Learn it! Speak it! Live it!
Bring Christmas to a child in need!
An 'urgency': Sensing threats to institutions of society, church leaders make declaration 
Click to Print
Include Comments
“If it’s my family …”
On Nightline last night, Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, posed an interesting question for President Obama.
Devinsky first pointed out that politicians are often hypocrites when it comes to reforming health care, limiting options for average Americans under the guise of cutting costs while at the same time getting the best and most expensive care for themselves and their loved ones. The doctor then asked the president what he would do if his wife or daughter were seriously ill and the care needed was not covered by his proposed health plan, would he “potentially sacrifice the health of your family for the greater good of insuring millions or would you do everything you possibly could as a father and husband to get the best health care and outcome for your family?” Obama answered, “… if it’s my family member, my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.”
So did Dr. Devinsky expose President Obama as one of those elite politicians he was talking about?
back to top83 Comments to ““If it’s my family …””
Is the sky blue?
Does a bear do his thing in the woods?
Does a dog bark?
That was a rhetorical question wasn’t it?
……Wasn’t it?
Report comment to moderator
Oh of course not.
Here’s how the so-called logic breaks down:
1. Obama advocates a government program to make health insurance affordable for everyone through a combination of factors, with a government-funded insurance program as the centerpiece.
2. Obama would spend money to get the best care available for his family.
3. Ergo, Obama is a hypocrite.
This is absurd. From the description, it sounds like Devinsky misrepresented Obama’s plan, since it does not in any way limit the care available for average Americans.
The right seems to be incapable of debating this topic without grossly distorting what Obama’s actual proposal is. It is NOT government-run healthcare with limitations on what’s available, as Devinsky apparently thinks it is.
It is simply:
1. Add a publicly subsidized insurance program to the range of private options already available, and
2. Require insurers to cover pre-existing conditions.
That’s it. That’s all. The government will not be taking over the health care system. Your care will not be managed by a bureaucrat. Can Obama’s opponents PLEASE stop lying about this?
Report comment to moderator
Of course maybe Obama only cares about immediate family members. I notice a couple other relatives are kinda needy, and he doesn’t seem to care…..
Report comment to moderator
This reminds me of a presidential debate. I can’t remember which candidate, but he was asked if he would use a gun to protect his wife or if he would support the death penalty for the killer of his wife? Something like that. I think the conventional wisdom was that his answer pretty much sunk his candidacy.
I hope that Obama’s answer sinks his efforts to nationalize the best health care system in the world.
Report comment to moderator
Steve, the only people that will be able to afford private insurance will be the very wealthy. With governmnet option care, employers everywhere will drop the insurance policies and opt for government provision.
Report comment to moderator
A follow up question is obviously needed.
“If it were your family, would you limit them to your healthcare proposal?”
Report comment to moderator
SteveG, if private insurance companies are required to cover people with pre-existing conditions, then preiums will go up. The subsidized government insurance will be (actually seem) cheaper at first, which means that pretty much all employers will adopt it for their employees (without giving them a choice). Soon the government system will be the only game in town–unless one is very wealthy and can pay for whatever private insurance is left or can pay out of pocket.
Please, Steve, you have to be smarter than to believe what a politician says his proposal will and won’t do. I know that you are. It has nothing to do with right or left. It’s politics.
Report comment to moderator
I caught most of that show on Nightline. Obama took on all comers.
Insurance execs, HR people, self-employed professionals, rabid doctors and a hostile Charlie Gibson who kept (literally) sticking his fingers in Obama’s face. It was more like a British House of Commons debate than anything I’ve seen in American politics.
If anyone is seriously interested in the nitty-gritty of health care reform I suggest you watch the whole program.
And I respectfully submit that for Republicans, who have opposed Social Security, Medicare, welfare, unions, unemployment insurance, workers comp and everything else that helps the lower and middle class, even sought to shrink VA care and generally don’t give a hoot who dies from lack of health care, to try to depict Obama as some kind of elitist is simply outrageous.
Brother Dan: Give me some facts and figures to support your claim that ours is “the best health care system in the world”. By most standard measures we’re about halfway down the list of the “developed” nations.
Report comment to moderator
MIM — Of course the correct answer was as BO said, but the other shoe wasn’t addressed — how would “he” do this if “the care needed was not covered”? My guess his care would be found and we’d never know the means.
If the “he” needing care was an average person without the special means afforded by and available to BO—as well as the very people who are pushing this limiting plan onto the country in place of the present system—the “how would you do this” becomes a huge unanswerable question.
What no one pushing this overhaul will admit is that the overall level of care for everyone has to be reduced to even begin to afford the care they want to provide—as inferior to what we now have as that will be for everyone trapped in the system.
Report comment to moderator
Having seen how quickly a New York doctor answered a phone call for Judge Barry, Donald Trump’s sister, when she was helping out my judge, I think politicians very clearly do not get it — Obama included. I watched these facts unfold. Those options would never be open to me.
Sacrifice is for the little guy, not the big guy.
Also respectfully submitted.
Report comment to moderator
Arcadia-
You name the countries that have better health care provision and treatment for the AVERAGE citizen.
Report comment to moderator
The gents on American Family Radio pointed out that old Ted Kennedy would not qualify under the plan he’s proposing for everyone else to receive the operations he’s had for his brain tumor. I belong to a group called DownsizeDC dot org. Men like Kennedy sorta helped recruit me.
Report comment to moderator
Steve —
“1. Add a publicly subsidized insurance program to the range of private options already available, and
2. Require insurers to cover pre-existing conditions.”
Come on Steve, finish the story—you know how it goes . . .
3. Private insurance won’t be able to match or meet government care requirements at the “publicly subsidized” coverage price and go out of business. When government needs more money to pay for the plan they can increase taxes or print what is needed—private insurers can’t do that and so can’t compete against the bottomless government money pit.
4. Employers seeking relief from the expense of finding/purchasing/administering health care plans will drop private insurance entirely in favor of the cheaper, less hassle government insurance offering their employees no choice. Eliminating this expense will increase profits as employers will pass only part of the savings they garner on to their employees as increased wages.
5. Employers opting out of private plans will exacerbate the competition problem of private insurance and accelerate their exit.
6. Eventually the only option left: Government Healthcare Insurance.
7. To provide the coverage for every person, government must increase taxes to address the estimated 3 Trillion dollar per year cost and this will be on top of the massive “Cap & Trade” energy tax they’re trying to pass right now.
Report comment to moderator
Very good summation of the situation, Rond.
