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New Health Rankings: Of 17 Nations, U.S. Is Dead Last

Re: We're Number......LAST

Catawba said:
We know you are conservative about this topic, US health care, as you have opposed an upgrade to UHC as every other industrialized country has done.
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Every other industrialized nation doesn't have the US Federal Govt. Bureaucracy on steroids. If I thought for a second that the govt would be an upgrade I'd be on board. The feds will do nothing but increase costs and decrease quality. Just in personnel costs the govt would blow any potential savings away. Replacing private sector workers with govt workers and their lifetime defined bennies would be bad enough but one size fits all medical decisions being made in Washington is down right scary.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

gingern44 said:
Every other industrialized nation doesn't have the US Federal Govt. Bureaucracy on steroids. If I thought for a second that the govt would be an upgrade I'd be on board. The feds will do nothing but increase costs and decrease quality. Just in personnel costs the govt would blow any potential savings away. Replacing private sector workers with govt workers and their lifetime defined bennies would be bad enough but one size fits all medical decisions being made in Washington is down right scary.
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Evidently, you are unaware that administrative costs for medicare is 15% - 20% less than for private insurers, and that's not adding in the profit that private insurers add.
The unaffordable cost of our present system will force us to upgrade to UHC as the rest of the industrialized world was forced to go with UHC to lower costs.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

gingern44 said:
Every other industrialized nation doesn't have the US Federal Govt. Bureaucracy on steroids. If I thought for a second that the govt would be an upgrade I'd be on board. The feds will do nothing but increase costs and decrease quality. Just in personnel costs the govt would blow any potential savings away. Replacing private sector workers with govt workers and their lifetime defined bennies would be bad enough but one size fits all medical decisions being made in Washington is down right scary.
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No other nation has any kind of US Federal Bureaucracy. Only the US

France has a French Federal Bureaucracy on steroids. The Germans, a German Federal Bureaucracy on steroids......
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

sangha said:
No other nation has any kind of US Federal Bureaucracy. Only the US

France has a French Federal Bureaucracy on steroids. The Germans, a German Federal Bureaucracy on steroids......
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I disagree. You need look no further than the tax code. I'd love to see the German tax code stacked next to ours. The proverbial mole hill vs the mountain. I have no doubt you would find the same is true in labor law, health & safety, retirement plan regs, environmental law, healthcare, on and on. And that's just the federal level add state, county, local and all kinds of regional orgs.

Last year I was watching a seminar on CSPAN, it was either the Chamber of Comm or NFIB so they were definitely business folks. One guy gave rehash of trying to open two sister factories in N. America & Europe. They decide on S. Carolina and Germany. The short version of it was 3 years from starting the process the German factory was within a year of being fully operational. In the US they gave up and were building in Mexico.

The long version was painful. 3 years on the fed and state govts were locked in a battle over the land the company had already purchased with state and local help. He laughed about the fact that the company was gone yet the p###ing match between state & fed carried on. But that was just the big problem. The reality was in the numbers of different govt agencies he had to deal with. In Ger within a year they knew exactly where they stood on everything, building permits to sick leave to safety regs to taxes. Over here 3 years on the company was still discovering new govt agencies throwing up roadblocks. If you throw in what is probably or possibly coming down the road it's a wonder anyone would build here.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

spud_meister said:
No, we have a higher rate of non-fatal violence.
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ok so you have more people getting beat to an inch of their life,and forced to spend the rest of their life as a cripple,atleast we have the decency to end it quickly.

btw australia has a high rape,assault,theft rate etc,just holding lower homicide rate isnt a very attractive counter argument.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

Catawba said:
Evidently, you are unaware that administrative costs for medicare is 15% - 20% less than for private insurers, and that's not adding in the profit that private insurers add.
The unaffordable cost of our present system will force us to upgrade to UHC as the rest of the industrialized world was forced to go with UHC to lower costs.
Click to expand...

You are comparing apples to oranges. I couldn't improve on something I read so I just copied it.

"private insurance is made far less efficient by all sorts of government intrusion in the market-- most notably, the vast subsidies to purchase health insurance, but also mandates on insurers/insurees and restrictions in competition between insurers. So, we're comparing a private insurance market, bound and beaten by the govt, to whatever the govt does. Not exactly a fair fight, if one is trying to compare "markets" to govt provision."

"Medicare is not actually managed by the federal government. In most places it is managed by private contractors, including such entities as Cigna and Blue Cross...
"
"What about the claim that Medicare’s administrative costs are only 2%, compared to 10-15% for private insurers? The problem with this comparison is that it includes the cost of marketing and selling insurance as well as the costs of collecting premiums on the private side, but ignores the cost of collecting taxes on the public side. It also ignores the substantial administrative cost that Medicare shifts to the providers of care."

