The US is #1 healthcare spending, but....

The global free market has spoken... single payer systems are better in every way.

No they are not

Healthcare costs would really be low if we sent everyone to Caroussel on their 30th birthday.

For profit healthcare preys on the fears and ignorance of Americans.   More expensive and lots of tests is not better.  More x-rays are not better by any means.  Make your health provider justify the tests they want.  Argue with them.  My last doctor loved the fact that I argued with him and thought too many patients were sheep who just went along.  Because of corporate health care plans that covered about anything they got used to ordering up whatever they want and charging whatever they want.  Those days are over so stand up to them.  As long as you let them get away with it we won't have affordable healthcare.

We also need more doctors to lower healthcare costs.  There is a limit on how many can be graduated. How ridiculous.  Let's open things up!  After all isn't competition better for the "free market?"

And don't be sloppy about your own health.  Unfortunately some of the best programs for maintaining your health are still on the bleeding edge miles ahead of mainstream medicine.  Only now is mainstream medicine recognizing things I learned in the 1970s from alternative medicine. 

I'll borrow from Gandhi and say "US healthcare would be a good idea" (because we don't have it now).

 

For Profit healthcare has also driven the vast majority of Healthcare invention for the last half century.   Universal Healthcare suppresses innovation and drive.  The rest of the world lives off our technology.   

This is a comparison on winner of the Medical Nobel Prizes I did on countries with Universial Health care vs For Profit Healthcare

Austria (1967) 3 US 51
Belgium (1945) 2 US 73
Cypress (1980) 0 US 43
Estonia (0) 0
Finland (1972) 0 US 50
France (1974) 5 US 49
German (1941) 15  US 76
Greece (0) 0
Ireland (1977) 0 US 49
Italy (1978) 3 US 46
Luxemburg (1973) 1 US 57
Malta (0) 0
Netherland (1966) 1 US 51
Portugal (1979) 0 US 44
Slovakia (0) 0
Slovenia (0) 0
Spain (1986) 0

European Universal Healthcare 30
USA Free Market Capitalism 92

 

Health care professionals earn their money.  Health insurance professionals steal theirs.  That's where the changes need to be made.  I would like to challenge anybody out there to show justification for a health insurance company.  Exactly what need do they provide for that can't be provided by the health care industry.

I have my doubts about that.  A lot of research is also funded by government grants.  For profit healthcare is also not interested in preventing disease because there is more money to be made once someone gets sick.  In a global population this size many things need to change or humanity won't survive.  And as we all know the uber rich aren't human beings.

Sorry Capital, but your world is passe.

 

Yup...  Me and Old Ben Franklin....  "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

Easy enough.....   Than just pay the Healthcare Professionals directly at the time of service.. 

Capital, I am wrong and you are right.  Our current system is better at denying claims and not covering everybody compared to a single payer system.

I think the UK NHS Healthcare system Far exceeds our system at denying claims and not covering everybody. 

That has no "insurance" value.  I would rather pay a non profit organization (government) via either a monthly premium or via taxes in order to obtain healthcare in the place of my choice.  That way the citizens of the US can spread the costs out the same way insurance companies do without having to pay billions of dollars extra to a for profit company that does nothing but skim money off of the top for basic and really bad secretarial services. 

Or we could do it your way and when it comes time to pay for that kidney operation that you can't afford you can just claim bankruptcy and help drive health care prices up even more.  Or just get thrown out the front door because you can't prove the ability to pay.

Single payer sounds a helluva lot better for a country than the choice between the insurance mafia or the "if you can't afford it you'll have to die" healthcare industry.

Capital wrote: For Profit healthcare has also driven the vast majority of Healthcare invention for the last half century.   Universal Healthcare suppresses innovation and drive. 

poly replies: I had no idea that medical insurance operated by government destroyed medical research and that United Health Care and Kaiser (sucking every dime from actual health care that they can) somehow promote it.  Capital, your statement doesn't make sense. Just where is the tie-in?.

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".

You think?  It doesn't matter what I think or you think.  The only thing that matters is the facts.

