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"Obamacare" or UHC?

Would You Rather Have Obamacare or a System of UHC?


  • Total voters
    46
Need I remind you again that the US healthcare system ranks much lower that 7 nations with UHC, at half the cost.

Don't dodge me. It either has limits or it doesn't. If it has limits, what are they? How do you implement any limits to people's entitlement to healthcare without giving people a ****ty answer?
 
Don't dodge me. It either has limits or it doesn't. If it has limits, what are they? How do you implement any limits to people's entitlement to healthcare without giving people a ****ty answer?

Limiting overhead and excessive profits! They are the limits that have been used by the rest of the industrialized world to cut their costs to half of ours.
 
Yeah boy, once people get used to better health care at half the cost, its sure hard to get them to downgrade again. Amen brother!
The problem is, it isn't better health care over all.
It is better only for those who couldn't provide for themselves.
And you know it.
 
The problem is, it isn't better health care over all.
It is better only for those who couldn't provide for themselves.
And you know it.

US Ranks Last in Health Care vs AUS, CAN, GER, NETH, NZ, UK

"Among the seven nations studied—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last overall, as it did in the 2007, 2006, and 2004. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, coordination, efficiency, and equity. The Netherlands ranks first, followed closely by the U.K. and Australia.”
 
Limiting overhead and excessive profits!

Are you drinking? You've already forgotten what we were talking about.

Neo: We can't entitle people to limitless amounts of health care.
Cat: No one said it would be limitless...
Neo: Then what are the limits?
Cat: Limits to PROFIT!!!
Neo: :doh

Do you want people to have infinite, limitless health care that they don't have to pay for? If no, define the limit.
 
Are you drinking? You've already forgotten what we were talking about.

Neo: We can't entitle people to limitless amounts of health care.
Cat: No one said it would be limitless...
Neo: Then what are the limits?
Cat: Limits to PROFIT!!!
Neo: :doh

Do you want people to have infinite, limitless health care that they don't have to pay for? If no, define the limit.

Nope, just the superior care they receive in the rest of the industrialized world. What they have done was to limit overhead and excessive profits without lowering health care outcomes.
 
Nope, just the superior care they receive in the rest of the industrialized world. What they have done was to limit overhead and excessive profits without lowering health care outcomes.

Slow down and look at my question. Even with UHC there has to be limits to what health care expenditures people can incur on others. I would like the discussion to move toward discussing the limits, and away from the ideological grass-is-greener "Johnny's mommy lets him do it" arguments. Assume we have adopted UHC here, entitling our entire nation to the world's most expensive medical care. You have admitted (or at least alluded to) our inability to entitle everyone to everything. Define the limits.
 
Last edited:
Slow down and look at my question. Even with UHC there has to be limits to what health care expenditures people can incur on others.
I would like the discussion to move toward discussing the limits, and away from the ideological grass-is-greener "Johnny's mommy lets him do it" arguments. Assume we have adopted UHC here, entitling our entire nation to the world's most expensive medical care. You have admitted (or at least alluded to) our inability to entitle everyone to everything. Define the limit.

That's just it, there are no more limits (except in overhead costs and excessive profits by health care executives) than under our private health care system. Otherwise they would not be getting better health outcomes. Limiting overhead and excessive profits in exchange for lower costs and better health outcomes does not bother me the way it seems to bother you.
 
US Ranks Last in Health Care vs AUS, CAN, GER, NETH, NZ, UK

"Among the seven nations studied—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last overall, as it did in the 2007, 2006, and 2004. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, coordination, efficiency, and equity. The Netherlands ranks first, followed closely by the U.K. and Australia.”
lol
:doh

"health outcomes"

ROTFLMAO

Some people just buy into anything that they think supports their position.


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

[highlight]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.[/highlight] 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.”

[...]

But even if you dismiss all that, the unreliability of World Health Report 2000 becomes inarguable once you confront the sources of the data used. In the study, WHO acknowledged that it “adjusted scores for overall responsiveness, as well as a measure of fairness based on the informants’ views as to which groups are most often discriminated against in a country’s population and on how large those groups are” [emphasis added]. A second survey of about 1,000 “informants” generated opinions about the relative importance of the factors in the index, which were then used to calculate an overall score.