Report comment to moderator
Power has its privilege and absolute power takes its privilege from the backs of the people. It’s just another open secret that powerless people get Tiananmen’d for complainging about.
Report comment to moderator
This is a dilemma we can resolve through statistics.
Instead of paying for any treatment that might “help”, government health care agrees to pay a fixed amount of money for medical units of benefit. A unit of benefit is one year of good quality of life. One unit could be either one year of good quality of life, or two years of half-quality of life. Etc.
It’s obvious that the same treatment provides different patient with different units of benefit. Heart surgery could provide a 50-year-old with 10 units but a 90-year-old with .5 units of benefit. Let’s say the government agrees to pay up to $30k per unit. That means the government will pay $300k for the 50-year-old’s surgery but only $15k for the 90-year-old. The geezer will have to pay the remainder of the bill out of his own pocket.
Statistics can calculate the benefit units.
The ethical advantage of this scheme is that it isn’t blatant rationing (which is controversial). It’s a payment formula that effectively pays for most of the “benefit units” that are actually obtained from the health care system, but not the benefits at the margin of treatment outcomes.
Next objection, please.
Report comment to moderator
Scoop, that just sounds cold blooded, but I’m sure that you will point out the the current system operates in a cold blooded manner.
I’m just curious though, do you believe that the government officials should be held to the same health care system that they are going try and mandate, what ever it becomes?
Report comment to moderator
“I’m just curious though, do you believe that the government officials should be held to the same health care system that they are going try and mandate, what ever it becomes?”
Darn tootin’.
Report comment to moderator
Dr. Devinsky’s question was kind of stupid. It’s the kind of question Palin would whine about if she actually knew what a “gotcha” question was. The question ignores the fact (as do all the conservative posters here) that Obama says over and over “If you like the plan you have now you will be able to keep it”.
A public plan is the only way to drive down cost. The Republicans all but admit this when they argue that the public plan will put private insurance companies at a disadvantage. Of course it will. The government doesn’t have to pay for hundreds of redundant bureaucracies or mail dividend checks to their shareholders.
My neighbor pays $100 a week for his portion of his employer’s health insurance plan. This leaves him $300 a week take home. That’s a quarter of his take-home income. If we can reach the same levels of efficiency as the Europeans do with their health care plans, he would only pay about $50 a week. The only difference is he would be paying it in taxes instead of sending it directly to a for profit company.
If the final plan has a public option, Republicans, and the Democrats who are in the pocket of big healthcare companies, will almost undoubtedly force me to stick with my more expensive company provided plan because they want their money to keep flowing.
Report comment to moderator
Brotherdan,
First, a direct answer: yes.
Secondly, I’m steeling myself to be as outraged as you will be by whatever bill Obama signs. Neither of us is going to like it, but our reasons will not be the same.
In order to get reform, Obama is going to have to guarantee the major players (insurance companies, hospitals, suppliers, and doctors groups) that they won’t lose any money. This will be extremely costly and damaging to the cause of reform, but it is the high price that we must pay in the near term for the chance to effect changes five years from now. We have to enable the players to keep raking in exorbitant amounts of money. This is because their aversion to any losses whatsoever is greater than their desire for future benefits. The psychology is primitive, but powerful. All things being equal, humans are not willing to incur a 50-50 risk of winning or losing, because they hate losing more than they love winning. To overcome this barrier, Obama has got to give to those who have, and take from those who have not.
Elected officials are mostly rich people who can pay for their own perks, if you don’t want to. But not giving them nice perks is penny wise and pound foolish, I think.
Report comment to moderator
“The ethical advantage of this scheme is that it isn’t blatant rationing”
Oh, but it is. To begin with, you’ve rationed care based purely on the value you’ve assigned one life over another. You’re playing god again Madeline.
If you want to go beyond that . . . your stupid eugenic criteria is based solely on age and ignores all other measure of human worth to determine “value”—which, BTW, you’ve no right to determine and assign. You’ve reduced human beings to pieces of aging meat with purple date stamps on their rumps showing one fresher than another.
Report comment to moderator
LOL @ “simply” in #2.
Report comment to moderator
Barack Obama does not care. He is a cold cold cold hearted monster. His hypocrisy is a given. He lies about everything. Has lied about everything and will lie about everything.
Those who think positive thoughts should consider how he has treated his brother. his illegal alien aunt, and how his grandmother suddenly died when went to go visit her without the children.
Report comment to moderator
Monty-
NO ONE should EVER use absolutes ALL the time.
Wow…
Report comment to moderator
BrotherDan: I’m just curious though, do you believe that the government officials should be held to the same health care system that they are going try and mandate, what ever it becomes?
Ask that again when somebody comes along who is trying to mandate a health care system, however many years in the future that may be.
Report comment to moderator
Steve, you havn’t addressed the posts #5 and #13.
Report comment to moderator
So do you guys think it’s an actual conspiracy to put insurers out of businesses, or just that that’s seen as an acceptable side effect?
Please. Private insurers are in no danger, especially not if the legislation ensures that the cost of the insured of the public plan is commensurate with income … the more you make, the less attractve it will be as an option, and employers won’t have any real incentive to forsake private plans in favor of it.
Meanwhile, if the competition drives health care costs down, that’s good, isn’t it?
Please show me in the Bible where it says that protecting the fortunes of highly-profitable businesses is more important than healing the sick.
Report comment to moderator
SteveG, your understanding of competition is amazing. Wrong but amazing. The government has no business being in the insurance business. None what so ever. Get your head out of socialism and look around you. Everyone is in danger from this legislation. Everyone.
And please stop trying to say “protecting the fortunes of highly-profitable businesses is more important than healing the sick.” That is soooooooo stupid to say. And shows you really have drunk the kool aid.
It shows you have a hatred for the insurance people and that you are for anything that ‘gets’ them. How Immature !
The legislation does not solve anything except Obama’s desire to turn the US into a socialist /communist state.
If you were 100 years old and needed a pace maker, under Obama, YOU WOULD NOT GET IT Under OBAMA all you would get is a pain pill. Makes you wonder what he gave his grandmother when he visited her right before she died so suddenly?
Report comment to moderator
Steve,
Show me the policy price “commensurate with income” provision.
Report comment to moderator
#24, Brotherdan,
Are you absolutely sure?
Report comment to moderator
ROND – Your criticism seems to me to imply that government has a duty to incur all possible expense for everyone in all circumstances, to extend life for as many minutes as medically possible. Universal health care without limit.
