Study Finds that U.S. Healthcare Consistently Underperforms

[Plane]

The US government being  in charge of health care for Americans may not be the same situation as the government of France being in charge of health care for the French.


If ,after the US government assumes responsibility for Health care , they do the job no better than they manage water projects, would that be ironic or predictable?

If the government of France runs low on cash available for health care and begins to ration care in a displeasing manner just as we begin to emulate them would that be Irony or not?

If the number of foreigners  who come to the US to practice medicine and the number of foreigners who come here to have Medicine practiced on them is any indication , then there is some advantage to our system that some people can perceive.

Who exactly are the underserved?

[Michael Tee]

<<It was the second definition in the American Heritage Dictionary.>>

Out of how many entries?

<<...73 percent [of the Usage Panel] accepted the sentence Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market, where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency.>>

I'm not sure why this isn't the same as sirs' use of the term, but I have a gut feeling there's a difference.  For one thing, the example provides a current of underlying hypocrisy or false pretension - - the government, which supposedly represents the people, is cussing out the Americans while the people themselves are avidly buying into American culture.  If the government does in fact represent the people, this would indicate a two-faced and hypocritical nation, denouncing America while buying into it at the same time.  More than likely, it indicates that the government does NOT represent the people.  The people have no beef with America but their government, which supposedly represents them but obviously doesn't, is busy denouncing America.

The irony is akin to the first definition in the dictionary, words which taken literally are at odds with a reality which the audience understands.  "In the name of the [Romanian? Hungarian? Chinese?] nation, we pronounce anathema upon America" while at the same time the "real" Romanian or whatever nation is snapping up everything American it can get its hands on.  To have irony, the government speaking has to genuinely believe that it speaks for the nation and the irony lies in the fact that the nation's own actions clearly belie the idea that the government is speaking for it.

Translated to sirs' example, sirs would have to possess a genuine faith in poll results, and then it would be ironic that someone who believes in polls nevertheless acts as if he didn't accept the results.  In fact the polls have no effect at all on sirs because sirs is a True Believer in capitalist bullshit - - to someone who "thinks" like sirs, state-run anything (health-care of course included) MUST be ten thousand times inferior to privately-run anything, polls or no polls.  So there's nothing ironic in sirs' ignoring the poll because his mind was already made up anyway.  The polls couldn't possibly have influenced him.

[sirs]

<<One of the definitions of irony is "an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.">>

I wouldn't expect sirs to have enough sense to come in out of the rain in a thunderstorm, so I wouldn't expect him to avail himself of socialized medicine if every study in the world showed it to be superior in every respect to private health care, so there is nothing at all ironic in sirs' declaration, even using the obscure definition of "irony" that you pulled out of fifth place in the dictionary.

The problem to that egregiously flawed theory, is that study after study that I've seen, not to mention the practical applications I'm intimately aware of being a healthcare provider demonstrates nothing even remotely approaching superior in ANY respect, outside of providing one peace of mind that "everyone is covered"  Damn the repercussions, but at least "everyone is covered"

[Amianthus]

Out of how many entries?

Four.

I'm not sure why this isn't the same as sirs' use of the term, but I have a gut feeling there's a difference.

I have a gut feeling that it's not.

[Michael Tee]

<<The problem to that egregiously flawed theory, is that study after study that I've seen, not to mention the practical applications I'm intimately aware of being a healthcare provider demonstrates nothing even remotely approaching superior in ANY respect, outside of providing one peace of mind that "everyone is covered"  Damn the repercussions, but at least "everyone is covered">>

Well, in the first place, my remarks were hypothetical, so there's nothing at all "egregiously flawed" about my theory, which isn't to say that it might or might not be true.  It has no "egregious" flaw in it and you have not pointed out any.  Even if you saw 10,000 studies all supporting the superiority of private health care, my theory started with the hypothesis "IF every study in the world showed . . . "

Have you ever read another study as detailed as the Romanow Report?  And what about the study at the top of this thread? You say you've seen "study after study" but how many studies are you actually referring to, and were they conducted by or on behalf of parties with a vested interest in the status quo?

[sirs]

<<The problem to that egregiously flawed theory, is that study after study that I've seen, not to mention the practical applications I'm intimately aware of being a healthcare provider demonstrates nothing even remotely approaching superior in ANY respect, outside of providing one peace of mind that "everyone is covered"  Damn the repercussions, but at least "everyone is covered">>

Well, in the first place, my remarks were hypothetical,

Yea, I knew that.  Point was, REALITY demonstrates studies that debunk much of the nonsense of how great Federally run UHC is supposed to be.  It's bovine excrement to think folks like Soros, Gates, Spielberg, and Limbaugh need to be covered with health insurance by MY tax dollars

so there's nothing at all "egregiously flawed" about my theory,

Of course there is, because not only hypothetically, but realistically your position is "egregiously flawed"

Have you ever read another study as detailed as the Romanow Report? 