[...]

The report’s margin of error is similarly ludicrous in scientific terms. The margin for error in its data falls outside any respectable form of reporting. For example, its data for any given country were “estimated to have an 80 percent probability of falling within the uncertainty interval, with chances of 10 percent each of falling below the low value or above the high one.” Thus, as Whitman noted, in one category—the “overall attainment” index—the U.S. could actually rank anywhere from seventh to 24th. Such a wide variation renders the category itself meaningless and comparisons with other countries invalid.

And then there is the plain fact that much of the necessary data to determine a nation’s health-care performance were simply missing. The WHO report stated that data was used “to calculate measures of attainment for the countries where information could be obtained . . . to estimate values when particular numbers were judged unreliable, and to estimate attainment and performance for all other Member States.”

[...]

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





World Health Organization ranking of health systems

[...]

Methodology

The rankings are based on an index of five factors:[1]
  • Health (50%) : disability-adjusted life expectancy
    • Overall or average : 25%
    • Distribution or equality : 25%
  • Responsiveness (25%) : speed of service, protection of privacy, and quality of amenities
    • Overall or average : 12.5%
    • Distribution or equality : 12.5%
  • Fair financial contribution : 25%


Criticism

[...] Dr Richard G. Fessler called the rankings "misleading" and said that tens of thousands of foreigners travel to the United States every year for care. In addition, he claims that the United States leads the world in survival rates for 13 of the 16 most common types of cancer. He also noted that the financial fairness measure was automatically designed to "make countries that rely on free market incentives look inferior".[4] Dr Philip Musgrove wrote that the rankings are meaningless because they oversimplify: "numbers confer a spurious precision".[5]

Journalist John Stossel notes that the use of life expectancy figures is misleading and the life expectancy in the United States is held down by homicides, accidents, poor diet, and lack of exercise. When controlled for these facts, Stossel claims that American life expectancy is actually one of the highest in the world.[6] A publication by the right-wing Pacific Research Institute in 2006 claims to have found that Americans outlive people in every other Western country, when controlled for homicides and car accidents.[7] Stossel also criticizes the ranking for favoring socialized healthcare, noting that "a country with high-quality care overall but 'unequal distribution' would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution."[6]

Glen Whitman claims that "it looks an awful lot like someone cherry-picked the results to make the U.S.'s relative performance look worse than it is." He also notes that the rankings favor countries where individuals or families spend little of their income directly on health care.[8] In an article in The American Spectator, Whitman notes how the rankings favor government intervention, which has nothing to do with quality of care. The rankings assume literacy rate is indicative of healthcare, but ignore many factors, such as tobacco use, nutrition, and luck. Regarding the distribution factors, Whitman says "neither measures healthcare performance" since a "healthcare system [can be] characterized by both extensive inequality and good care for everyone." If healthcare improves for one group, but remains the same for the rest of the population, that would mean an increase in inequality, despite there being an improvement in quality.[9] Dr Fessler echoed these sentiments.[4]
[...]​
World Health Organization ranking of health systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Health Care System Rankings

N Engl J Med 2010; 362:1546-1547 April 22, 2010

To the Editor:

In their Perspective article (Jan. 14 issue),1 Murray and Frenk review a number of indicators of the relatively poor state of the population's health in the United States. Most, if not all, of this information is well known to readers of the Journal, and the authors' use of it is not objectionable. However, Murray and Frenk begin their discussion by referring to the World Health Report 2000, Health Systems: Improving Performance, from the World Health Organization (WHO), which ranked the U.S. health care system 37th in the world, and this is objectionable. ([highlight]I was editor-in-chief[/highlight] of the World Health Report 2000 but had no control over the rankings of health systems.) Fully 61% of the numbers that went into that ranking exercise were not observed but simply imputed from regressions based on as few as 30 actual estimates from among the 191 WHO member countries. Where the United States is concerned, data were available only for life expectancy and child survival, which together account for only 50% of the attainment measure. Moreover,[highlight] the “responsiveness” component of attainment cannot be compared across countries, and the estimates of responsiveness for some countries were manipulated.[/highlight] This is not simply a problem of incomplete, inaccurate, or noncomparable data; there are also sound reasons to mistrust the conceptual framework behind the estimates, since it presupposes a production function for health system outcomes that depends only on a country's expenditure on health and its level of schooling, ignoring all cultural, geographic, and historical factors.2