If that’s not the ethical duty of government, then the government gets to decide how much medical treatment it’s willing to pay for. The government allocates money, not treatment.
In order to call this scheme “rationing,” government has to provide and prohibit treatment, not just limit payments.
The “units of benefit” scheme makes no judgment about the value of one life over another. On the contrary, the scheme imposes moral equivalence. A felon is the same as a saint. The distinctions the scheme makes are all functional (i.e. 50% lung function, 75% heart ejection fraction, 100% unconsciousness) and quantitative (life expectancy).
Your criticism makes as much sense as claiming that the government rations food because people can’t use their food stamps to buy champaign and caviar at the Bistro in the Parque.
Report comment to moderator
“Obama says over and over “If you like the plan you have now you will be able to keep it”.”
All of Obama’s promises have expiration dates. Seriously, Obama said so, so I believe it?
Brother Dan, CNN’s Bernard Welch asked that of Michael Dukakis. Dukakis’s lame answer helped his campaign as much as his tank ride.
“The ethical advantage of this scheme is that it isn’t blatant rationing (which is controversial).”
So subtle, under the radar, rationing is ethical?
“If we can reach the same levels of efficiency as the Europeans do with their health care plans…”
We will be waiting months or years for simple procedures.
Without a market-based health care system that does the research, develops the pharmaceuticals, and arrives at equitable pricing, the governmental bureacracies will have no template for effective health care.
The government option will be subsidized to the point other plans can’t compete. Then it becomes the only plan. There will be no choices, no market forces compelling and rewarding innovation and efficiency. Bureaucrats, no matter how smart, caring and dedicated, being subject to human finitude, are incapable of effectively allocating resources.
Report comment to moderator
In order to call this scheme “rationing,” government has to provide and prohibit treatment, not just limit payments.
You have just proven that the government should not be in the insurance biz. Thank you SM.
Gee if the government write the policy they can set the limits of TREATMENT
Report comment to moderator
Ron: Show me the policy price “commensurate with income” provision.
The legislation doesn’t exist yet. As I said, if it includes such a provision — and I think it should but don’t know if it will — it would solve a lot of the concerns.
Report comment to moderator
Fish: If you were 100 years old and needed a pace maker, under Obama, YOU WOULD NOT GET IT Under OBAMA all you would get is a pain pill.
I am amazed at how many people have suddenly developed the psychic superpowers needed to know in great detail what legislation that has not even been written yet, let alone debated and amended, will or won’t do.
Report comment to moderator
Steve,
If it doesn’t exist — then what you say, in fact, has no relevance. You have no point.
Thank you for your participation.
Report comment to moderator
It’s nice to see Llama’s outed himself.
Report comment to moderator
RPN: Nah, I don’t think so. Llama was unable to write so much as a paragraph without using some combination of “Marxist,” “socialist” and “leftist” at least three times.
Fish does not make any more sense than Llama, but the lack of those telltale clues leads me to believe it’s someone else.
Report comment to moderator
Scroop — “ROND – Your criticism seems to me to imply that government has a duty to incur all possible expense for everyone in all circumstances, to extend life for as many minutes as medically possible. Universal health care without limit.”
Yes, I do because private sector insurance presently “incur[s] all possible expense” to provide the absolute best possible care on a regular basis dependent on the ability of the system to provide that level of care to participants for their dollars spent. I example myself. I’ve very average insurance and yet I’ve received cutting edge cancer care that was offered by only three specialist surgeons in the country who had all been trained at the NCI. And, my oncologist regularly tracks and seeks new studies and therapies that might help my condition as they become available.
If, we are to “maintain the present level of care” as BO says will happen, government must step up and provide care equal to that—if not, then BO is lying about what the plan will provide. But as his math just doesn’t add up, the costs and demand for service will require a diminished level of care.
In the end, if healthcare is controlled by government thus making “exceptional” (as you find it) care impossible regardless of ability to pay for whatever is wanted, then government has diminished the overall level of our healthcare to the benefit of none.
Such example of a deficient government plan is Canada offering outdated colon cancer chemotherapy drugs rather than the state-of-the-art drugs available in the US because of the expense. Canada is not stepping up and providing and as a result Canadians come down here for therapy with newer/better drugs.
Now, you may have no problem with eugenically based medical care that denies care to some over others, but I do because I find worth in every individual and not more in some than others.
This because each and every person has inalienable rights endowed by their creator and I find notions of rationing care as you propose a violation of the rights of those you choose to deny care.
Report comment to moderator
#35, SteveG, I know you are not up to snuff on all of the information available. SOOOO you did not know that this example was one that was asked of the great Obama, and that is how he answered. It takes no crystal ball when you hear it from the horse’s mouth.
SteveG live and learn. Obama is a cold hearted monster.
The kicker is that the person who asked Obama about this was talking about her own mother. Who went to several doctors before getting her pacemaker at age 100. And she has lived much better ever since.
As a doctor,,,,, Obama is the southern extremity of a north bound gelding.
Report comment to moderator
SteveG, before you cast aspersions consider that I seem to be much more aware of things than you are. And frankly your logic in several cases is that of someone desperately trying to defend Obama. Which is sad. Very sad.
You might consider that your defense of Obama is a horribly misplaced priority of yours. Especially as it makes you look quite illogical. Why not be honest and questioning of the ’status of Obama’s cruelty’?
Report comment to moderator
It is not true that (as you put it) private sector insurance presently “incur[s] all possible expense” to provide the absolute best possible care on a regular basis dependent on the ability of the system to provide that level of care to participants for their dollars spent. Besides, what you right sounds like it comes from an insurance policy, totally subject to lawsuits and interpretation.
Insurance companies decline claims regularly, despite having lots of cash. They refuse to pay for life-saving treatments while paying executives millions of dollars in annual bonuses. They cancel plans and deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. They decline claims just to stall and harass.
I think you’re arguing that a certain number of patients at any given time accumulate enormous bills that insurance companies pay during the term of a policy. It sounds like you therefore are demanding that the government provide all of the patients all of the time what private insurance provides some of its patients some of the time. Hmm.
My uncle’s wife got all possible treatment after her doctor told her to go home with three weeks to live. He chartered a plane and sent the poor woman to Houston, where she died three weeks later. Insurance from the family company paid for it. Thanks, but no thanks, ROND. Incidentally, my brother was cured by a rare treatment after the Mayo Clinic told him to drop dead. As a business owner, he too had the insurance he needed. But he’s 35 years younger than my uncle’s wife was. Fortunately, he obtained many benefit units that my uncle’s wife did not.
