cover everyone.”
This paragraph actually means the opposite of what it is intended to. The wording appears intended to make us think it costs twice as much to get the same health care in the USA, but of course, it doesn’t. The other populations get only $4K worth of health care per person each year. That’s what they get, because that’s what national health care is budgeted for. If they need more than that — they wait.
Moreover, the uninsured Americans are not, of course, being denied treatment. That $8K per American per year applies to them as well: they are recipients of it, they just don’t pay for it with insurance premiums. Some of them pay part of it in other ways — taxes — and others pay nothing at all. But they get the average $8K worth of care when they need it.
The patients of national health care don’t. They get the average $4K worth. Period.
#10.
It is amazing that only half of Americans want free health care. I personally want excellent free health care, excellent free education for my children (similar Obama’s kids get), free food (including that infamous steaks Obama serves to his guests), free clothes, designer’s highly preferred, and throw in free diamond ring please, more karats the better. Trust me, I “deserve” all this.
@21
I have often wondered whether these figures take into account the administrative costs that the governments delivering health care incur vs the administrative overhead of our insurance companies. There are obviously inefficiencies in both systems. Conservative intuition would lead one to believe that the government management of ANYTHING is far more inefficient than private sector management. Just go to get your drivers license renewed or look at the way Medicare/Medicaid talk about waste and fraud. If the $8000 dollar figure includes insurance overhead but the $4000 dollar figure does not include government overhead it really isn’t an apples to apples comparison. Also if$4000 is what is budgeted for the government agency – -that is an entirely different figure as to the amount of care actually delivered. I tend to go with the aphorism “We have the worst possible health care system — except for all the rest”.
“However, if my insurance company pulls those stunts, I have options right now. I can move to a different system or take them to court. ”
You mean you can get a different job! And since WHEN do REAL conservatives talk about taking a corporation to COURT – for PERCEIVED wrongs?
You a secret Koser?
nokarmahere — there is something to what you say, although what America has done is build very heavy, government-imposed administrative costs into the price structure of our health care industry. So part of that $8K per person IS going to excessive administrative costs. Believe me, anyone in medical practice who accepts insurance will affirm that for you. Government-mandated administrative costs, and mandated cost-shifting (between the paying and non-paying patients) account for a large portion of the cost increases in health care in the last 30 years.
But, that said, the productivity of national health care is lower than ours, so in terms of the bang you’re getting for the actual health care buck, as opposed to the adjunct administrative buck, we are getting substantially more.
21
By your logic we must have an even worse health care system than the statistics show. If, as you argue, we have twice the dollar-value of access to healthcare (and not that we receive about the same care at twice the price), and yet we still are sicker and die younger than our peer group, this system can’t be torn down fast enough.
The fact is, your “analysis” doesn’t hold water. When a comprehensive, apples to apples comparison across borders was made, using metrics like MRI scanners per capita, by the World Health Organization, the United States finished 37th in health care efficiency. Canada was 30th. France and Italy were one and two, respectively.
The information showing that socialized health care systems ration health care, do not produce medical innovations, do not deliver near the degree of specialized care available under the US system, etc is readily available. No serious person can debate these facts and statistics. Even if a person doesn’t have this information because of MSM bias, surely the average person knows government management of any service is poor from their experience with post office, IRS, social security administration. Most people will be worse off under a socialized system.
Yet we move inexorably to nationalized health care because the public wants it. And this is an action which will never be reversed. Another illustration of the failure of advanced democracies.
Michael -
Atlas extensively footnotes and sources all his reporting. You just make statements. Now who am I gonna believe??
26
On the bright side, though, our healthcare system is slightly better than Slovenia’s, which ranked 38th to our 37th.
Michael — you will have to demonstrate that (a) we are sicker and die younger than our peer group, and (b) this is because of a lack of access to health care. You can do neither.
#30 – you are right.
WHO study just attributes all life expectancy differences between populations to differences in health care. And “peer group” definition is key.
We also have a much higher homicide rate and accidental death rate the a fair amount of countries. That would factor into earlier mortality but those factors have “nothing” to do with our overall health.
30
Garbage. Of course I can prove that we are sicker and die younger than our peer group. Numerous studies have been done, all reaching the same conclusions. I mentioned a couple (eg, Business Rountable says we are 10% sicker than the Big Five average). Here’s another source: The CIA World Factbook, which ranks us 30th in longevity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
Our poor performance relative to our peers is in part attributable to the large number of people our system leaves uninsured. The uninsured don’t receive adequate preventative health care, are diagnosed with more advanced stages of disease, receive less therapeutic care once diagnosed and have higher mortality rates than the insured*. Is this what you mean by “lack of access?” Consider it proven. If not, Google it. Ther’s plent of data out there to prove that your point B is especially dense. Health care efficiency is correlated with health care coverage.
