NewYorker Proganda Sheet said:
Instead, the United States has opted for a makeshift system of increasing complexity and dysfunction. Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world’s median of $2,193;
Doesn't mention if that's only out of pocket expenses, or the full cost including government welfare...er subsidies. In a word, meaningless, suitable only for inflaming minds not accustomed to reading numbers.
NewYorker Proganda Sheet said:
Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries.
Is that important? If it is, there's a reason for it, and it ain't because the government hasn't nationalized the health care system. It's because the medical schools don't graduate enough doctors. Also, needless to say, this country pays doctors more than they earn elsewhere, and more than they're worth, for the most part. If there was a demand for doctors in this country, we should be seeing an influx of foreigners in the ER....I mean doctors, not Mexicans.
NewYorker Proganda Sheet said:
We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries.
That's because its not free, and when things aren't free, the laws of economics dictates how they're consumed.[/quote]
NewYorker Proganda Sheet said:
We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries.
So, is the problem that we spend too much money on health care, as the numbers above seem to claim, or are we not spending as much time in the hospital? Can't have it both ways.
NewYorker Proganda Sheet said:
We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries.
That's because our expectations exceed reality. It's a symptom of ignorance. Does the author of that article expect the Satisfaction Index to improve when the same people that run the DMV take over the hospitals?
Needless to say the reasons for any "dissatisfaction" won't be resolved by reducing the amount of money spent on services.
NewYorker Proganda Sheet said:
American life expectancy is lower than the Western average. Childhood-immunization rates in the United States are lower than average. Infant-mortality rates are in the nineteenth percentile of industrialized nations.
No drug war. No crack babies. No permanent welfare undereducated underclass. No millions of invading hordes from Mexico. Not so much obesity. Lots of factors....all of them totally independent of dollars per capita spent.
As for the child immunization rates, most of that is either due to stupid educated parents that want their children to die of diptheria or measles, or due to stupid natives and immigrants that don't know what immunization if for. The lack of immunization isn't a due to any failure of the medical systsem. Any parent that want's their child to get immunized can get it done, either out of their own pocket, or via the established welfare programs. Except for smallpox, of course. The terrorists might be figuring out a way to infect the US tomorrow, but I can't get my girls a simply shot to protect from that.
NewYorker Proganda Sheet said:
Doctors here perform more high-end medical procedures, such as coronary angioplasties, than in other countries, but most of the wealthier Western countries have more CT scanners than the United States does, and Switzerland, Japan, Austria, and Finland all have more MRI machines per capita.
I haven't heard of anyone dying from lack of an MRI, like has happened in Canada...oh, wait. Canada HAS socialized medicine. Go figure.
NewYorker Proganda Sheet said:
Nor is our system more efficient. The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita per year—or close to four hundred billion dollars—on health-care-related paperwork and administration, whereas Canada, for example, spends only about three hundred dollars per capita.
Canada doesn't have any lawyers, right? That's why the US is awash in paper. It's got nothing to do with health care.
NewYorker Proganda Sheet said:
And, of course, every other country in the industrialized world insures all its citizens; despite those extra hundreds of billions of dollars we spend each year, we leave forty-five million people without any insurance.
No. They've got a subsidy. An insurance is where the client signs up for a policy, the insurer does some actuarial magic, and figures out how much risk the client presents to the company and charges him a fee based on the services contracted for and the risks involved.
The nations with socialized medicine are running a welfare program.
NewYorker Proganda Sheet said:
A country that displays an almost ruthless commitment to efficiency and performance in every aspect of its economy—a country that switched to Japanese cars the moment they were more reliable, and to Chinese T-shirts the moment they were five cents cheaper—has loyally stuck with a health-care system that leaves its citizenry pulling out their teeth with pliers.
We haven't loyally stuck to anything. We've simply refused to marry the pig under the veil. What we need is to get the government out of the health care business and let the free market do it's stuff. Denying all medical services to any and all lawyers would be a perfect start to reforming the majority of the problems with the US health care industry.
Kelzie said:
You can't argue the facts. The US does not have the best health care system in the world. Ours is on the same level as other countries with national health care. The only difference is we spend TWICE as much on it. It's inefficient.
Its inefficient because it's not free. The one thing the free market excells at, far better than any other method, is maximizing efficiency. Our system is clogged full of lawyers, for one thing. And the patient isn't the person actually spending money on the insurance policy. Usually, his employer is. And needless to say, the employer isn't the one enjoying the hospital stay after the employees hernia surgery, so why should he buy a policy to cover it?
Get it so the patient is the person paying for the services, and miraculous things will happen to American medical care. Third party payer is a second reason, after lawyers, for any problems that exist in the US health care industry.
(Don't agree about the lawyers? The International Space Station was designed by 535 lawyers in Washington, and not by engineers. Needless to say, it was twenty years late and billions over budget)