The most efficient, consumer friendly health care systems aroudn the world are the ones that feature the very highest degrees of government intervention. (Hong Kong, Singapore, e.g.). Meanwhile, the US' more market-based approach is down with third world countries like Iran and the Dominican Republic. To this you have the coutnerexample of: Crickets chirping. W. Edward Deming (a business pioneer - perhaps you should study him ) said "In God we trust, all others bring data"
Democrats have become the party of data-driven lean corporations focused on doing dubious things like tracking your every movement, buying up Internet of Things technology that can track you outside of the computer screen, and buying up robotics companies that can deploy cheetah like drones that can pursue and kill you. okay, now that I've put it that way... The party of big business is overwhelmingly the Republican party, for those whose business model is based on taking as many resources as possible, and incurring the least social cost possible for their actions. Which is most big businesses. Most businesses are not Facebook or Google, nor will they ever be. (as a sidenote, when cheap energy runs out, a lot of those business models will be fossils) The problem you're referring to is moral hazard: the equivalent for private enterprise exists and can be reflected in the principal-agent conflict. It makes you think about Wall Street CEOs who take a lot of risks because they're spending, largely, other people's money. the good days of partnerships are dead, long live the public money of IPOs!
Wow he must be a "libertarian". It is for young "cool" conservatives,, most of whom always wind up voting GOP.
How does that at all describe the health care market? I assume I am way off the line if I drive 5 miles to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. I thought consumer friendly would be a combination of wait times, how much trouble to get an appointment with a specialist, prescription drug availability, MRI availability etc.
Well, if we're talking consumer-friendly in terms of wait times, I'd spare a thought for the previously 45,000 uninsured a year who waited until death. http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/september/harvard_study_finds_.php If you want to treat health-care like Club Med, go for it. Meanwhile, I believe most health professionals will tell you what matters most is quantity and quality of life, the former being something that can be very easily tracked and displayed. As for the rest:
The 45K deaths from being uninsured is now a personal choice with the massive expansion of medicaid and subsidies for lower income consumers of medical coverage. People make poor personal choices resulting in their early graves all the time. I mean you could in theory insure everyone tomorrow and instantly eliminate those deaths on paper but in reality they would be called deaths from not going to see your doctor regularly. I am more interested in the source claiming the NHS has shorter wait times than the USA. I've never waited for a specialist or MRI. Could I get a link to how they obtained those numbers please?
yeah, thanks Obamacare. But no, not true, the study adjusts for exactly that. You're being difficult, aren't you? I sourced the picture from a Globe and Mail special that was run eons ago. The link is hinted at the bottom, and refers to OECD health reports. However, some sleuthing of mine has revealed that while the OECD hesitates to cross-reference different countries for the data set you specifically request (waiting times), the Commonwealth Fund just does not care (and is therefore probably where the waiting time stats are sourced) http://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/49478598.pdf Of note---slide 8, where your anecdotal intuition is proved false, with the NHS actually doing wonderfully for access to doctors or nurses. If you want to take a look at the OECD data where everything is sourced, I'll give you the latest one: http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-at-a-glance.htm Relying on anecdotal evidence will lead you astray
My counterexample is logic. Look at the size of the United States; look at the sizes of Hong Kong and Singapore. You cannot compare two very small countries with a country the size of the United States. Government intervention sounds great in theory, but trying to implement it in a country with over 300 million diverse people will not be successful. How many government agencies would have to form? Money would leak through the holes of the bucket that is federal bureaucracy. There is a point where government intervention starts to become less and less efficient; it might work at its greatest extent with a city the size of New York, maybe not. "Capitalism is the worst system except for the rest."
No, I was just saying Obamacare kinda makes your point moot and even if you argue it doesn't the reason the people die is they don't see the doctor. The article says that. The reason for the deaths are the people are not in the doctors office. I mean this isn't at all what I was asking you about, but you just must be confused about what I am saying. Thanks. Like you say I just have anecdotal evidence and personal experience. I am curious how they account for the NHS having a system of screening all patients through their GP and requiring a referral to se a specialist. I can make a specialist appointment directly which greatly decreases my waiting time and increases (by my definition) consumer friendliness.
Access for all is one key defining key for me to being consumer-friendly, but it is possible you are thinking of the consumer as anyone who currently has access to the upper echelons of American health care (which may be quite comfortable), while I am thinking of the consumer as all Americans, no matter whether they have the financial means or not. This is probably based around our possibly differing views on whether health care is best treated as a private-market good, or a public good. all good. You may have a point on specialists, but your situation is something where the friction point is marginal---and it's more of a regulation game. Some will argue that on aggregate, it's better to get a GP to evaluate you then for yourself to self-diagnose and trip into the specialist, I'd imagine. In any case, the stats are based more on access to GPs or really all doctors, so yes, you may be right in this individual instance. I don't know enough on this particular situation to fully comment.
I didn't ask you for your counterexample - I asked Rocketman1981 - are you two related that said, I can gladly inform you, Rocketman1981/DwightHoward13 - that your logic is really just a logical fallacy because you didn't read the data. Sure, Hong Kong and Singapore are small city states - OK, name a developed country then taht you feel is a sufficient analogue? Canada? Way more efficient (17) despite having a far more sprawling geography than the US and haviing tons of rural territory to cover. Japan - no.3 after HK & Singapore, oh yeah and they have 127 million people. Hell, even MEXICO outdoes the US in health care efficiency by a wide margin. Yes, that Mexico. The one to the south. it's not simply that Hong Kong and Singapore that run a more efficient health than the US, it's nearly every developed country. The US ranks third-from-the-last, ahead of only basketcase Brazil with high infant mortality in rural areas and Serbia. That's pathetic, and no amount of WELL USA IS DIFFERENT COUNTRY DO U SEE really makes up for the fact that we're getting beaten down by Algeria in this category.
Can't Compare small city states like Singapore to the United States of America. Singapore is a very high net worth area like that is a concentration of significant banking, wealth and business that can pay a great deal. The power of the US government goes beyond simply medicare and Medicaid it is the power of licensure which is given to agencies that have an incentive to keep prices high. Doctors in this country and Dentists make fortunes because of a lack of supply of their fields which is the primary driver of price inflation in the US. Forcing so much of medication through physicians also drives up physician wages and forces people into the healthcare system for little to nothing. In no other country do these licensure cartels appear and stymie the free flow of people when demand is needed. This idea of healthcare equality is a joke, there can be no equality in something that is a service provided by another. Competition drives down prices, whereas people have no idea what they're paying for a procedure until later on because they're so entitled that they don't have to pay for anything. This liberal philosophy of entitlement of healthcare is a travesty. People are willing to spend thousands of dollars on Iphone's, technology, fashion items and other items but balk at paying for their healthcare. If people actually paid for their healthcare, they may be more conscientious about what they eat and actually change the roots of the problem and not just rake up the leaves of the results. Why can we have engineers and scientists that have studied abroad work in the US, but foreign trained physicians must go through a bottleneck of US residency systems with limited slots just to be able to practice?! And one wonders why prices are so high! People must become choice consumers and understand what they're buying just as with food, fashion or phones. That will create value meal healthcare and steakhouse healthcare and I'm sorry if its not equal for all, but that is life.