The bottom line is inescapable: Compared with our peers, we spend more, cover fewer, with poorer results. Leave your fact-free bubble, and the data is clear.
And if you want to remain in denial, it hardly matters. To the American people, this is not a close call. Change is a-coming.
*Institute of Medicine. Care Without Coverage – Too Little, Too Late. The National Academies Press, 2002.
There is a relatively decent Cato Institute publication addressing some of the weaknesses of the WHO study. Perhaps you should read it before you further arguing from it.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/html/bp101/bp101index.html
Studies aside,ANYONE who is truly ill or injured deserves medical treatment without having to go bankrupt. It’s just one of those requirements of an advanced civilization.
RCAR – okay, you may be right in some instances. However, there are a large number of people who could purchase catastrophic care insurance at a low price, but choose not to. They roll the dice, have an unexpected event which causes a hospital stay, and go bankrupt. Why shouldn’t they go bankrupt? Who says I should pay their bills? I have kids and aging parents to care for.
As another example, there are a large number of uninsured poor people who are here illegally. Am I morally responsible for their health care because they chose to cross the border illegally? If so, should I pay for the other hundreds of millions who couldn’t afford to pay smugglers and so remain in Mexico, Salvador, etc?
#24 You mean you can get a different job!
Absolutely, in fact I’m currently in the market for one, preferably with a good insurance policy. Or I can pay out of pocket. Or I can opt for a different coverage plan by a different provider, if my employer allows it. These options would most likely be unavailable under a government controlled healthcare system.
#24 “And since WHEN do REAL conservatives talk about taking a corporation to COURT – for PERCEIVED wrongs?”
As an independent, I’ll leave the expertise on conservatism to the conservatives here. In a single payer, Federal government regulated healthcare system, I don’t really have anywere to go if I have a beef over my healthcare coverage. Might as well try to change the rules at the DMV. In the current system, I can conceivably take the case to court and that creates leverage for negotiation. Not so easy to do with a government entity, probably cheaper to fly to Mexico, India or Thailand for care, assuming one would be wealthy enough to afford third world healthcare.
36
Chris Says:
March 24th, 2009 at 4:54 PM
RCAR – okay, you may be right in some instances.
You want to have a hearing with an administrative judge to decide if a truly sick or injured person gets medical care;I’ll agree to that if you agree that in the case of ill or injured children,all get taken care of. No questions asked. Golden Rule,not,those with the Gold make the rules.
RCAR — for an advocate of the gold standard, you seem to have zero appreciation of accountability. Let me put this in terms you might understand. If we peg our currency to gold — if we require that it hold a particular form of worth — it is literally impossible to enforce your desired health care situation. We would have to require some people to starve and die — but still work until their demise — to ensure that no one was ever denied health care, on your model.
Health care is going to be rationed, one way or another. Everything in life is rationed, health care included. It is more than a chimera, it is an outright lie, the proposition that government rationing it is better than people self-rationing it through millions of individual decisions.
#39,”Health care is going to be rationed, one way or another. Everything in life is rationed, health care included. It is more than a chimera, it is an outright lie, the proposition that government rationing it is better than people self-rationing it through millions of individual decisions.”
It really doesn’t matter to someone who is sick or injured and denied treatment what system denied him the treatment.
RCAR, consider the language you are using: “denied him the treatment.” You seem to assume that there is no limit to the amount and quality of medical care lying around in heaps; it’s all a matter of getting at it. But actually medical care like gold and everything else is in limited supply. Our problem is how we can organize its use so as to increase the supply and the quality to the max.
It’s tempting to treat medical care as a static “pie” waiting to be divided up. But as soon as we do that we admit that we don’t have “enough” now, even though we currently supply both therapies and actual care in large quantities to the rest of the world. (Why do they come here instead of to Slovenia???) What fuels the development of new therapies and diagnostics and improved care (that includes less expensive care) is competition among providers and choice among consumers. We have a lot of limits on both of those. However, a single-payer government system severely constrains both. We should be looking to cut back the current limits, including requirements on coverage for insurers, tax-deductability for businesses but not for individuals, and many regulations on care providers.