[highlight]The number 37 is meaningless[/highlight], but it continues to be cited, for four reasons. [highlight]First, people would like to trust the WHO and presume that the organization must know what it is talking about. Second, very few people are aware of the reason why in this case that trust is misplaced[/highlight], partly because the explanation was published 3 years after the report containing the ranking. Third, [highlight]numbers confer a spurious precision[/highlight], appealing even to people who have no idea where the numbers came from. Finally, those persons responsible for the number continue to peddle it anyway. To quote Wolfgang Pauli's dismissal of a theory opposed to quantum mechanics, “Not only is it not right, it's not even wrong!” Analyzing the failings of health systems can be valuable; making up rankings among them is not. It is long past time for this zombie number to disappear from circulation.

Philip Musgrove, Ph.D.
, Bethesda, MD​
Health Care System Rankings - NEJM




Why the U.S. Ranks Low on WHO's Health-Care Study
By John Stossel
August 22, 2007

[...]
So what's wrong with the WHO and Commonwealth Fund studies? Let me count the ways.

The WHO judged a country's quality of health on life expectancy. But that's a lousy measure of a health-care system. Many things that cause premature death have nothing do with medical care. We have far more fatal transportation accidents than other countries. That's not a health-care problem.

[...]

Another reason the U.S. didn't score high in the WHO rankings is that we are less socialistic than other nations. What has that got to do with the quality of health care? For the authors of the study, it's crucial. The WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how "fairly" health care of any quality is "distributed." The problem here is obvious. By that criterion, a country with high-quality care overall but "unequal distribution" would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution.
[...]​

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Why the U.S. Ranks Low on WHO's Health-Care Study






Trouble in the Ranks
How the World Health Organization unfairly evaluates national health care system
s

Glen Whitman
Associate Professor of Economics
California State University
May 2008

[...]
  • “The WHO rankings include [highlight]factors that are arguably unrelated to actual health performance[/highlight], some of which could even improve in response to worse health performance.”

  • “[highlight]To use the existing WHO rankings to justify more government involvement in health care is to engage in circular reasoning[/highlight] because the rankings are designed in a manner that favours greater government involvement.”

  • “There is good reason to account for the quality of care received by a country’s worst-off or poorest citizens. Yet the Health Distribution and Responsiveness Distribution factors do not do that.”
[...]​
Trouble in the Ranks
How the World Health Organization unfairly evaluates national health care systems


~Continued below~​
 
~Continued from above~​


As sourced from the above Wiki.
Note 4; a b Fessler, Richard G., MD, PhD (1 June 2009). "Popular Ranking Unfairly Misrepresents the U.S. Health Care System". Smart Girl
Popular Ranking Unfairly Misrepresents the U.S. Health Care System
6.1.2009
[...]

According to Dr. Richard G. Fessler, a Chicago neurosurgeon who travels the world to perform state of the art surgery for patients who do not have access to what Americans currently enjoy, "When it comes to quality healthcare, the United States Health Care is second to none!"

[...]

In summary, therefore, the WHO ranking system has minimal objectivity in its “ranking” of world health. It more accurately can be described as a ranking system inherently biased to reward the uniformity of “government” delivered (i.e. “socialized”) health care, independent of the care actually delivered. In that regard the relatively low ranking of the US in the WHO system can be viewed as a “positive” testament to at least some residual “free market” influence (also read “personal freedom”) in the American Health Care system. The American health care consumer needs to understand what the WHO ranking does and does not say about American health. Don’t be fooled by “big government” politicians and the liberal media who are attempting to use this statistic to push for socialized medicine in the United States. It says essentially nothing about the delivery of health care or the quality of that delivery in the US. It does say that, so far, the American health care consumer has at least some personal freedom to seek the best health care available, and is not yet relegated to the “one size fits all” philosophy of government sponsored health care systems.​
Popular Ranking Unfairly Misrepresents the U.S. Health Care System





Ill-Conceived Ranking Makes for Unhealthy Debate
In the Wrangle Over Health Care, a Low Rating for the U.S. System Keeps Emerging Despite Evident Shortcomings in Study

October 21, 2009
The trouble is, the ranking is dated and flawed, and has contributed to misconceptions about the quality of the U.S. medical system.