From above:

I think the UK NHS Healthcare system Far exceeds our system at denying claims and not covering everybody. 

poly replies: I had to call my British brother-in-law over that one. He burst out laughing and said Americans were stupid.to put up with our system.

My niece's mother-in-law is from Scotland. She married an American and retains her British citizenship primarily for health care benefits. that could bankrupt her here.

To be fair, you'd have to wait in line for a tummy tuck unless the excess fat was life-threatening.

The U.S.. is #1 in expenditures and  #37 in citizen access to health care.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nzUmNxOh6Q

.Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"

You asked to show the value of a health insurance company.  The value is in not having to pay out of pocket for major medical expenses.  Up until Obama,  No one anywhere told you, youl had to have medical insurance.   People find value in protecting themselves, thier home, thier Car. 

I bet you would rather exchane one insurance company with another,  Except you Governemnt choice has already spent the SS trust, and brutalized Medicare to the point where it no longer even covers the cost of the care provided.    From my persceptive you are exchanging one insurance compnay in which you have many choices to one that is a monoply and has proven to suck in evey way.  It sounds like you want to give up your freedom for a little bit of security. 

Then I suggest you Don't get  the Kidney Operation.   Clearly you do not value your life enough to pay for it.  Certainly you would take it for free if other people pay for it.  Medical Bankruptcies are not the problem. 

A statement born of ignorance

 

Feel free to explain the lack of Medical innovation that comes from socialized Healthcare systems.   

By all means share you "facts"  

Stating they exist do nobody any good if they remain hidden. 

I just called the British prime minister and he aggreed.    Mine trump yours...   Now that we covered that, 

Yup just those tummy tucks...   NHS rationing leaving thousands of children suffering tonsillitis.html

Damn current events.  but they just kids,   screw them right? 

From your link: "Professor Terence Stephenson, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: "The number of tonsillectomies taking place across England has fallen dramatically over the last 50 years - when I was growing up in the 1960s, there were over 200,000 operations a year in England to remove children's tonsils.

"That represents about one out of every four children born. It's pretty safe to say this was too many on medical grounds."

 U.S. tonsillectomy rates:

Tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy rates in the United States have varied over the last fifty years, following a general pattern of decline. In hospitals in 1965, the tonsillectomy rate in the U.S. was 63.4 per 10,000 for all age groups, and 165.6 per 10,000 for children under 15 [1]. Two decades later (1986), these rates had dropped to 11.7 per 10,000 for all age groups and 33.9 per 10,000 for children under 15 [1].

"there is no doubt that tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy rates have fallen in the United States over the past 50 years, as treatment for tonsillitis has shifted from a surgical approach to a medical approach."

http://www.healthguideinfo.com/ear-nose-throat/p33464/

We never did reach the British rate of one in four...so were we rationing according to ability to pay, or were the Brits performing too many surgeries...or have the Brits shifted to our current approach...medical treatment as the first approach rather than surgery as the first approach?

Tonsils are a component of the immune system. They shoudn't be removed without due consideration, should they?

If you want to get to the root of something...what's actually going on...., scratch beneath the surface appearances.

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"

Boy, that's an inversion of it's usage to defend the corporate state.  Those corporate CEOs who cry like 5 year olds when things don't go their way need to have their toys taken from them.

 

 

Sorry did you actually deal with the rationing issue? Or just dance like a ballerina.

Were you under the false impression that Ben Franklin was a Big Gov Guy?

"I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power. I am naturally very jealous for the rights and liberties of my country, and the least encroachment of those invaluable privileges is apt to make my blood boil."
-- Ben Franklin

We will start off with cost and compare the USA vs the UK since you mentioned UK NHS.  USA per capita cost is $7,960 and the percent of GDP is 17.4.  We rank number one in cost per capita.  The United Kingdom per capita cost is $3,487 and the percent of GDP is 9.8.  Plus the United Kingdom covers everybody and we don't.  We are getting ripped off!

 

According to the UK NHS, all permanent residents of the United Kingdom are covered.  The facts prove your statement to be wrong.

We can move onto out comes if you want to be proven wrong again.