It seems perverse to oppose a public plan that pays for far more benefit units than the plan that you have, without cancellations, and sometimes pays just as much for a single patient as your plan sometimes does. Moreover, when people with money may buy whatever they want, without restriction, you can’t accuse the government of rationing health care.
Report comment to moderator
#11 Brother Dan
You name the countries that have better health care provision and treatment for the AVERAGE citizen.
No problem. According to the CIA factbook the following countries or territories have better health care outcomes for the average infant: Singapore, Bermuda, Sweden,Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, Iceland, France, Finland, Anguilla, Norway, Malta, Andorra, Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Israel, Slovenia, Liechtenstein, South Korean, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Guernsey, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Jersey, Australia, Portugal, Gibraltar, UK, New Zealand, Monaco, Wallis and Futuna, Canada, Ireland, Greece, San Marino, Taiwan, Isle of Man, Italy, Cuba, Guam and finally the US.
Report comment to moderator
“Insurance companies decline claims regularly, despite having lots of cash.”
Having cash has nothing to do with denying coverage. Please, do try to keep your class envy fever marginally under control.
Certain policies deny certain coverage possibly as a reduced cost feature or for some other valid reason and any ignorance about what a policy covers is completely the fault of the purchaser. Other policies are only offered to people who for whatever reason don’t qualify to get certain coverage. It’s called cost containment and is what whiners like you about insurance prices have demanded for years. You imply that denial of coverage is capricious and random with your class envy card again revealing that you don’t understand insurance fraud and how the industry, as well as the government, work to deal with those who practice it.
If you wander around under the illusion that the government policy is going to cover anything and everything for anybody and everybody you simply couldn’t be more wrong. I’d suggest you back away from the Kool-Aide by more than just a few steps.
“refuse to pay for life-saving treatments”
Really. Proof please. And when did it make the news? It may be that a company does not agree something should be covered under a certain policy, but since there are some 13,000 health care insurance providers competing for business to imply that all “refuse” or that someone can’t get coverage is disingenuous. I’d much rather have 13,000 options to get coverage than only one.
“It sounds like you therefore are demanding that the government provide all of the patients all of the time what private insurance provides some of its patients some of the time.”
What “some of the patients”? Coverage is provided to those covered. If no coverage, no provision. What’s so hard to understand. Again with thinking that anything and everything will be covered for anybody and everybody — it ain’t gonna happen.
I don’t understand your stories about your family.
What “seems perverse”—actually criminal— is to suggest that health care coverage will be improved by further government involvement when existing government involvement through Medicare, Medicaid and prescription drug coverage have done nothing but eliminate competition, increase costs, reduce coverage options, and complicate what should be a very simple system where people pay for what they want and need without any government involvement whatsoever being required. The government has never improved anything and this will be no different.
Report comment to moderator
Con’t
According to the UN the following countries have better health care outcomes for the average child: Iceland, Sweden, Singapore, Japan, Norway, Hong Kong, Finland, Czech Republic, South Korea, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Australia, Austria, Israel, Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, UK, Italy, Ireland, Channel Islands, Slovenia, New Zealand, Cuba, Luxembourg, Brunei, Portugal, Cyprus, Malta, Croatia, and then the US (tied with Greece and Macau).
According to the CIA factbook the following have better health care outcomes for the average citizen: Macao, Andorra, Japan, Singapore, San Marino, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Iceland, Canada, Italy, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Spain, Norway, Israel, Austria, Greece, Malta, Netherlands, South Korea, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Germany, Belgium, UK, Finland, Jordan, Puerto Rico, Bosnia, Bermuda, St. Helena, and then the United States.
Report comment to moderator
Scroop Moth, you are forgetting that some doctors will simply give up their practices, and some hospitals and clinics will close. My friends in the United Kingdom tell me that not only do the have to travel far to go to a specialist, they must wait for several months for an appointment that most of us could get in two weeks or so. In addition their GP’s are reluctant to refer them to specialists, because one of their jobs is to keep costs down.
People are definitely living in a fantasy land if they believe they can have it all–excellent medical care at hardly any cost to them. That is the fantasy that President Obama and the Democrats are promoting.
How will the government pay for it, really?
Will they really hire fewer employees than private insurance companies?
Will they really pay them less?
If they do hire fewer employees and pay them less, won’t the service be terrible?
Will doctors suddenly reduce their fees and hospitals cut their prices?
No, the government will either raise taxes or operate on a deficit and probably print money to cover it.
Very bad ideas.
Report comment to moderator
Fish: SOOOO you did not know that this example was one that was asked of the great Obama, and that is how he answered.
Is it? Nope.
Here’s how you reported his response: If you were 100 years old and needed a pace maker, under Obama, YOU WOULD NOT GET IT Under OBAMA all you would get is a pain pill.
Here’s what he actually said, after hearing the story of the questioner’s mother’s need for a pacemaker (and the specific question was whether intangibles such as “spirit” and “quality of life” should be part of care decisions.)
I don’t think that we can make judgments based on peoples’ spirit. That would be a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that say that we are going to provide good, quality care for all people. We’re not going to solve every single one of these very difficult decisions at end of life. Ultimately that’s going to be between physicians and patients.
So you say he said no you can’t have a pacemaker, just a pain pill. What he actually said was, that’s going to be between physicians and patients.
Not what you said at all, is it?
Report comment to moderator
Oh, and Fish, as others in this thread are pointing out, there’s nothing about having private insurance that would have guaranteed the woman would get a pacemaker. The point of the question, in fact, was that under the system we have now, she had to seek another doctor to get it after the first one refused.
So you are contrasting an imaginary Obama response that he didn’t say, against an imaginary existing health system in which all needs are met easily when the question itself belies that notion.
Your active imagination aside, there are needs the current system does not handle well.
Report comment to moderator
Obama is a cold hearted monster.
montyfisherwoof might want to check his blood pressure. If his comments about Obama reflect his outlook on anybody whom he disagrees with, he may be the next person at worldmagblog who may need to find a new playpen.
I think there are perfectly rational and reasonable grounds for disagreeing with or for criticizing the current President of the United States without appointing yourself as someone who knows his soul, personality, and intent.
I have no reason to think that montyfisherwoof intends to do anything besides post angry insulting comments on an unline forum, but I suspect the tenor of his comments reflects attitudes of a lot of other people, some of whom may not be anchored very well.
I hope the Secret Service is at the top of its game right now.