"Ironically, many observers think Medicare spends too little on administration, which is one reason for an estimated Medicare fraud loss of one out of every ten dollars of Medicare benefits paid. Private insurers devote more resources to fraud prevention and find it profitable to do so."
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

The highest rate of death by violence, by a stunning margin - Our inner cities are gang warfare zones *cough Chicago* Has nothing to do with our HC system

The highest rate of death by car accident, also dramatically so - Population of 300 million with a lot of cars. Has nothing to do with HC

The highest chance that a child will die before age 5 - See number 1

The second-highest rate of death by coronary heart disease - Let's ban soda sizes. What could possibly go wrong?

The second-highest rate of death by lung disease - Then ban smoking. Oh wait, they need all that tax money

The highest teen pregnancy rate - That's a Culture problem. Not a HC problem

The highest rate of women dying due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth - 3K innocent and defenseless children are murdered in the womb every single day in this country. Most of those babies are black.

Scandal of dehydrated elderly rushed to hospital because their care homes did not give them a drink | Mail Online

UK Hospital Rocked by Health Care Scandal - World - CBN News - Christian News 24-7 - CBN.com

A two-year-long inquiry has exposed widespread neglect and malpractice that led to the unnecessary deaths of up to 1,200 patients at Stafford Hospital in England between 2005 and 2008.

The London Telegraph reported doctors, nurses, and hospital staff were understaffed and overwhelmed. Consequently, critically-ill patients were regularly overlooked and even given the wrong medication.
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The worst hospital scandal for 10 years - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent

Patients were 'routinely neglected', says most savage indictment of NHS trust
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Mayor Michael Bloomberg drugs: Bloomberg says combating addiction 'epidemic' is priority as he hits back at claims that plan to restrict prescription painkillers will penalize poor | Mail Online

'So you'll suffer a little bit': Bloomberg says combating addiction 'epidemic' is priority as he hits back at claims that plan to restrict prescription painkillers will penalize poor
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Obama to Jane Sturm: Hey, take a pill - YouTube

BROUN: Obamacare: Costs double in two years - Washington Times

Obamacare Guarantees Higher Health Insurance Premiums -- $3,000+ Higher - Forbes

Well, that first term is just about up. And health insurance isn’t any cheaper. In fact, it’s more expensive. Premiums have increased by an average of $3,065. And they’re about to go up even more, as Obamacare takes effect during the president’s second term.

At the end of 2012, Mark Bertolini, the CEO of Aetna, the third-largest health insurer in the country, warned that many consumers would face “premium rate shock” with the advent of Obamacare’s major insurance regulations in 2014. He predicted that unsubsidized premiums would rise 20 to 50 percent, on average.
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Re: We're Number......LAST

gingern44 said:
You are comparing apples to oranges. I couldn't improve on something I read so I just copied it.

"private insurance is made far less efficient by all sorts of government intrusion in the market-- most notably, the vast subsidies to purchase health insurance, but also mandates on insurers/insurees and restrictions in competition between insurers. So, we're comparing a private insurance market, bound and beaten by the govt, to whatever the govt does. Not exactly a fair fight, if one is trying to compare "markets" to govt provision."

"Medicare is not actually managed by the federal government. In most places it is managed by private contractors, including such entities as Cigna and Blue Cross...
"
"What about the claim that Medicare’s administrative costs are only 2%, compared to 10-15% for private insurers? The problem with this comparison is that it includes the cost of marketing and selling insurance as well as the costs of collecting premiums on the private side, but ignores the cost of collecting taxes on the public side. It also ignores the substantial administrative cost that Medicare shifts to the providers of care."

"Ironically, many observers think Medicare spends too little on administration, which is one reason for an estimated Medicare fraud loss of one out of every ten dollars of Medicare benefits paid. Private insurers devote more resources to fraud prevention and find it profitable to do so."
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Thanks for the anonymous opinions!
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

gingern44 said:
I note you don't dispute any of those anonymous opinions.
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I don't need to refute them. The studies referenced in this thread refute them.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

gingern44 said:
I disagree. You need look no further than the tax code. I'd love to see the German tax code stacked next to ours. The proverbial mole hill vs the mountain. I have no doubt you would find the same is true in labor law, health & safety, retirement plan regs, environmental law, healthcare, on and on. And that's just the federal level add state, county, local and all kinds of regional orgs.