 

LOL..  Ah.. wiki...the bringer of all facts in the universe..

The NHS denies life-saving treatment to the elderly

Doctors back denial of treatment for smokers and the obese

Patients denied key treatments due to NHS cost-cutting

NHS denies medicine coverage to breast cancer patient

Multiple Sclerosis Oral Drug Treatment Denied Coverage in England

Kidney cancer patients denied life-saving drugs by NHS rationing body NICE

health cuts in Real Britain are actually hitting the sickest babies and frailest pensioners worst

Doctor says NHS cuts kill hospital patients

NHS midwife cuts are killing mothers and babies

Would you like to tell me how I'm wrong again.... 

Did you see me claim our system is less expensive..... 

Maybe we aren't getting ripped off,  We lead the world in medical innovation,  and they feed off our scraps.

I can match you link for link with people dying and being denied care, but the link below says it all.

Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance.  Even if you cut their number in half it is still outrageous.

This thread is about the cost of health care and what we get for it.  That is what the original post is about.  We spend more than any other country and our outcomes are worse.

Wikipedia lists the sources at the bottom.  Attacking the media outlet is just a way of avoiding the data.  The NHS website says the same thing.  So, you are wrong.  The NHS covers every citizen. Capital, "I think the UK NHS Healthcare system Far exceeds our system at denying claims and not covering everybody."  There are about one in four americans without coverage.

Our medical innovation is partially due to federal research grants and university research.  Corporations are not doing it alone. 

Typical Cap argument... if he asserts something without making the least amount of effort to prove it, we must accept it as true... otherwise WE are dogmatic. Of course maybe Cap is saying our system is better at generating profits than Single Payer systems. In which case he'd be correct.

I highly recommend this 2007 report by the Congressional Research Service

http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34175_20070917.pdf 

The problem with the US system of "innovation" is it, like our medical system, is horribly innefficient. I'd argue there's perhaps no more INEFFICIENT way to, say develop new drugs, than the way we do it. Take Prilosec/Nexium.... $800 million pissed away to create a new cash cow for Astra Zenica and Nexium really is arguably no better than the older Prilosec... which was coming off patent. We consumers or our insurance companies have to pay to cover the... is it now $12 billion in direct to consumer ads which are, at best, drug propaganda designed less to inform consumers about a class of meds, but to sell just one. These drug companies piss away resources reinventing each other's wheel... then pad the bill even more with profits, high CEO pay, and propaganda campaigns.   

Sound like I'd rather NOT have insurance.  This is a total of 250,000 wrongful deaths caused by the United States medical system

You can try matching me link for link... I never did like that 45,000 number.   Should be closer to 22,000.   But that is what happens when two members of " Physicians for a National Health Program"  write "studies". 

And I said you get World Leading Medical Innovation that has raised the Qulaity of Living of the Entire world.

Government covers 36%,  The rest is Private.

So he was a big corporate guy, eh?  I don't think so. Most of the founding fathers had a bad taste in their mouth for big corporations, especially the British East India Company.  That's why they put a lot of restrictions on corporations.

And I'm not for overly large and intrusive government either.  I don't think you'll find many liberals here for that.  We are just seeing a bunch of fat heads in suits running big corporations for their own personal profit buying the government and raping the country for their own personal profit.  We're VERY against that.

I was raising the issue as others have that government research also gives rise to new cures.  And BTW, we're seeing medicine start to adopt things that have been around in other cultures for centuries.

 

 

My God Cap, you get more amusing by the post.

Leaving aside the simple matter of population differences between nations…. there's a HUGE difference between research and healthcare. I'm sure all those private health insurance bureaucrats who administer our monstrosity of a system aren't out there doing Noble level research. They are just middlemen. And are you claiming ALL those US winners work in the for profit sector as opposed to academia? And let's not forget that the for-profit sector in the US gets access to publically funded basic research.

But if you made the least effort to be fair, you're right wing fairy tale view of the world would collapse.