Report comment to moderator
#13
4. Employers seeking relief from the expense of finding/purchasing/administering health care plans will drop private insurance entirely in favor of the cheaper, less hassle government insurance offering their employees no choice. Eliminating this expense will increase profits as employers will pass only part of the savings they garner on to their employees as increased wages. 5. Employers opting out of private plans will exacerbate the competition problem of private insurance and accelerate their exit.
Not entirely true. Most private insurers will probably offer supplementary group health insurance plans to cover what isn’t covered by a gov’t plan. Thus you would have two forms of health insurance. For example I have an Ontario Health card and Great West Life, the latter pays for dental, orthodontist, equipment and drugs. the former pays for hospitalization, doctor care, and tests.
Report comment to moderator
#17
o you believe that the government officials should be held to the same health care system that they are going try and mandate, what ever it becomes?
Only in America do legislators have different care than the average citizen. Politicians in other countries are risking grave political consequences if they don’t use the same system as other citizens — with the possible exception of the UK and its dual health care policy ( which is what the US will probably adopt ie the worst model)
Report comment to moderator
#39 ROND
Such example of a deficient government plan is Canada offering outdated colon cancer chemotherapy drugs rather than the state-of-the-art drugs available in the US because of the expense. Canada is not stepping up and providing and as a result Canadians come down here for therapy with newer/better drugs.
Most countries have different protocols for testing new drugs and treatments and thus they get approved at different times. In the example above, I believe it would be the case that the treatment had yet to make it through Canadian testing protocols. Its not listed as a treatment because of cost but because its still undergoing Cdn testing. Years ago, Health Canada would grant automatic approval to any US approved treatment/drug but the influence of US pharma companies in getting drugs approved prior to complete testing led to a change in policy. Occasionally, new drugs will be made available on a trial basis before complete approval — my daughter was a beneficiary in one case.
Report comment to moderator
#44 ROND
refuse to pay for life-saving treatments” Really. Proof please. And when did it make the news?
http://www.kmbc.com/health/6882159/detail.html
Report comment to moderator
#46
Kyle
The UK model for health care is probably the worst example outside the US. Canada doesn’t have dual care so its not a workable example for the US — try Germany or France.
Report comment to moderator
I love this discussion and love that Steve can so compassionately write about what we should all agree to with Obamacare. Here is my question…..why do we need to spend $1 trillion dollars to provide a government sponsored health care plan when to insure the 6 million uninsured (not 47 million because the numbers they are using include 20 million college students under their parents health care, 10 million illegal aliens and 11 million eligible under SCHIP or Medicaid leaving just 6 million) when we could much less expensively provide those 6 million uninsured that are not qualified under their state’s welfare system a credit card that would allow them to purchase their medical care free of charge without raising taxes for the rest of us?
I am all for making sure the poor and down trodden are taken care of, but a government run system of health care will resemble the U.S. Post Office and will create another entitlement program that will reinforce people not doing for themselves.
If we trained people to budget for their health care (which is what I do since as a just returned missionary I am no longer eligible for my overseas health care) you would find that most people would be able to pay less for health care because they are paying cash instead of making doctors fill out countless forms and standing the chance of being rejected. Go back to the old way of doing things……get better on your own or save your money for emergencies.
Report comment to moderator
ROND – I think maybe you’ve contradicted yourself.
At #39 you say that insurance companies regularly pay for unlimited benefits, subject to their financial “ability” to deliver benefits in return for premiums. Due to this standard of performance by insurance companies, you impose upon government the duty to provide universal health care without limit, and to incur all possible expense for everyone in all circumstances, to extend life for as many minutes as medically possible. “Yes I do,” you say.
Insurance companies do what you say they do; therefore, government must provide unlimited, universal coverage. That’s your argument. (Are you a professional negotiator, ROND?)
At #44, you pull a switcheroo:
Now, you acknowledge that insurance policies do deny coverage, though honorably and for valid reasons, such as lower premiums, cost containment, fraud prevention, definitions of coverage, and exclusions. Because there are so many competing insurance companies, the market works well. Where does this leave us? Insurance companies only pay for what they previously agreed to cover in the policy (if they agreed to cover us at all), and not whatever we need, as you boasted at #39. What a disappointment!
My stories about wealthy family members were a vain attempt to head off a personal attack like “Please, do try to keep your class envy fever marginally under control.” Also, I wanted to make a personal point about expensive, futile treatments (”No thanks, ROND!”) and the expensive, beneficial treatment of my brother.
BTW, I have to protest your assumption that the quality of government is fixed. Philosophy can’t solve an empirical problem like health care.
Report comment to moderator
Today’s Democrat politicans feel it is their calling to impose a system on us that they would never ever consider for themselves or their families. They are on a higher level than the rest of us. Democrat politicans think that we work for them (we exist to keep sending in our hard-earned money to the government) and they do NOT realize that they work for us. That notion is long gone.
Report comment to moderator
HRW #45 – Please read the World Health Organization Report for 2009 where this ranking comes from. They don’t rate countries for the best healthcare, they rate which countries have the most universal government provided coverage. Since America’s socialized medicine is limited to Welfare, America ranks lower. The WHO ranks America #1 in terms of responsiveness to health needs.
Let’s look at the Canadian or European systems where Obama is taking us. (Reference)
“The cancer death rate in Canada is 16 percent higher than in the United States.”
“If you get colon cancer in Canada you have a 42 percent chance of dying. If you get it in the U.S., you have a 31 percent chance. Why? Because the top two medicines that we use in chemotherapy to treat colon cancer are not available in Canada — not because of any health restriction, but because they’re too expensive.”
“And the incidence of colon cancer in Canada is 25 percent higher. Why? Because there’s a 4-month wait for a colonoscopy. And when you get the colonoscopy, it’s not read by a [gastrointestinal specialist] but by an internist or sometimes by a nurse practitioner, and they miss about a fifth of the polyps that ultimately become cancer.”
Report comment to moderator
Unlike llama, who compulsively dissed entire groups with his tirades, but I thought was generally respectful of fellow posters, MFW compulsively and gratuitously insults anybody who doesn’t agree with him. It’s an ugly trait, and I do hope he doesn’t last too long.
In the meantime, MFW, you made the statement that we have the best health care system in the world, I asked you to provide some statistical proof and you ducked. Care to try again?
Itsaboutfreedom: Lotsa numbers in your post #55. Got a source to back them up? And, budgeting for your own health care without insurance can lead to some really nasty surprises and a quick bankruptcy. Mightn’t you very quickly become one of the “poor and downtrodden” whom your fellow taxpayers have to support?