Among all the numbers bandied about in the health-care debate, this ranking stands out as particularly misleading. It is based on a report released nearly a decade ago by the World Health Organization and relies on statistics that are even older and incomplete.
[...]
The objects of his criticism, including Christopher Murray, who oversaw the ranking for the WHO, responded in a letter to the Lancet arguing that WHO "has an obligation to provide the best available evidence in a timely manner to Member States and the scientific community." It also credited the report with achieving its "original intent" of stimulating debate and focus on health systems.

Prof. Murray, now director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, Seattle, says that "the biggest problem was just data" -- or the lack thereof, in many cases. He says the rankings are now "very old," and acknowledges they contained a lot of uncertainty. His institute is seeking to produce its own rankings in the next three years. The data limitations hampering earlier work "are why groups like ours are so focused on trying to get rankings better."


A WHO spokesman says the organization has no plans to update the rankings, and adds, "We would not consider it current."​

[...]

An Ill-Conceived Health-Care Ranking - WSJ.com


The italicized portion. :doh
Simply wow.
[paraphrased] We knew the data was bad, but we really just wanted to stimulate debate. [/paraphrased]
 
lol
:doh

"health outcomes"

ROTFLMAO

Some people just buy into anything that they think supports their position.


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

[highlight]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.[/highlight] 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.”

[...]

But even if you dismiss all that, the unreliability of World Health Report 2000 becomes inarguable once you confront the sources of the data used. In the study, WHO acknowledged that it “adjusted scores for overall responsiveness, as well as a measure of fairness based on the informants’ views as to which groups are most often discriminated against in a country’s population and on how large those groups are” [emphasis added]. A second survey of about 1,000 “informants” generated opinions about the relative importance of the factors in the index, which were then used to calculate an overall score.

[...]

The report’s margin of error is similarly ludicrous in scientific terms. The margin for error in its data falls outside any respectable form of reporting. For example, its data for any given country were “estimated to have an 80 percent probability of falling within the uncertainty interval, with chances of 10 percent each of falling below the low value or above the high one.” Thus, as Whitman noted, in one category—the “overall attainment” index—the U.S. could actually rank anywhere from seventh to 24th. Such a wide variation renders the category itself meaningless and comparisons with other countries invalid.

And then there is the plain fact that much of the necessary data to determine a nation’s health-care performance were simply missing. The WHO report stated that data was used “to calculate measures of attainment for the countries where information could be obtained . . . to estimate values when particular numbers were judged unreliable, and to estimate attainment and performance for all other Member States.”

[...]

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





World Health Organization ranking of health systems

[...]

Methodology

The rankings are based on an index of five factors:[1]
  • Health (50%) : disability-adjusted life expectancy
    • Overall or average : 25%
    • Distribution or equality : 25%
  • Responsiveness (25%) : speed of service, protection of privacy, and quality of amenities
    • Overall or average : 12.5%
    • Distribution or equality : 12.5%
  • Fair financial contribution : 25%


Criticism

[...] Dr Richard G. Fessler called the rankings "misleading" and said that tens of thousands of foreigners travel to the United States every year for care. In addition, he claims that the United States leads the world in survival rates for 13 of the 16 most common types of cancer. He also noted that the financial fairness measure was automatically designed to "make countries that rely on free market incentives look inferior".[4] Dr Philip Musgrove wrote that the rankings are meaningless because they oversimplify: "numbers confer a spurious precision".[5]

Journalist John Stossel notes that the use of life expectancy figures is misleading and the life expectancy in the United States is held down by homicides, accidents, poor diet, and lack of exercise. When controlled for these facts, Stossel claims that American life expectancy is actually one of the highest in the world.[6] A publication by the right-wing Pacific Research Institute in 2006 claims to have found that Americans outlive people in every other Western country, when controlled for homicides and car accidents.[7] Stossel also criticizes the ranking for favoring socialized healthcare, noting that "a country with high-quality care overall but 'unequal distribution' would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution."[6]