The UK covers everyone at about 41% of the per person cost in the US and makes up a mere 8% of GDP... compared to over 15% in the US according to that CRS study I posted. It's now closer to 17%. Yes, they appear to be skimping a bit... compared to the US that spends much more and does NOT cover about 50 million people. Given their obvious efficiency, what could the UK do if they were spending 50% of what the US spends? What about 60 or 70%? There are plenty of examples of where Single Payer does better than the US at less cost. Cap wants to avoid those examples because, as usual, it conflicts with his Right wing religion. But if he can't make a point without gross distortions... he really hasn't made a point.. has he? 

 For Cap to demonstrate  Single Payer... or in the case of the UK, socialized medicine... is a terrible idea, he'd have to find an example of a Single Payer system that spends roughly as much as we do per person and has poor results. But it seems he prefers to make dishonest points about a system that spends 41% of what we do. But then Cap has never been known for his intellectual honesty.

Looking at the last 8 US Noble prize winners in medicine... THEY ARE ACADEMICS.... not for-profit hucksters. So much for Cap's last attempt to foist his Orwellian Right views on the rest of us.  

2009

Bruce Beutler: Director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas and Adjunct Professor at The Scripps Research Institute

Elizabeth Helen Blackburn: biological researcher at the University of California, San Francisco

Carolyn Widney Greider: Daniel Nathans Professor and Director of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University

Jack William Szostak: Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School

2007

Mario Renato Capecchi: Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biology at the University of Utah School of Medicine,

Oliver Smithies: Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

2006

Andrew Zachary Fire: Professor of pathology and of genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Craig Cameron Mello: Professor of molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_country

As for funding sources for medical research... here's a breakdown for 2003:

The large number of US Nobel winners in medicine seems less to do with the nature of our for-profit health care system but our willingness to fund basic research... and federal spending in this area is considerable with NIH spending nearly as much as all the pharmaceutical companies combined. How much the private sector  wastes doing duplicative research is another topic.

  

[/quote]

 

 

  

Nationalize the pharms and get our research directed towards the pharms our public health priorities need for very little cost to patients.  Stop the tv ads.  Only real health information needs be presented to the public.  Private firms can still find a cure for baldness and other marginal areas of interest.  End the pill mills.

I think what is more Orwellian,  is how you thought that actually addressed the point.  I love how you take a false arguement and run that up the flag pole and run around doing a victory dance.   That is amusing. 

 

I wonder if your actually saying that with a straight face. 

You are so cute Peir. 

Then feel free to point out where Single payer does better....   Is it really my duty to lay out both argument for you? 

Why is that the only gauge?   The reason why Single Payer (medicare, Medicaid) appear to spend less.  Is because as a Monoply they dictate what is being paid and the narket has no choice but to accept.  Clearly you are an authoritarian who enjoy's unlimited Government power to dicate to the people the terms of thier fruits of thier labor.  Your jack boots must feel nice. 

Do you know what happens when you take away the safety net and replace it with Single payer.   There is no safety net. 

So by all means...  Feel free to list the Positives of Universial Care and put forth your best sales pitch and be prepared to defend the position

You are getting as bad as Kerry. 

Did I hear my name, Capital?   You know, you're just as proned to ignore addressing and answering the real issues of the application of medical care over here as you are on the other thread.   Do they train you to be so ignorant and dismissive, Capital?  

In regards to the 'free market' and 'profit' motive in medical research, I think it worthy to note that Jonas Salk, the researcher who formulated the polio vaccine, didn't even patent it.   Dr. Salk felt that it would have been an anathema to allow one child succumb to the illness of polio because that child 'couldn't afford the vaccine'.   Some of Jonas Salk's story is here:

http://www.salk.edu/about/jonas_salk.html

To hear the present lying shill dipshits like Capital talk about how the 'free market profits' have 'advanced health care', you would think that they would have contempt over Salk's own sense of obligation and responsibility as to not profit off of the life-saving intervention that Salk developed.   But, maybe that was a different age--and a different 'paradigm'.....now allowing lying shills like Capital claim 'the free market profits' have 'advanced health care'.....with, of course, prioritizing the 'profit motive' giving an opportunity for the money managers to lie about the advantages of their so-called 'research and development'--especially if they are the ones performing all the 'statistics'....