Report comment to moderator
PS: I do hope llama has emerged from his bunker by now…
Report comment to moderator
#34 SteveG “The legislation doesn’t exist yet. As I said, if it includes such a provision — and I think it should but don’t know if it will — it would solve a lot of the concerns.
You are using liberal tactic #243. When a proposal is on the table you will dismiss all criticism simply by saying that since it doesn’t exist yet we have no right to criticize it. Maybe you’re not the type to plan ahead, but we have plenty of examples of similar healthcare systems which are disastrous.
As for #2 “The government will not be taking over the health care system. Your care will not be managed by a bureaucrat.”
That is the same argument that was used for Welfare and public schools and everything else the government has taken over. People can continue to use private services as long as they are willing to pay double. Most people don’t have that option. And so taxpayer funded socialized medicine will become the largest most powerful provider.
Washington will say what medicines and tests you can have. You will wait for months to have surgery or get the drugs you need, just as with the European and Canadian systems that we are heading towards. Our taxes will double and our services will decline. More people will die. And if you think fighting your HMO is tough now, just wait until you queue up behind 200 million other people in line trying to get Washington to give them the services they need.
But as our services decline our ranking will increase with the World Health Organization. That’s all that matters.
Report comment to moderator
“If it’s my family …”
Just as Obama’s children will never ever utilize the public school system, they will never ever use a single service that their father provides for the unwashed masses.
The surprising news is that he seems to have answered the question honestly. Good for him.
Report comment to moderator
ItsAboutFreedom: If we trained people to budget for their health care (which is what I do since as a just returned missionary I am no longer eligible for my overseas health care) you would find that most people would be able to pay less for health care
Which is fine up until the day you get diagnosed with cancer or a chronic autoimmune disorder, or need bypass surgery. Then the costs will immediately soar way beyond what you could ever hope to afford. And it’ll be too late to get insured then, because you have pre-existing condition.
Go back to the old way of doing things……get better on your own or save your money for emergencies.
Heh. Tell that to someone who needs medicines for the rest of their lives to manage rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis, costing $15,000 or $20,000 a year.
Your problem is you assume that everyone is basically healthy and doesn’t need that much care. It’s not so.
I’ve had this argument with several people who manage to lecture us a lot about how people should take responsibility for their health care, but never quite get around to explaining how people with expensive chronic conditions and inadequate or no insurance are supposed to do that. So ‘m going to ask you point blank: How?
Report comment to moderator
“Second, expanding the program would “crowd out” the private insurance many higher-income kids already have. Hawaii offers proof. Earlier this year, the state created a new taxpayer-financed program to fill the gap between private and public insurance in an effort to provide universal coverage for children. But state officials found families were dropping private coverage to enroll their children in the government plan.
When Gov. Linda Lingle saw the data, she pulled the plug on funding. With Hawaii facing budget shortfalls, she said it was unwise to spend public money to replace private coverage children already had.”
http://www.heartland.org/publications/health%20care/article/24676/Expanding_SCHIP_Beyond_Poor_Is_Wrong_Approach.html
Report comment to moderator
“Your problem is you assume that everyone is basically healthy and doesn’t need that much care. It’s not so.”
No, the problem is that you assume the government can provide the money out of thin air…at no detriment to society.
Report comment to moderator
Ya know Scroop your feigned obtuseness is quite tiring.
Regardless of how your meager reading comprehension skills twist my words—particularly when you restate them—insurance pays as it must because the parameters of a particular policy dictate what is covered and what is not covered. Policies essentially are legal contracts that must be followed precisely—which should be obvious to even you if you’ve ever considered how long and wordy they tend to be, which also makes obvious the thought that you’ve never actually read one. Your opinions, anecdotes and myths notwithstanding, insurance must pay or not pay according to what the policy states.
Government as the eventual only insurance provider for the masses—HRW—will not, actually cannot, pay anywhere near as well as your demonized private insurers pay now. BO has stated precisely that when he says his plan will “reduce costs”. Costs are only reduced when providing health care to a fictitious additional 40 million uninsured people by reducing the amount and quality of services provided. You can’t increase demand for something and reduce cost at the same time without changing—reducing or eliminating—services.
These 40 million will overwhelm the present system demanding to see a doctor for their multitude of reasons they have either developed through lifestyle issues or that they have been denied coverage for by private insurers. Adding their demands to the system leaves BO no alternative but to reduce services or increase cost. He will do both because he is a politician.
Report comment to moderator
Post 63 – Steve. And if we just provide a government sponsored health care plan then this will solve the problem for all Americans. Basically just come out and say what you intimate….you really believe that if the government takes care of everything then we will never have any problems with health care again, is that correct? Because in your criticism of anybody who is trying to do the right thing by saving and taking care of their bodies and trying to prepare for that day when bad health happens, that is a bad thing in your book? Better that we all just wait on some perfect little health care plan from the government to take care of all of our needs than to take the God-given talents we do have and prepare? Is that correct Steve?
Because if you honestly believe that government is going to take care of those expensive medicines for the rest of your life and you honestly believe that they really care for what YOU need, please re-think again because you are replacing God with government and the last time I checked government was a small “G” not a capital “G”.
Government does not run anything within budget, never has and never will. If you believe this, please explain how government is going to fix all of our problems Steve because I can’t see that happening.
Report comment to moderator
ROND #66 Perhaps you just misspoke, but I think you really were giving insurance companies fanciful praise in order to disparage public insurance. In any case, the inventory of all the provisions in the nation’s insurance polices just isn’t good enough anymore. Even the insurance industry agrees their market’s not working, ROND. They want the government to mandate reforms (on their terms).
Report comment to moderator
Post #67: I’ll add you to the very long list of people who duck the very simple question I asked you. Although you did add an impressive amount of bluster to go with it.
I call this the Squid Defense … disappearing in a cloud of ink.
However, I will do you more of a courtesy than you did me, and address what you said.
Steve. And if we just provide a government sponsored health care plan then this will solve the problem for all Americans. Basically just come out and say what you intimate….you really believe that if the government takes care of everything then we will never have any problems with health care again, is that correct?
That is not even close to correct. Health care will always be a problem and adding a government-funded plan won’t solve every problem. It will, however, make things much better for many people who currently are greatly limited in the care they can get.
Are you aware that many people die years prematurely because they can’t afford the care they need? They either don’t go to a doctor, or they delay until some serious condition has advanced past the point of being curable, because they can’t afford it.
