Thread: Why UHC is detrimental to society

Originally Posted by ksu_aviator

How about if you read an article that quoted the WHO as saying the rankings are not current and they will not be updating them? What if that same article had a slew of different health care experts punching holes in the methodology? An Ill-Conceived Health-Care Ranking - WSJ.com

What if you knew that 25% of the ranking was based on the model of health care (i.e. social v free market)? World Health Organization ranking of health systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The reality is, the WHO won't continue to rank countries because they themselves have acknowledged that the study was flawed. The study could not account for eating habits, regional genetics, conflicts (i.e. war, gangs, etc) and it gave a bonus to countries that didn't have a government paid health care system...which has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the system. The WHO, in the article I linked above, distanced themselves from their own study, saying; "We would not consider it current."

The WHO did not distance itself from the study, which is 10 years old, but quite correctly observed that it was not current. I would accept that as a limitation. But it is informative that the vast majority of bodies who are criticising the study are American (who obviously do not like being ranked 37th - doesn't make them sound exceptional enough). The study was about medical outcomes and the availability of health care across nations - of course it didn't take into account gang warfare, dietary habits, sedentary lifestyles, etc. The WHO is perhaps the most respected health organisation in the world, and while the study may have had limitations, it was in no way misleading.

And if, as you stated above, "it gave a bonus to countries that didn't have a government paid health care system..." then it was in fact favouring countries such as the United States, which would have ranked even lower without that advantage.

If one were to look to popularity/ "favor" ratings of health care systems, contrasting public vs. private, the appropriate responses to compare must be drawn from equivalent pools of respondents.

Therefore, one would have to compare favor ratings between the general public of a UHC country vs. those of the general public (NOT just those people WITH health insurance) of a private health care country. With the variable properly isolated, UHC systems handily kick the crap out of private health care, because this often means contrasting folks who would get decent to excellent care for little financial cost to themselves (under UHC)...against those of similar socioeconomic status who would get poor or even no treatment at all (under private health care) from lack of funds.

Originally Posted by cmakaioz

If one were to look to popularity/ "favor" ratings of health care systems, contrasting public vs. private, the appropriate responses to compare must be drawn from equivalent pools of respondents.

Therefore, one would have to compare favor ratings between the general public of a UHC country vs. those of the general public (NOT just those people WITH health insurance) of a private health care country. With the variable properly isolated, UHC systems handily kick the crap out of private health care, because this often means contrasting folks who would get decent to excellent care for little financial cost to themselves (under UHC)...against those of similar socioeconomic status who would get poor or even no treatment at all (under private health care) from lack of funds.

Spoken like a mature, sensible, and civilised person.

Originally Posted by PeteEU

Well it does not, and never has and never will as long as there is a profit motive involved in life and death.

There is no indication that government lowers cost of the services it provides or that it cheaper. There is also no indication that bringing into the fold UHC will or does lower cost in an existing system. Before you go out on completely missing my point, keep in mind I'm talking about total cost, not what it costs the poor.

There is however plenty of proof that the free market can and does lower cost and even history shows that it has in the medical field but getting back to that point takes some digging because of how long the government has been involved and raising its costs.

Originally Posted by Henrin

There is no indication that government lowers cost of the services it provides or that it cheaper. There is also no indication that bringing into the fold UHC will or does lower cost in an existing system. Before you go out on completely missing my point, keep in mind I'm talking about total cost, not what it costs the poor.

Amazing how many times the left-leaning folks can hear and read this and still seem oblivious to it.

There is however plenty of proof that the free market can and does lower cost and even history shows that it has in the medical field but getting back to that point takes some digging because of how long the government has been involved and raising its costs.

There is more at work than just government in reducing the freedom of the health care market. Insurance itself has a very non-free market effect on health care. And then of course there's the fact that doctors in ERs are required by law to provide costly care regardless of whether patients can cover it (which I guess involves government, so, you're still right).

Originally Posted by Dittohead not!

Originally Posted by Excon

Where have I mentioned any country, let alone the United States, in this thread?
What makes my comments, cough, nationalistic? lol

So, we were talking about the health care system of where? Outer Mongolia, perhaps?

lol
It is not nationalistic to point out that the stats are flawed.