Last year I was watching a seminar on CSPAN, it was either the Chamber of Comm or NFIB so they were definitely business folks. One guy gave rehash of trying to open two sister factories in N. America & Europe. They decide on S. Carolina and Germany. The short version of it was 3 years from starting the process the German factory was within a year of being fully operational. In the US they gave up and were building in Mexico.

The long version was painful. 3 years on the fed and state govts were locked in a battle over the land the company had already purchased with state and local help. He laughed about the fact that the company was gone yet the p###ing match between state & fed carried on. But that was just the big problem. The reality was in the numbers of different govt agencies he had to deal with. In Ger within a year they knew exactly where they stood on everything, building permits to sick leave to safety regs to taxes. Over here 3 years on the company was still discovering new govt agencies throwing up roadblocks. If you throw in what is probably or possibly coming down the road it's a wonder anyone would build here.
Click to expand...

Hey, that's Germany. The papers here were complaining about our tax code just a couple of days ago.

It's listed as deaths per 100,000, which is completely useless. Frankly, I've seen more reliable statistics compiled by community college students. DABASSE is a politically driven organization, not a scientific one. Their goal is to push policy.
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How is that useless? It's adjusted for population....
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

head of joaquin said:
No, the facts don't support this claim. Every study made has shown that malpractice insurance/lawsuits adds a de minimus amount to health care inflation, less than 1%.

Morever most malpractice suits are brought against a small group of physicians, who keep causing harm, but who remain in practice because the AMA has trouble policing itself. Something like 5% of doctors are responsible for about 90% of malpractice claims. If the AMA would do a better job weeding out bad doctors, we wouldn't have this problem.
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So why does an aspirin cost $25.00 in a hospital? What could possible be the reason for that?
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

Dragonfly said:
New Health Rankings: Of 17 Nations, U.S. Is Dead Last - Grace Rubenstein - The Atlantic



PHUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!
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Interesting, Death by traffic accidents is around twice is high as death by all violence. Some want the ban guns because a few abuse them, then by that same logic, we should be trying to ban automobiles.

Lets see other factors in this, such as Welfare rates, Obesity rates (yeah, were the tops there), and why only 17 countries? Including all would screw up their bias too much? I know people don't like to include race related issues with health, but things like hypertension and other factors are higher among blacks than whites. What is the racial influences in these factors?

from Ethnicity and Race by Countries — Infoplease.com
US--White: 211,460,626 (75.1%); Black: 34,658,190 (12.3%); Asian: 10,242,998 (3.6%); American Indian and Alaska Native: 2,475,956 (0.9%); Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander: 398,835 (0.1%); other race: 15,359,073 (5.5%); Hispanic origin:1 35,305,818 (12.5%)
Japan--Japanese 99%; Korean, Chinese, Brazillian, Filipino, other 1% (2004)
Switzerland--German 65%, French 18%, Italian 10%, Romansch 1%, other 6%
Canada--British Isles origin 28%, French origin 23%, other European 15%, indigenous Indian and Inuit 2%, other, mostly Asian, African, Arab 6%, mixed background 26%

You can look up the rest on the list if you want, but notice that disparity is broadest in the US.

Teen pregnancy rates in US by race CDC - Graphics Data Descriptions - Teen Pregnancy - Reproductive Health , this is 15-19 by #/1,000
for 2011
White -- 22
Black -- 47
Hispanic -- 49

All have decreased in the last 10 years.

From the CDC
Infant mortality
White-- 5.11%
Black-- 11.42
Hispanic -- not given that I found.

From Health Status - Texas - Kaiser State Health Facts
Death rate from heart disease
White 177/100,000
Black 234.6/100,000

Ok, enough for now. When it comes to health-care and other factors that influence the numbers given, racial disparity definitely has a role. So when considering these types of comparisons, take into account these different factors. We have many other factors influencing us that they don't have.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

Lets see other factors in this, such as Welfare rates, Obesity rates (yeah, were the tops there), and why only 17 countries? Including all would screw up their bias too much? I know people don't like to include race related issues with health, but things like hypertension and other factors are higher among blacks than whites. What is the racial influences in these factors?
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Very funny. This is a list of *developed* countries. Obviously including Mali and China would put the US in a relatively high position. That's not the point.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

DVSentinel said:
Interesting, Death by traffic accidents is around twice is high as death by all violence. Some want the ban guns because a few abuse them, then by that same logic, we should be trying to ban automobiles.
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I understand the appeal behind using this analogy and the ease with which it flows from your fingers onto the "page".