That shouldn’t happen in any advanced country, least of all ours.
But no, there are no easy answers and none of us who advocate Obama’s plan think it is a panacea. It will help; it will not solve everything.
Because in your criticism of anybody who is trying to do the right thing by saving and taking care of their bodies and trying to prepare for that day when bad health happens, that is a bad thing in your book?
Nope, and I have no idea how you got that from what I said. I’m all for people saving money and paying for their own care, and I’m totally in favor of people making lifestyle changes to improve their overall health.
What I actually said is that none of that is a guarantee. You can save a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars, avoid tobacco, maintain a healthy weight, exercise every day and still get MS or cancer. Things that require long term care and lifetime medication are not affordable, without help, for many people. If you have private insurance, great, you’re probably fine. What if your illness leaves you too disabled to work? Suddenly you can’t save any more money, and you’ll probably lose that private coverage … if you do keep it, it will be costly and remember, you lost your income stream.
So then what do you do?
My criticism of your position is not that fending for yourself is bad; it’s that for some people it’s not enough. Also, it’s much easier to do that if you’re in a high-income job. The childless couple who earn $150,000 annually are much better able to provide for their own healthcare than the family of five trying to get by on $45,000 a year.
I suppose you find it acceptable for some people to suffer because it’s “just” six million who are completely uninsured, right?
Better that we all just wait on some perfect little health care plan from the government to take care of all of our needs than to take the God-given talents we do have and prepare? Is that correct Steve?
Not correct at all. Now maybe you could respond to what I actually said, instead of your imaginary set of strawman arguments that bear a passing resemblance at best to my position.
I will ask you a question that might be easier for you, since it’s based on something you said.
we could much less expensively provide those 6 million uninsured that are not qualified under their state’s welfare system a credit card that would allow them to purchase their medical care free of charge without raising taxes for the rest of us?
In this scenario, who is it you envision getting the credit card bill?
Report comment to moderator
Waiting for Fish to explain why he lied, as I pointed out in #47.
Report comment to moderator
Rond: Costs are only reduced when providing health care to a fictitious additional 40 million uninsured people by reducing the amount and quality of services provided. You can’t increase demand for something and reduce cost at the same time without changing—reducing or eliminating—services.
Not true. You reduce cost by refusing to pay exorbitant charges. When doctors are faced with the choice of getting paid less or not getting paid, they choose to get paid less.
This already happens. Every time I go to the doctor, I get a statement from my insurance company that tells me what the doctor’s fee is, what the insurance company paid, and doctor waives the difference. See, the doctor has an agreement with the insurer to accept what the insurer pays for a given service. The doctor agrees to take the insurance company’s amount and in return, gets more patients because if he didn’t sign on with my insurer, I’d find a doctor who did.
That’s the power of collective bargaining, really. The problem is, it only works when there are a large number of people involved. If an uninsured person went to my doctor, the doctor would bill the full amount and the patient would not have the power of an insurance company behind him to negotiate that down. But if he were covered under a government-sponsored plan, he would. (Medicare/Medicaid do this quite effectively.)
Does it drive down profits for doctors? Sure. So what? Where does any religious or ethical system privilege profits over care? Doctors should make a good living, as the services they provide are life-enhancing and often life-saving. But they do not need to be millionaires.
Report comment to moderator
“we could much less expensively provide those 6 million uninsured that are not qualified under their state’s welfare system a credit card that would allow them to purchase their medical care free of charge without raising taxes for the rest of us?
In this scenario, who is it you envision getting the credit card bill?”
Well Steve it seems that if the government is willing to run a health care company with the taxes of people who produce income that produces taxes then it seems to me that same government can pay the medical costs on that same credit card instead of creating an entirely new organization including thousands of new government jobs that all have to be paid for with taxes. Do you honestly believe this is about the government providing an alternative health insurance plan? No way, it is about the government creating an entirely new industry that will required billions of dollars just to set up, will require billions of dollars a year to maintain and will give insurance for a small percentage of uninsured.
Do we seriosly need the government to create one more organization to run health care insurance and health care on the backs of tax payers?
How many people (% of total workers) work in private industry compared to how many work in government? How many people who work in government actually produce something that brings in more tax money in order to run government? How exactly can a system that produces no income that does not come from a manufacturer, a small business or a private citizen all of a sudden become the answer to everything we need?
Now, ask yourself if we took a portion of that $1.6 trillion dollars for just for the first 10 years and we created a private organization that would give the credit cards, finance the health care, pay taxes on that income and provided health care for the uninsured through a credit card instead of just letting people run to the government sponsored hospital and paying for their health care with tax payer money, just how much more efficient would that be run? And just how less corrupt than a government system that runs on corruption? Spare me the transparency speech about Obama and the government….they are as transparent as muddy water.
It is not that I don’t want health care for everybody but please point me to a hospital that turns away somebody who is in need of care. I have not heard of this happening yet but I guarantee this will happen if we have government sponsored health care insurance and care.
Private industry for all their problems has ALWAYS run things better than the government and if you don’t think so I just don’t know how to debate with you because you must not have grown up in this country when the government didn’t run everything.
Report comment to moderator
It is not that I don’t want health care for everybody but please point me to a hospital that turns away somebody who is in need of care.
Emergency care, yes, they don’t turn people away. Long-term care, surgeries and other non-emergency needs, not so much.
I grant your credit care idea sounds intriguing and potentially workable, but I do disagree with your generally anti-government stance. Government does not do everything well, but it does some things very well.
Report comment to moderator
I will agree with you that our government does military well and it has always done well in defending our country. And I don’t mind paying my taxes for things like that, they are things that there is no way I can do.
I also agree with you that there needs to be something in place for long-term care, surgeries and some non-emergency needs but the problem is not the insurance, the problem is the cost. Doing something about insuring the millions uninsured is putting a band-aid on a problem that needs surgery. If you look at the history of health care before large tort law suits were allowed to pass without any controls or regulations placed on them, health care was affordable for nearly all. In talking with my grandpa, he said that for long-term care and other needs the community used to take care of people (of course this is a farming community in Kansas and not a community in NYC).
I guess my biggest frustration with all of this is that we have lawyers in Congress and The Senate who are not willing to control or regulate their fellow lawyers and to me the problem is that lawyers sue for everything and that is what has driven health care expenses so high.
So, if Obama began to push tort reform for health care, malpractice and other things then I would stand behind him in a heart beat. But there is no way I want to see my tax money go down a black hole and that is what health care will be if the government takes over.