Originally Posted by TheDemSocialist

So pretty much what i got out of all of this is that Excon does not like the WHO because it shows how ****ty our health care system is to the rest of the world....

Is that what you got?
That's funny because I never said any such thing, especially since it doesn't show that the United States healthcare system is ****ty.

Originally Posted by Leo

Understandably yes. When you have succumbed to the propaganda that the society in which you live is the best of all possible societies, and no other society can approach, or ever has approached, your society's level of excellence - it is intolerable that objective appraisal by a neutral authority should demonstrate, for all the world to see, that this is not so. When you cannot disprove such unwelcome appraisal by means of fact, you have only the defence of 'attack the messenger' left. Due allowance must be made for desperation.

Says someone who has obviously succumbed to the propaganda of the flawed WHO's Rankings. lol

Originally Posted by ksu_aviator

How about if you read an article that quoted the WHO as saying the rankings are not current and they will not be updating them? What if that same article had a slew of different health care experts punching holes in the methodology? An Ill-Conceived Health-Care Ranking - WSJ.com

What if you knew that 25% of the ranking was based on the model of health care (i.e. social v free market)? World Health Organization ranking of health systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The reality is, the WHO won't continue to rank countries because they themselves have acknowledged that the study was flawed. The study could not account for eating habits, regional genetics, conflicts (i.e. war, gangs, etc) and it gave a bonus to countries that didn't have a government paid health care system...which has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the system. The WHO, in the article I linked above, distanced themselves from their own study, saying; "We would not consider it current."

I am surprised you provided anything.
It was obvious that they were being dishonest ansd playing a game to deflect from having to admit that the Rankings were flawed and biased.

The Worst Study Ever?
Scott W. Atlas — April 2011

[...]

In fact, World Health Report 2000 was an intellectual fraud of historic consequence—a profoundly deceptive document that is only marginally a measure of health-care performance at all. The report’s true achievement was to rank countries according to their alignment with a specific political and economic ideal—socialized medicine—and then claim it was an objective measure of “quality."

[...]

Before WHO released the study, it was commonly accepted that health care in countries with socialized medicine was problematic. But the study showed that countries with nationally centralized health-care systems were the world’s best. As Vincente Navarro noted in 2000 in the highly respected Lancet, countries like Spain and Italy “rarely were considered models of efficiency or effectiveness before” the WHO report. Polls had shown, in fact, that Italy’s citizens were more displeased with their health care than were citizens of any other major European country; the second worst was Spain. But in World Health Report 2000, Italy and Spain were ranked #2 and #7 in the global list of best overall providers.

Most studies of global health care before it concentrated on health-care outcomes. But that was not the approach of the WHO report. It sought not to measure performance but something else. “In the past decade or so there has been a gradual shift of vision towards what WHO calls the ‘new universalism,’” WHO authors wrote, “respecting the ethical principle that it may be necessary and efficient to ration services.”

[...]

Correction, it turns out, was the goal. “The object is not to explain what each country or health system has attained,” the authors declared, “so much as to form an estimate of what should be possible.” They appointed themselves determinants of what “should” be possible “using information from many countries but with a specific value for each country.” This was not so much a matter of assessing care but of determining what care should be in a given country, based on WHO’s own priorities regarding the allocation of national resources. The WHO report went further and judged that “many countries are falling far short of their potential, and most are making inadequate efforts in terms of responsiveness and fairness.”

[...]

What we have here is a prime example of the misuse of social science and the conversion of statistics from pseudo-data into propaganda. The basic principle, casually referred to as “garbage in, garbage out,” is widely accepted by all researchers as a cautionary dictum. To the authors of World Health Report 2000, it functioned as its opposite—a method to justify a preconceived agenda. The shame is that so many people, including leaders in whom we must repose our trust and whom we expect to make informed decisions based on the best and most complete data, made such blatant use of its patently false and overtly politicized claims.

About the Author
Scott W. Atlas is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of radiology and chief of neuroradiology at the Stanford University Medical Center.
« The Worst Study Ever? Commentary Magazine

I think I understand now who was actually being nationalistic in their defense of the flawed and biased Rankings.

Originally Posted by Dittohead not!

Who on this forum lives in a country that has universal health care, and would trade it for the system we have in the US?