However, it's really not a relevant stat for use in comparison.

An automobile is not designed nor intended to kill people. It's designed as transportation.
Accidents happen and accidents do kill crap-loads of people.

Some guns are specifically designed to kill human beings and to be extremely efficient at killing as well.

Same goes for the "hammers kill more people than assault rifles do" mantra.
While it's true, the "lets ban hammers" reply does not hold water.

Nobody called for box cutters to be banned after 9-11.

We did however stop all airplanes from flying for a small time and instituted stricter rules for what can be brought onto airplanes by passengers. You can argue that those measures are not working, or are knee-jerk over-reactions that don't make any of us any safer, or that they are an invasion of your privacy, but to date I'm fairly sure not one airplane in the USofA has been hijacked since 9-11.

yes - cars kill people, but that's not their intent. Some guns are designed and intended for nothing other than killing people. Some are designed and intended for killing lots of people in a very short period of time.

That's the crux of the debate.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

Mason66 said:
So why does an aspirin cost $25.00 in a hospital? What could possible be the reason for that?
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Because health care has no price elasticity, which is why fee for service is the wrong model. In addition there is information inequality in a hospital setting. If you're sick and hospitalized, you're there to get well, not to negotiation the price of an aspirin, especially since if your hospitalized you probably have bigger problems, and you'll pay anything to get cured.

All this has been thoroughly studied by economists.

Our model fails and will continue to fail. Markets cannot provide efficient health care.
 
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Re: We're Number......LAST

Tigger said:
Which is exactly why my Living Will is written the way it is. Even while I have insurance, any medical service that would be required to be paid for by the Government is not allowed. I figure I've got about 3 years (tops) before I end up toast once I reach age 65.
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Hmmm. You must have a pre-exsiting condition or have been a very bad boy. Average male life expectancy at age 65 is 17.2 years. And of course, your current insurance company may require that you sign up for Medicare once you turn 65. Depends on who the carrier is and what sort of coverage you have and expect to continue beyond that point.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

Fletch said:
Figures that are irrelevant to the quality or cost of care are irrelevant to the quality or cost of care. But it not a shock that you would defend them as relevant anyway.
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Dude, we pay the most and get at least very nearly the least. That's a CRAP situation to be in. We need to get out of it. Got any ideas? Obama did.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

Tigger said:
Which is exactly why my Living Will is written the way it is. Even while I have insurance, any medical service that would be required to be paid for by the Government is not allowed. I figure I've got about 3 years (tops) before I end up toast once I reach age 65.
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Another motif of conservatism -- a culture of death.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

clownboy said:
Now, try reading the links. Btw, the number of doctors IS listed. And you seem to have missed the very first line:
$4 billion dollars paid by insurers for malpractice in the USA 1999
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1999? You couldn't find anything since then, or you didn't like what you did find?

Total US malpractice claims paid in 2011: $6 billion. Number of patients receiving payments: 19,000. Average claim payment: $315,000. Total malpractice premiums paid to insurers in 2011: $31 billion.

Where did the other $25 billion go?
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

gingern44 said:
??? Where?
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On the very first page of this thread you didn't read.

Here:


Dragonfly said:
New Health Rankings: Of 17 Nations, U.S. Is Dead Last - Grace Rubenstein - The Atlantic
PHUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!
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And here:


Catawba said:
Even more of a concern when contrasted with this:

Healthcare spending around the world, country by country

"The US spends more than any other country in the world on healthcare"

Healthcare spending around the world, country by country | News | guardian.co.uk
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Re: We're Number......LAST

head of joaquin said:
Because health care has no price elasticity, which is why fee for service is the wrong model. In addition there is information inequality in a hospital setting. If you're sick and hospitalized, you're there to get well, not to negotiation the price of an aspirin, especially since if your hospitalized you probably have bigger problems, and you'll pay anything to get cured. All this has been thoroughly studied by economists.
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Yes, and they have over and over again found what you have reported.

head of joaquin said:
Our model fails and will continue to fail. Markets cannot provide efficient health care.
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Interesting book that covers much of this is How American Health Care Killed My Father. Here is an excerpt from it that appeared in the September 2009 edition of The Atlantic.
 
Re: We're Number......LAST

Yea, but it doesn't end there. We're also at the bottom of the barrel (or top depending on perspective) in costs per consultation, per surgical procedures, per hospital discharge and pharmaceutical costs, all while actual utilization of said services ranks near or at the bottom of the barrel. If only we were "getting what we pay for" as some have suggested..

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/m...laining_high_hlt_care_spending_intl_brief.pdf
 
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