Have you read any studies from the CATO institute

And what about the study at the top of this thread?

What about it?  I never said the American Health Care system was perfect.  Far from it, and MADE WORSE by ever increasing Federal intervention, waste, & bureacracy.  Apparently there's this drive to make our healthcare system as bad as our Public Education system     

[_JS]

In Noel Coward's Oscar-winning Cavalcade, extremely happy honeymooners wonder how long their joy will last. The camera pulls back to reveal a life preserver stenciled ?RMS Titanic.?

Now, that is irony.

What Ami describes is simply incongruity or as I told Sirs - counterintuitive. Perhaps in sloppy English dialogue "irony" has become a synonym for "incongruity" but that really just destroys the literary meaning of the word.

Ironically, Sirs chooses a rotten apple over the many good apples available.

See, that's not irony at all. Misfortune perhaps. Counterintuitive perhaps.

But not irony, Alanis.

Regardless, the article I posted was a serious article on the underperformance of the most expensive healthcare system in the world. Quite simply put, the Europeans and Canadians do it better and for less money, including less administrative costs.

[Michael Tee]

<<It's bovine excrement to think folks like Soros, Gates, Spielberg, and Limbaugh need to be covered with health insurance by MY tax dollars>>

That's a totally bogus argument.  Soros is no more covered by YOUR tax dollars than you are by his.  All the tax revenues are pooled.  The real issue is whether there should be universality of coverage or a means test.  In the long run, the cost of applying a means test to weed out the relatively small portion of those who can afford the procedure is greater than the savings that would be realized by cutting them off.
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<<Of course there is [something egregiously flawed about your theory] because not only hypothetically, but realistically your positionis "egregiously flawed">>

Since my theory was ONLY expressed as a hypothetical, it could neither be flawed nor supported by anything in the real world.  There
is no known way to evaluate the "truth" or "falsity" of a hypothesis, because it's not MEANT to be a representation of the real world.
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Question (by MT)  <<Have you ever read another study as detailed as the Romanow Report? >>

"Answer" by sirs:  <<Have you read any studies from the CATO institute?>>

No comment necessary. 
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<<What about [the study at the top of this thread?]  I never said the American Health Care system was perfect.  >>

That is a typical sirs evasion.  The study had absolutely NOTHING to do with the non-issue of whether the American health-care system was perfect or not.  The study made careful comparisons between objectively-measured benchmarks of the American health-care system and found them all to be inferior to the performances of the systems of five other countries.  Obviously, sirs has no answer to that.
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<< . . . and MADE WORSE by ever increasing Federal intervention, waste, & bureacracy. >>

and the evidence for that is . . . ?
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<< Apparently there's this drive to make our healthcare system as bad as our Public Education system >>

Oh, yes.  By the America-haters, undoubtedly.

[_JS]

Sirs, often uses the Soros, Gates, et al argument. He constantly brings it up to me in any argument on healthcare. Note that he never brings up the multitude of poor and low income folks who would be covered by universal health coverage. Nor does he ever discuss the businesses that very much enjoy that burden being lifted from their backs.

[Michael Tee]

<<If, after the US government assumes responsibility for Health care , they do the job no better than they manage water projects, would that be ironic or predictable?>>

We can't say, at this point we have no way of knowing how well the U.S. government does on water management; for examples, were the failures of the system unavoidable or preventable?  And if the failures were avoidable, would underfunding have been a significant cause of failure, and are the costs of that failure worth the pain of a tax increase to ensure that it doesn't happen again or not?

Do you have any reason to believe that the U.S. government would be any worse at managing health care than the governments of Canada or any of the other countries in the survey, which by virtually all objectively measured benchmarks had out-performed the U.S. system and at a lower per-capita cost?  And if you DO believe that the U.S. government would be worse than all those other governments at managing health-care, to what cause would you attribute such inferiority?

<<If the government of France runs low on cash available for health care and begins to ration care in a displeasing manner just as we begin to emulate them would that be Irony or not?>>

What would really be ironic would be to find that after years of disrespecting the French, Americans were to find that their government was no better at managing its money than the French government.  And doubly ironic that despite the French inability to manage their cash more efficiently, they had STILL managed to deliver more effective health care to their population than the Americans had to theirs, and at a lower per capita cost.

<<If the number of foreigners  who come to the US to practice medicine and the number of foreigners who come here to have Medicine practiced on them is any indication , then there is some advantage to our system that some people can perceive.>>

No, because there are no comparative figures on people who go elsewhere for medical treatment.  Mexico, India and Cuba come to mind.  People come to Canada for treatment. 

There are many factors that influence medical tourism, cost, accessibility, advertising, promotion, proximity, shopping opportunities, patient sophistication,presence or absence of family members, etc. 