That isn't even a relevant question.
That would be like asking those on "food stamps" if they would like the Government to take them away.

Originally Posted by cmakaioz

If one were to look to popularity/ "favor" ratings of health care systems, contrasting public vs. private, the appropriate responses to compare must be drawn from equivalent pools of respondents.

Therefore, one would have to compare favor ratings between the general public of a UHC country vs. those of the general public (NOT just those people WITH health insurance) of a private health care country. With the variable properly isolated, UHC systems handily kick the crap out of private health care, because this often means contrasting folks who would get decent to excellent care for little financial cost to themselves (under UHC)...against those of similar socioeconomic status who would get poor or even no treatment at all (under private health care) from lack of funds.

Contrary to the poster who quoted you.
What you suggest would not be an accurate indicator.

Originally Posted by Excon

lol

That just about sums up the level of substance in your position.

Originally Posted by Excon

Contrary to the poster who quoted you.
What you suggest would not be an accurate indicator.

Of course...clearly, basic scientific principles like isolating the variable under study are part of a global communist conspiracy.

Originally Posted by Henrin

There is no indication that government lowers cost of the services it provides or that it cheaper. There is also no indication that bringing into the fold UHC will or does lower cost in an existing system. Before you go out on completely missing my point, keep in mind I'm talking about total cost, not what it costs the poor.

There is however plenty of proof that the free market can and does lower cost and even history shows that it has in the medical field but getting back to that point takes some digging because of how long the government has been involved and raising its costs.

I totally agree that a free market can and does lower costs. While that is certainly a valid point, I believe what we are discussing in this thread isn't a free market solution. I think that I am the only one on this forum who is pushing a free market solution. See, what we have now isn't a free market solution by any means. Most Americans have personally (or through their employers) decided to participate in a socialistic form of healthcare - the low deductable prepaid health plan (which largely eleminates price competition by eleminating the incentive for customers to price shop). And our gov pays for the remaining 50% of the national healthcare bill. So we have very little free market healthcare in the US.

Seriously, when was the last time that YOU price shopped for healthcare? Do you even care how much your local doctor charges the insurance company when all you do is to pay a preset copay? When was the last time that you tried to help your employer to find a cheaper healthcare plan? Do you even care how much your employer pays for your insurance? Maybe YOU care, maybe YOU priceshop, but I will guarantee that most Americans could care less. You know, in most high schools people have to take a so called "economics" class where the basketball coach teaches us to price shop in the grocery store based upon the "price per oz" of the product, but no one every teaches us to priceshop for healthcare. It's not considered to be acceptable. Healthcare providers are put up on a pedistal while every other industry is expected to battle it out for customers based on price, quality and value. When was the last time any of us asked our doctors what their class rank was or what their GPA is or if they have any offical ratings like resturants do? Simply put, as long as a third party is paying, we don't give a crap - it's free to us (or at least healthcare feels free).

Actually, there are some indicators that a government run healthcare system costs less than the system that WE have in the USA. they have been posted on this forum, you are just ignoring them. So if our options are between our current patchwork type corrupt cronie capitalist semi-socialized healthcare system, and a straightforward government ran socialized universal healthcare system, I would most certainly select the straightforward government ran socialized system over the mess we have now.

But I do agree with you to the extent that a free market solution would be better than socialized healthcare or what we have now. I just keep waiting for someone other than me to start pushing a free market solution. No one seems to want to do that.

Originally Posted by imagep

I totally agree that a free market can and does lower costs. While that is certainly a valid point, I believe what we are discussing in this thread isn't a free market solution. I think that I am the only one on this forum who is pushing a free market solution. See, what we have now isn't a free market solution by any means. Most Americans have personally (or through their employers) decided to participate in a socialistic form of healthcare - the low deductable prepaid health plan (which largely eleminates price competition by eleminating the incentive for customers to price shop). And our gov pays for the remaining 50% of the national healthcare bill. So we have very little free market healthcare in the US.