 

 

More lame evasions? Aside from your conflating research with health care, YOU are the one who made the claim that our for-profit healthcare system was superior over Single Payer systems… that the rest of the world feeds off our scraps,. and one of YOUR bits of "evidence" was your list of US Nobel Prize winners in medicine.

But as usual, your right wing myopia gets in the way of any shred of rationality you might have... because those Nobel Prize winners typically do NOT work for the private, for profit sector. (And BTW, did your list compensate for multiple winners working on the same project? Didn't think so.) Which then raises what SHOULD be the obvious question: Are these Nobel laureates more a byproduct of our better ACADEMIC system... or funding from government or the private sector? But you can't go there because it undermines your latest empty claim. Only a Orwellian Rightist like yourself would try to sweep under the rug the immense amount of money the government spends on medical research and credit it all to the private sector.

I already presented the Congressional Reasearch Services study comparing the US system to the other OECD nations. It's quite daming. Just because you refuse to read it isn't my fault.

TRANSLATION: Cap has no study showing that dollar for dollar the US system is better than some other Single Payer systems. Gee Cap, why didn't you just say so!

Appear? ROTF And your evidence that they are NOT less expensive is.... crickets.

TRANSLATION from Cap's Orwellian-Speak: democratic nations that decide to scrap their for-profit health care systems are despotic.

And now for Cap's REALLY Stupid Remark Of The Day

ROTF... so IMPROVING the safety net to finally cover everyone = NO Safety Net! That's right up there with REDUCED revenue after irresponsible GOP tax cuts = a revenue boom.

The CRS already makes the case for me. The problem you're ideologically incapable of facing is that by its very nature health care... like defense... is a black hole. There's ALWAYS an excuse to spend that extra dollar. Given that imperative… and the inherent inefficiency of capitalism, a for-profit health care system, if left unchecked, will eat up every available dollar.

You can have both for profit private, and universal healthcare. Sweden has both and has one of the highest infant survival rates, US has one of the lowest [but that's ok in a survival of the fittest country, and those infants that die are probably not aryan]. The US also is more susceptable to quacks and pseudo science. Jenny McCarthy on vaccines has probably lead to this disgraceful epidemic.

*warning, that video could be disturbing!!

 

I'd prefer the NIH fund and coordinate all pharma research to get rid of one of the big inefficiencies in our system: duplicative research. Companies tend to look for cash cows, incremental improvements, or me-too drugs instead of high risk research that might not pay off. I'd rather see NIH fund coordinate and fund research and contract with these companies for research and production.  Instead of using the talents of these companies to RAISE prices, we'd use those talents to REDUCE prices. I'd like to see these drugs go generic with the rights held by The People ASAP. Since we'd pay for the research, the taxpayer would get the break and we can let other nations pay more but overall prices would be cheaper. 

Money pissed away on drug company propaganda is another huge problem. It might exceed what they spend on actual R&D…

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080105140107.htm

 Instead of allowing companies to create their own propaganda networks, all consumer and doctor education would be handled by NIH. I'd much rather see a 30 minute show educating consumers about the actual risks/benefits of ALL the drugs in a class, than 30 second ads spewing emotional appeals about one high profit drug.

 

We can easily cut the high price of drug development and health care once we realize an inefficient market here IS the problem.

 

 

If the market wants to supply secondary insurance... say for private rooms or gourmet hospital food... I have no problem with that. But to cut costs in primary care, we need to reign in a grossly inefficient private insurance. There's probably no more inefficient way to provide care than the way we do. Just for an example, it's much easier to manage one health care pool than the 1000's that now exist from self-insured companies & cities, to auto insurance companies, to all those big name health insurance companies.

 

An aspect of this discussion is that the people that like to believe they are pro-market can't see how market forces can be brought to bear on other levels beside competition between companies.

 

I'd also like to see some market forces brought to work in ways we cannot do in a fractured system. For example I think tobacco and alcohol should be taxed in direct proportion to their social costs... and all that money go directly into care instead of state coffers. This maximizes freedom AND provides care. This can't be done now. There's so little connection between insurance costs and lifestyle choices. Conversely, we can directly subsidize healthy foods or activities that reduce health care costs.