Consider the single-payer education we now have in secondary education, with a failure rate of about 25% (as high as 65% for some people). But it’s free for everyone!
#41,
Good points,Mmargo.
Medical litigation is the big problem.
Say what you like about the Canadian health care system, and granted there’s plenty to criticize, especially the long waits for certain treatments, but here’s an uncomfortable fact from the Wikipedia site on life expectancy by country: Canada 80.34 years (women); 76.98 (men) — 10th in the world. United States 78.06 (women); 75.15 (men) — 30th in the world. We don’t all shoot down across the border for medical care — in fact, I don’t know of anyone who has ever done such a thing and I’ve lived most of my life within a 90-minute drive of US hospitals. And to those who blame the Canadian health care system for the death of Natasha Richardson, let me say that is a complete load of ess-aych-one-tee. She falls down in slushy snow on a bunny slope and dies? Gimme a break. That sounds like a genetic disability to me.
Three largest employers in the world:
#1. Communist Chinese Army
#2. Indian National Railway System
#3. National Health Service, United Kingdom
If fundamental changes to health care are required, ostensibly because the cost of health care is more than many can handle, why don’t we have nationalized legal coverage? A small legal issue can cost a fortune and scads of people go broke every day over legal expenses. And legal action doesn’t always have a “no play” option. Lets go for nationalized, single payer legal coverage.
Chuck: Re: post #46, numbers and sources, please. And how many people are employed in the U.S. health care sector? Number or per capita in comparison with the U.K. Not saying your point isn’t well taken, but we may as well compare apples with apples here, so we know you’re dealing in facts, not polemics.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1050197.ece
A case in point. I have a friend in the UK who was injured after a rugby match, he was pushed down a flight of stairs. (Side note, who knew? Drunken hooligans at a Liverpool rugby match? Zounds!) The intrepid UK medical program told him it would be a 6 month wait to fix 3 cracked teeth and to pull and replace 2 others. He flew to Romania and had it done over a weekend and went back to work the following week.
The day I want Nancy Pelosi deciding anything more important than what color scarf to wear is the day I want euthanasia to be a national policy.
J.E.D
You make all the logical arguments about the cost of “free” medicine, butsomeone like b/44 offers this teleprompter answer to another commenter:
“#6: ‘Teddy Kennedy gets the kind of treatment only a few receive.’
“So does John Boehner. But only one of them gives a damn about the uninsured.”
Sigh, with Liberals, results don’t matter; what matters is feelings, & what Teddy says, not that he went from Mass to the Carolinas for HIS treatment or what the Canadian Parliamentarian does about her cancer, you know, the one who went to UCLA when SHE got her diagnosis.
A few years ago, a friend, who must’ve weighed 400 lbs, no exaggeration, & whose diet consisted of caramels all day + beer, needed a heart by-pass, apparently immediately, which he got. A few years later, at dinner one evening we were arguing about U. K & Canadian medical care & he told me that his care would’ve been free, not subject to “R&C” & deductibles & only 80% payment from the major medical part of his plan. I suggested to him that he’d have been dead in Canada before he was eligible for his operation there after they triaged him in his condition. Ten thousand yard stare. Wife said: “not true”. My wife kicked me under the dinner table. Other guests kept silent. He kept it up, saying that he “wanted everyone to be able to get the treatment he got even the least of his brethren.” Good grief, pompous ass quoting the Bible. I said that I was glad that Jesus had blessed socialized medicine, but even he, in all his majesty couldn’t make it work without rationing, & that my friend wouldn’t be first on line. Other dinner guests clearing their throats someone saying “how ‘bout them Mets” or something. Just as well; I wanted to tell him that while it was generally good to, er, take the Bible to heart, especially Matt XXV, 31-46, nevertheless, here on earth, the least of his brethren would have gotten any major treatment before he did, he being the most of the brethren in virtually every case, but I forbore. You might as well also.
So America’s health care system sucks, but it doesn’t suck as hard as those of other industrialized* countries? Great news.
Now I cant even be complacent about that, because our Obamessiah and his Archangel Michael want to drag our health care down to the level of Europe’s and Canada’s.
*Last time I checked, most of our personal possessions were manufactured in dumps like China, Mauritania, Turkey, and Malaysia rather than America, Europe or Canada.
You folks miss the obvious point. Socialized medicine isn’t about ‘access to health care’. You don’t have that problem now. It is about controlling costs.
Here is the reality. A friend moved to one of the major canadian cities. His wife got pregnant. Guess how long she had to wait before she could see a GP? 18 months. Gee whiz. Maybe there should be a government commission about that.