Seriously, when was the last time that YOU price shopped for healthcare? Do you even care how much your local doctor charges the insurance company when all you do is to pay a preset copay? When was the last time that you tried to help your employer to find a cheaper healthcare plan? Do you even care how much your employer pays for your insurance? Maybe YOU care, maybe YOU priceshop, but I will guarantee that most Americans could care less. You know, in most high schools people have to take a so called "economics" class where the basketball coach teaches us to price shop in the grocery store based upon the "price per oz" of the product, but no one every teaches us to priceshop for healthcare. It's not considered to be acceptable. Healthcare providers are put up on a pedistal while every other industry is expected to battle it out for customers based on price, quality and value. When was the last time any of us asked our doctors what their class rank was or what their GPA is or if they have any offical ratings like resturants do? Simply put, as long as a third party is paying, we don't give a crap - it's free to us (or at least healthcare feels free).

Actually, there are some indicators that a government run healthcare system costs less than the system that WE have in the USA. they have been posted on this forum, you are just ignoring them. So if our options are between our current patchwork type corrupt cronie capitalist semi-socialized healthcare system, and a straightforward government ran socialized universal healthcare system, I would most certainly select the straightforward government ran socialized system over the mess we have now.

But I do agree with you to the extent that a free market solution would be better than socialized healthcare or what we have now. I just keep waiting for someone other than me to start pushing a free market solution. No one seems to want to do that.

Excellent post.

A couple points...

- Theoretically, people can price shop. Theoretically. Not so much practically. Most people in employer plans "can" shop around, but it's not cost-effective on the surface as most employees have a large chunk of their premiums deducted from their paychecks before they even see it. If people had the option to "opt out" of employer-provided plans, maybe... again theoretically... they might find a better deal, but most employer plans do not have individual opt-out options. Employees are locked in whether they like it or not. These plans are also part of employees overall compensation, so yes, it only seems cost-effective.

- Of the three options... free market, UHC, and what we have now... what we have now is the worst and least efficient option.

Originally Posted by Excon

The Worst Study Ever?
Scott W. Atlas — April 2011

[...]

In fact, World Health Report 2000 was an intellectual fraud of historic consequence—a profoundly deceptive document that is only marginally a measure of health-care performance at all. The report’s true achievement was to rank countries according to their alignment with a specific political and economic ideal—socialized medicine—and then claim it was an objective measure of “quality."

[...]

Before WHO released the study, it was commonly accepted that health care in countries with socialized medicine was problematic. But the study showed that countries with nationally centralized health-care systems were the world’s best. As Vincente Navarro noted in 2000 in the highly respected Lancet, countries like Spain and Italy “rarely were considered models of efficiency or effectiveness before” the WHO report. Polls had shown, in fact, that Italy’s citizens were more displeased with their health care than were citizens of any other major European country; the second worst was Spain. But in World Health Report 2000, Italy and Spain were ranked #2 and #7 in the global list of best overall providers.

Most studies of global health care before it concentrated on health-care outcomes. But that was not the approach of the WHO report. It sought not to measure performance but something else. “In the past decade or so there has been a gradual shift of vision towards what WHO calls the ‘new universalism,’” WHO authors wrote, “respecting the ethical principle that it may be necessary and efficient to ration services.”

[...]

Correction, it turns out, was the goal. “The object is not to explain what each country or health system has attained,” the authors declared, “so much as to form an estimate of what should be possible.” They appointed themselves determinants of what “should” be possible “using information from many countries but with a specific value for each country.” This was not so much a matter of assessing care but of determining what care should be in a given country, based on WHO’s own priorities regarding the allocation of national resources. The WHO report went further and judged that “many countries are falling far short of their potential, and most are making inadequate efforts in terms of responsiveness and fairness.”

[...]

What we have here is a prime example of the misuse of social science and the conversion of statistics from pseudo-data into propaganda. The basic principle, casually referred to as “garbage in, garbage out,” is widely accepted by all researchers as a cautionary dictum. To the authors of World Health Report 2000, it functioned as its opposite—a method to justify a preconceived agenda. The shame is that so many people, including leaders in whom we must repose our trust and whom we expect to make informed decisions based on the best and most complete data, made such blatant use of its patently false and overtly politicized claims.

About the Author
Scott W. Atlas is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of radiology and chief of neuroradiology at the Stanford University Medical Center.
« The Worst Study Ever? Commentary Magazine

Hey... Finally some meat from excon!! I must work, but I look forward to reading the information you've provided. Thanks for being an ass several times over before finally defending your position.