I think for quality of care delivered, a survey which studies the actual care provided and then reports is more reliable than raw numbers of who goes where for treatment.  That's just silliness and "wishing away" on your part, plane.  A survey specifically examines quality of care and you don't like the results.  So you grasp at straws - - how many people come to the U.S. for treatment.  You want to do your own survey so you pick a measurement standard that you think will deliver results to you that you want to see.  And ignore the survey that actually studies the very questions that need to be answered.  Shoddy thinking, my friend.  Doubly shoddy because you haven't even got the comparative figures for medical tourism and you never took into account any of the factors other than quality of care which could affect medical tourism numbers.

<<Who exactly are the underserved?>>

That's easy.  Pick any benchmark in the survey.  Where does the U.S. stand and what's the average score for the other countries surveyed?  The percentage by which the U.S. fails to meet the average benchmark status of the other countries in the survey, applied to the general population of the U.S., should give you a rough idea of who the underserved are.  If for example the benchmark is how many residents make it to age 90, and it's 50% in the U.S.A. and 60% average in the other countries surveyed, than the underserved, for making it to age 90 in the U.S., would be 10% of the U.S. population.  (Hypothetical figures used for the example)

[sirs]

Sirs, often uses the Soros, Gates, et al argument. He constantly brings it up to me in any argument on healthcare. Note that he never brings up the multitude of poor and low income folks who would be covered by universal health coverage. Nor does he ever discuss the businesses that very much enjoy that burden being lifted from their backs.

a) it's brought up to show just another validation of how idiotic (well intentioned, yes, but idiotic all the same) to the mindset that "well, at least everyone's covered", is

b) poor and low income folks are already covered for emergencies, not to mention the centuries we've had were EVERYONE, not just "the poor and low income folks) had to take care of their own healthcare needs

c) It's NOT the duty of businesses to provide healthcare.  Never has been.  What it has always been is a benefit for working at x company or y busniess.  See, this is where your rhetoric really falls off the tracks.  It's here where your message of good intentions mutates into a message of how healthcare is some proverbial right.  It's NOT.  Someone else's resource is not YOUR right to have.  Just because it sounds good "everyone should be covered", doesn't make it a right, nor does it deal with the exponential repercussions of such a system applied to an already increasing mess made largely by Federal intervention

[Plane]

<<If, after the US government assumes responsibility for Health care , they do the job no better than they manage water projects, would that be ironic or predictable?>>

We can't say, at this point we have no way of knowing how well the U.S. government does on water management; for examples, were the failures of the system unavoidable or preventable?  And if the failures were avoidable, would underfunding have been a significant cause of failure, and are the costs of that failure worth the pain of a tax increase to ensure that it doesn't happen again or not?

Do you have any reason to believe that the U.S. government would be any worse at managing health care than the governments of Canada or any of the other countries in the survey, which by virtually all objectively measured benchmarks had out-performed the U.S. system and at a lower per-capita cost?  And if you DO believe that the U.S. government would be worse than all those other governments at managing health-care, to what cause would you attribute such inferiority?


\\\\\\\\\\\\\I am a Civil Servant myself. The Civil Service is not as bad as it used to be because we are being more competed against , I remember the days when we had  no alternatives and all of our jobs were sinctures.Priviateization has helped the public get its moneys worth and helped us get our act together.//////////////////

<<If the government of France runs low on cash available for health care and begins to ration care in a displeasing manner just as we begin to emulate them would that be Irony or not?>>

What would really be ironic would be to find that after years of disrespecting the French, Americans were to find that their government was no better at managing its money than the French government.  And doubly ironic that despite the French inability to manage their cash more efficiently, they had STILL managed to deliver more effective health care to their population than the Americans had to theirs, and at a lower per capita cost.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\I have heard several good things about the French system , my point was that their competance doesn't prove ours .///////////////


<<If the number of foreigners  who come to the US to practice medicine and the number of foreigners who come here to have Medicine practiced on them is any indication , then there is some advantage to our system that some people can perceive.>>

No, because there are no comparative figures on people who go elsewhere for medical treatment.  Mexico, India and Cuba come to mind.  People come to Canada for treatment. 

There are many factors that influence medical tourism, cost, accessibility, advertising, promotion, proximity, shopping opportunities, patient sophistication,presence or absence of family members, etc. 

I think for quality of care delivered, a survey which studies the actual care provided and then reports is more reliable than raw numbers of who goes where for treatment.  That's just silliness and "wishing away" on your part, plane.  A survey specifically examines quality of care and you don't like the results.  So you grasp at straws - - how many people come to the U.S. for treatment.  You want to do your own survey so you pick a measurement standard that you think will deliver results to you that you want to see.  And ignore the survey that actually studies the very questions that need to be answered.  Shoddy thinking, my friend.  Doubly shoddy because you haven't even got the comparative figures for medical tourism and you never took into account any of the factors other than quality of care which could affect medical tourism numbers.