   

I made the Claim that our system Produces more innovation,  and posted our superior Nobel prize winnings.   Than brought forth Governemnt vs. Private funding of Medical research, 

So basically your hanging you hat on,  were smarter than them because we have better Academic system.  Which is mostly funded from Private research.  Government funding of Medical research is 1/3.  I acknowledge the 1/3 and laugh that you want to make it out as more than it is. 

Anything else you wish to embarass yourself about.

 

I wouldn't be so rash. The profit motive and differential rewards can spur innovation and spark self-improvement. But the Right is an ideology of half truths. Just because that formula can work in some instances doesn't mean free markets ALWAYS work to bring down costs. While capitalism is certainly dynamic, it's grossly inefficient. We tend not to notice because we instead focus on stores and companies competing to bring prices down. What we DON'T perceive, is how inefficient entire economic sectors are. For example how much cheaper would cars be if we standardized, say 10-12 different car chassis and drive trains, covering the range of auto sizes from eco-boxes to sports cars, while letting companies design their own bodies and interiors? We could break out of much of the trap that corporations want us in: vendor lock... where we're forced to buy expensive proprietary replacement parts. It's one of the most pernicious aspects of capitalism than needs to be regulated.

 

 

God I hate that statistic.   Lies, Damn Lies and Statisitics

Infant Mortality: A Deceptive Statistic#

US is still better. At least we don't have to lie to make our system look better than it is.

Actually, the U.S. infant death rate used to be worse than it is today--and, years ago, there was a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine that noted that the biggest leap in improving infant mortality came when elective abortions were made legal.  It really does seem that when mothers want their children, they take better care of themselves during the pregnancy--which affects the birthing outcome positively with less infant mortality.  

Pierpont, I think that an entity that has an agenda apart from the objective findings in any statistical study that is to be offered is less likely to be objective in those findings--and the profit motive is exactly that kind of agenda.  And, as the first lesson I learned in statistics class indicated, all statisitics can be manipulated to a predetermined 'result' if you aren't extremely careful in acquiring the data--and as objective as possible in interpreting it....and, as such, there are many baseless, and useless, 'statistical analyses' today.....especially if those interested in profitting from its results have done all the processing of such 'statistics'....

I noticed that, again in typical dismissive and ignoring fashion, Capital ignored Jonas Salk's position on the polio vaccine--feeling it to be an anathema if even just one child succumbed to polio because of the lack of that child being able to afford it.   And, totally disregarding that point just further indicates how much of a manipulating and lying shill Capital is here to be...would the 'for profit industry' refuse a treatment to anyone that such a treatment could offer in saving any person's life?    Even if, like Jonas Salk, they didn't profit off of it....

Does 'money' really define the driving force of most medical researchers, past and present?   It certainly 'defines' the 'for profit industry'.....and the money-managers behind that industry......most of which have nothing to do with actually taking care of the people that propose to be 'in the industry' for....or is 'money' the only reason for them being 'in the industry'?     

Damning to Who?   I've never made the claim that We spend less...  Seems to be a waste of time on your part.  Building a strawman just so you can burn it down.

TRANSLATION:  I can't use my brain,  I need people to tell me what my opinion is. 

So much for critical thinking... 

The fact they don't pay the full amount charged. 

Says the jack boot wearing Pro Big Government.  Germany was a Democratic nation also.

There is not Safery net in universal healthcare.  So when the System collpases like the european models are currently.  Shared misery...   

If you think that,  you have already lost. 

LOL  I think your understanding of which system provides efficientcies is somewhat distorted. 

Let me get this straight...  you actually are not going to address the Infant mortality comparison between countries.  Your just going to ramble on like a doped up homeless man and attack me....   The last refuge of the desparate. 

Did you miss the first paragraph, Capital:

And, then, along with that, you, as is typical for your form of dismissing, distorting and distracting, didn't even comment on the paragraphs that did include you, Capital:

I'll leave it at that....