So, we agree on a lot of things. Let’s see if we can come closer on the solution to health care. Let’s see if we can agree as to what has caused health care to get so expensive.
Report comment to moderator
#58
- Please read the World Health Organization Report for 2009 where this ranking comes from.
If you look at my previous posts you will note it comes from the CIA factbook and is a measurement of very specific stats not the universality or access of health just the results of each system.
Xion — you reference a book called Catastrophe by Dick Morris.
Morris claims doctors’ salaries are lower in Canada to control costs. However, comparing gross salaries does not take into account overhead costs, malpractice insurance etc. The following indicates the salaries are not much different and in some specialties physicians make more in Canada.
http://student.pnhp.org/content/what_about_physician_salaries.php
According to the Conference Board of Canada (a right wing business thinktank) Canada and the US have similar cancer mortality rates. Sweden garnered the best grade while Denmark was the worst. It appears the type of health care system is not an important difference in cancer care.
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/HCP/Details/health/mortality-cancer.aspx
According to Morris, there is a 4-month wait for a colonoscopy. However, cancer care Ontario published the 2008 wait times and the median wait time is approx 7 weeks or less than 2 months.
http://www.cancercare.on.ca/cms/one.aspx?pageId=41101
Interestingly Morris never gives equilivant US stats. Admittedly this is an old article but it suggests wait times are similar in the US depending on region
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/08/us/50-and-ready-for-colonoscopy-doctors-say-wait-is-often-long.html?pagewanted=all
Report comment to moderator
#58
- Please read the World Health Organization Report for 2009 where this ranking comes from.
If you look at my previous posts you will note it comes from the CIA factbook and is a measurement of very specific stats not the universality or access of health just the results of each system.
Xion — you reference a book called Catastrophe by Dick Morris.
Morris claims doctors’ salaries are lower in Canada to control costs. However, comparing gross salaries does not take into account overhead costs, malpractice insurance etc. The following indicates the salaries are not much different and in some specialties physicians make more in Canada.
http://student.pnhp.org/content/what_about_physician_salaries.php
Report comment to moderator
#58
According to the Conference Board of Canada (a right wing business thinktank) Canada and the US have similar cancer mortality rates. Sweden garnered the best grade while Denmark was the worst. It appears the type of health care system is not an important difference in cancer care.
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/HCP/Details/health/mortality-cancer.aspx
Report comment to moderator
#58
According to Morris, there is a 4-month wait for a colonoscopy. However, cancer care Ontario published the 2008 wait times and the median wait time is approx 7 weeks or less than 2 months.
http://www.cancercare.on.ca/cms/one.aspx?pageId=41101
Interestingly Morris never gives equilivant US stats. Admittedly this is an old article but it suggests wait times are similar in the US depending on region
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/08/us/50-and-ready-for-colonoscopy-doctors-say-wait-is-often-long.html?pagewanted=all
Report comment to moderator
#66
ROND
Reduction of costs in US health care can occur without cutting services — the US health care system has the highest administrative costs of any OECD country. The duplication of private bureaucracy is a drain on health care dollars.
Report comment to moderator
#68 Scroop
No, I didn’t misspeak because I’ve never known or heard of anyone who had health insurance problems anywhere near the magnitude deemed “catastrophic” by those pushing this monstrous change onto the medical system. If and when anyone says anything, it’s just minor grumbling about their most recent increase in insurance “costs”, but yet no one is anywhere near canceling anything or making any changes. They simply
And no one has any problem with their personal doctor or the level of care that their insurance provides—in fact, just the opposite occurred with my brother-in-law dealing with a massive case of shingles who had nothing but praise for the care he was receiving through various efforts to control/manage his pain.
Steve/HRW,
If this whole thing can be pulled off for LESS MONEY without ANY REDUCTION in the QUALITY or LEVEL of CARE PATIENTS RECEIVE why hasn’t it been done in the UK and Canada? Do they have an intelligence deficiency of some sort or what—or maybe is it just an Obama plan deficiency you feverishly choose to ignore while swallowing whole his lies?
When was the last time government provided more of anything for less? Answer: It never has.
Government can’t provide anything without a bottom line, overall cost increase because government bureaucracy, waste, graft and ineptitude ALWAYS requires additional cost on top of whatever cost is required to deliver the service in the first place.
Report comment to moderator
Oops, postus interruptus . . . “They simply make budget adjustments while searching for the next insurance provider offering what they want at a price they want to pay.
With government offering the only plan, all other options for the common man are off the table. When government needs more money for this program, as it will without question, taxes will go up and no one will have any option but to pay.”
Report comment to moderator
f this whole thing can be pulled off for LESS MONEY without ANY REDUCTION in the QUALITY or LEVEL of CARE PATIENTS RECEIVE why hasn’t it been done in the UK and Canada?
But it has! In three important categories (infant and child mortality and life expectancy) which measure the results of health care, the US ranks between 30 and 35. Canada and the UK are both higher than this.
Life expectancy: Canada 10, UK 26 and USA 30 (CIA Factbook)
Infant mortality: UK 21, Canada 22, and USA 32
Child mortality: Canada 20, UK 21 and USA 34
Of course the Scandinavians are on the top.
Report comment to moderator
Sorry, the demographics of the three countries are not identical, therefore determining the resulting effectiveness of health care, which is correlated directly to demographic makeup of the population, can’t possibly be equated to accurately develop such numbers.
Your splitting of hairs, which you imply is significant with these minor differences, doesn’t work either since life expectancy ranges world wide from 84 to 31 years. These numbers are median world wide and certainly within range of demographics causing the difference. Both the UK and Canada don’t have near the influx of people groups from less developed countries bringing their health problems with them—especially since a lot of them are illegal and not screened until they show up needing help.
The fact that they are close probably relates to the level of scientific medical progress at which these countries operate vis a vis less developed countries more than anything else. But, they are not apples and apples.
I’d suspect US healthcare effectiveness, were it possible to compare demographically equal populations, would be actually higher than the UK and Canada especially since both populations find it necessary to leave the country for better care than is available at home as this link shows need. Very, very few Americans leave the country for “better” care—though admittedly some do for unapproved cutting edge stuff.
http://www.canada.com/travel/canada/Cancer+rate+increases+StatsCan/1402276/story.html
Report comment to moderator
back to topJoin The Conversation
You need to be a registered user of WORLDonTheWeb.com to "join the conversation."
If you are not a member yet, what are you waiting for? Register / Login Now!