      \\\\\\\\\ There are Americans who travel to have procedures unavailible in the US or procedures forbidden here , but I am unaware of any traveling for the reson of cost.////////////

<<Who exactly are the underserved?>>

That's easy.  Pick any benchmark in the survey.  Where does the U.S. stand and what's the average score for the other countries surveyed?  The percentage by which the U.S. fails to meet the average benchmark status of the other countries in the survey, applied to the general population of the U.S., should give you a rough idea of who the underserved are.  If for example the benchmark is how many residents make it to age 90, and it's 50% in the U.S.A. and 60% average in the other countries surveyed, than the underserved, for making it to age 90 in the U.S., would be 10% of the U.S. population.  (Hypothetical figures used for the example)

   Americans drive more and skydive more on any risk factor you care to pick Americans have more freedom to be foolish , are risk factors corrected for in these surveys?  I drove 500miles Sunday which exposed me to a lot of risk especially as I drove thru Atlanta , I might live longer without the freedom to do so .

Are the Benchmarks strictly the diffrence in medical care? If not then we could already have optimum medical care and die younger anyway.

[_JS]

a) it's brought up to show just another validation of how idiotic (well intentioned, yes, but idiotic all the same) to the mindset that "well, at least everyone's covered", is

b) poor and low income folks are already covered for emergencies, not to mention the centuries we've had were EVERYONE, not just "the poor and low income folks) had to take care of their own healthcare needs

c) It's NOT the duty of businesses to provide healthcare.  Never has been.  What it has always been is a benefit for working at x company or y busniess.  See, this is where your rhetoric really falls off the tracks.  It's here where your message of good intentions mutates into a message of how healthcare is some proverbial right.  It's NOT.  Someone else's resource is not YOUR right to have.  Just because it sounds good "everyone should be covered", doesn't make it a right, nor does it deal with the exponential repercussions of such a system applied to an already increasing mess made largely by Federal intervention

A) I know of no one who claims "at least everyone is covered." Equality is what is important to me. Everyone is covered, from George Soros, to the homeless man on the street corner. I think that is wonderful. There is no "at least" to it.

B) That is quite possibly the dumbest argument I have ever heard in a plethora of really dumb arguments. Emergencies? Yes. If their child has a cleft palate? No. So their child can grow up to live a normal life? No. Not in the United States. Not in Sirs wonderful healthcare system. Why not? Because his middle class lifestyle might be encroached upon.

"not to mention the centuries we've had were EVERYONE, not just "the poor and low income folks) had to take care of their own healthcare needs"

Wow, what a powerful argument. And you know what? Once children worked in factories for 14 to 18 hours a day. Once, the meatpacking industry sent what was left of your spouse's remains to your door in a bag. Once, blacks weren't allowed to be treated in the same hospital and received second class care based only on skin color. Once, the mine owners paid their workers in script that was only redeemable at the stores run by the mine owners.

Honestly Sirs, is that really your argument? Absolutely ridiculous.

C. Welcome to reality where large businesses pay an unbelievable amount of money to private insurance companies to attract a decent workforce. You make your ivory tower comments about rights and what isn't a right, meanwhile companies look at countries where they do not incur this massive expense. Suddenly Canada and other nations look a lot better.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market, where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency.

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How is it in any way inconsistent to despise American foreign policy and simultaneously like Levis and Hollywood films?

We all (most of us, anyway) have houses filled with Chinese goods made in the PRC and yet we do not approve of the government of the PRC.

That isn't actually irony for me.

[Michael Tee]

   <<Americans drive more and skydive more on any risk factor you care to pick Americans have more freedom to be foolish , are risk factors corrected for in these surveys?  I drove 500miles Sunday which exposed me to a lot of risk especially as I drove thru Atlanta , I might live longer without the freedom to do so .>>

Now you're getting really crazy.  Longevity was only ONE benchmark, the survey had America losing on ALL benchmarks.  It's a crappy system, plane, why grasp at straws to defend it?  How do you know skydiving is more hazardous than adultery, fucking with another man's wife?  Maybe the Latin nations in the survey are living more dangerously than you are.  Maybe accidental deaths were already compensated for in the data - - these guys are not amateur pollsters.  If you have a beef with the methodology, submit it to them, at this point it remains a poll taken by experts, who probably have figured out and accounted for any factors that pure amateurs like you or I can think of.

If you are going to speculate that random and unknown polling errors could explain why American benchmarks are lower than they should be, it makes just as much sense to speculate that other random and unknown polling errors have actually boosted the American benchmarks higher than they really should be.  In the absence of any known polling errors, we have to take the poll results for what they are - - the poll, admittedly not infallible, is a good indicator until proven otherwise that American health care, when compared with other nations' health care, sucks.