An acquaintance was walking and had chest pains. Went to see a doctor, did stress test. How long before he got a diagnosis and treatment? 6 months.
I can go on and on.
Answer this question honestly: why does having 2 year waiting lists for hip replacements (that is what it is in BC. 2 years) save money? Why does having heart patients wait 6 months for diagnosis save money?
There are problems in the US, no doubt. Insurance companies are heartless, sure.
Right now, if I injure my knee playing sports or something, I am better off financially going into the US and paying for the operation than missing work for 2 years waiting for treatment here. And it is illegal, yes you read that right, illegal for me to purchase insurance to cover that eventuality.
The political reality with health care, the clearest and most urgent reason why it must not be done by government, is that healthy people pay, sick people benefit. Healthy people make up the vast majority of the voter population, sick people are the minority. So you can in a democracy kill sick people by neglect and get political support to remain in power. See Canada for an example of such perversity.
If you dispute that point, answer the questions I asked.
Derek
dkite – “it is illegal, yes you read that right, illegal for me to purchase insurance to cover that eventuality.”
Great post.
I’m curious – What does the Can govt give as the reason for making insurance for overseas treatment illegal?
Trolls like Michael spam this board with pasted talking points and meaningless statistics because that’s what trolls do. They also ignore thorough refutations of their regurgitated arguments. As others here have pointed out, American health and longevity figures have not been reduced more than those of our “peers’” (in their dreams,) because of poor health care. (NB Barry take note.)
I would add that Mongolians/Asians and Whites enjoy substantially greater health and/or longevity rates than other races do. Our “peer” countries all have much larger Mongolian/Asian and White majorities than America does. America is hands down the most multiracial country in the world. Not Japan, Singapore, Canada, Australia, or a single country in Europe even come close.
The cherry picked WHO study that Michael plagiarized from some moonbat website ranks the life expectancy rate of all countries with majority races other than Mongolian/Asian or White below that of America–usually far, far, FAR below.
Races other than Mongolians/Asians and Whites suffer from lower health and longevity rates even when they live in developed countries with high overall rates.
The countries with which have higher health and/or longevity rates than America (Greece, Malta, Andorra, Italy, Canada, Australia, Japan, et al,) do not have better health care systems, and they do not even lead healthier lifestyles in many cases. Their high rates are caused by genetics, pure and simple.
Lifestyle choices like diet and exercise definitely play a part to a lesser extent, as in places like Japan and some European countries.
Most Mongolian/Asian countries have lousy health care and/or inimical environments, which is why developed countries like Japan and Singapore are among the only ones to enjoy high health and longevity rates.
As usual, the left’s take on the subject is based on emotion rather than facts.
dkite,
I’m not sure I understand your point. How are socialized health care systems concerned with controlling costs? I thought the sky was the limit with Marxists?
Nothing but completely phony Hoover “Institute” propaganda.
This article and many of the comments on here are in denial.
The article is failing in various aspects by cherry picking comparision on individual elements against single countries.
The facts are that the US ranks behind all other develloped nations in the Worl health organization raking.
The main issue is that health care isn’t accessible to everyone in the US and that it cost much more than in any other countries (Due to the cost of medical studies, the exessive power of drug companies in making their own prices and the tendency to take doctors to court when things go wrong).
True when you can get it, US health care is good, but it still falls behind many other develloped countries for infant death rates, reduction of preventable deaths, life expectancy.
Other develloped countries have given their government more control on how healthcare is available to the public and as a result have offered better access to medical care and controlled medical costs.
Socialised medecine doesn’t spell s.o.c.i.a.l.i.s.t
If you take for example France, it ranks first for the quality of healthcare (in the World health organization’s ranking) and provides universal access to health care. The sicker or more injured you are the less you pay. The cost for each individuals is minimal and medications prices are controled.
But this is no socialist heaven, healthcare in France rest on predominantly private pratictioners (hospitals, doctors…). The state only controls the universal cover system which guaranties healthcare to every single french citizen, and it also control the cost of healthcare. It is not done in a dictatorial way, but in concertation with workers unions, employers unions, drug companies, healthcare practitioners.
If a country like the US wanted to provide a similar universal access and control of costs, it could do that very easily and would on the long term save a lot of money (how much does a sick person contribute to a country’s wealth if it can’t be healed?).
But to achieve this you must drop your entrenched political views and accept that it’s a matter of moral and social justice before all.
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