Glen Whitman claims that "it looks an awful lot like someone cherry-picked the results to make the U.S.'s relative performance look worse than it is." He also notes that the rankings favor countries where individuals or families spend little of their income directly on health care.[8] In an article in The American Spectator, Whitman notes how the rankings favor government intervention, which has nothing to do with quality of care. The rankings assume literacy rate is indicative of healthcare, but ignore many factors, such as tobacco use, nutrition, and luck. Regarding the distribution factors, Whitman says "neither measures healthcare performance" since a "healthcare system [can be] characterized by both extensive inequality and good care for everyone." If healthcare improves for one group, but remains the same for the rest of the population, that would mean an increase in inequality, despite there being an improvement in quality.[9] Dr Fessler echoed these sentiments.[4]
[...]​
World Health Organization ranking of health systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Health Care System Rankings

N Engl J Med 2010; 362:1546-1547 April 22, 2010

To the Editor:

In their Perspective article (Jan. 14 issue),1 Murray and Frenk review a number of indicators of the relatively poor state of the population's health in the United States. Most, if not all, of this information is well known to readers of the Journal, and the authors' use of it is not objectionable. However, Murray and Frenk begin their discussion by referring to the World Health Report 2000, Health Systems: Improving Performance, from the World Health Organization (WHO), which ranked the U.S. health care system 37th in the world, and this is objectionable. ([highlight]I was editor-in-chief[/highlight] of the World Health Report 2000 but had no control over the rankings of health systems.) Fully 61% of the numbers that went into that ranking exercise were not observed but simply imputed from regressions based on as few as 30 actual estimates from among the 191 WHO member countries. Where the United States is concerned, data were available only for life expectancy and child survival, which together account for only 50% of the attainment measure. Moreover,[highlight] the “responsiveness” component of attainment cannot be compared across countries, and the estimates of responsiveness for some countries were manipulated.[/highlight] This is not simply a problem of incomplete, inaccurate, or noncomparable data; there are also sound reasons to mistrust the conceptual framework behind the estimates, since it presupposes a production function for health system outcomes that depends only on a country's expenditure on health and its level of schooling, ignoring all cultural, geographic, and historical factors.2

[highlight]The number 37 is meaningless[/highlight], but it continues to be cited, for four reasons. [highlight]First, people would like to trust the WHO and presume that the organization must know what it is talking about. Second, very few people are aware of the reason why in this case that trust is misplaced[/highlight], partly because the explanation was published 3 years after the report containing the ranking. Third, [highlight]numbers confer a spurious precision[/highlight], appealing even to people who have no idea where the numbers came from. Finally, those persons responsible for the number continue to peddle it anyway. To quote Wolfgang Pauli's dismissal of a theory opposed to quantum mechanics, “Not only is it not right, it's not even wrong!” Analyzing the failings of health systems can be valuable; making up rankings among them is not. It is long past time for this zombie number to disappear from circulation.

Philip Musgrove, Ph.D.
, Bethesda, MD​
Health Care System Rankings - NEJM




Why the U.S. Ranks Low on WHO's Health-Care Study
By John Stossel
August 22, 2007

[...]
So what's wrong with the WHO and Commonwealth Fund studies? Let me count the ways.

The WHO judged a country's quality of health on life expectancy. But that's a lousy measure of a health-care system. Many things that cause premature death have nothing do with medical care. We have far more fatal transportation accidents than other countries. That's not a health-care problem.

[...]

Another reason the U.S. didn't score high in the WHO rankings is that we are less socialistic than other nations. What has that got to do with the quality of health care? For the authors of the study, it's crucial. The WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how "fairly" health care of any quality is "distributed." The problem here is obvious. By that criterion, a country with high-quality care overall but "unequal distribution" would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution.
[...]​

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Why the U.S. Ranks Low on WHO's Health-Care Study






Trouble in the Ranks
How the World Health Organization unfairly evaluates national health care system
s

Glen Whitman
Associate Professor of Economics
California State University
May 2008

[...]
  • “The WHO rankings include [highlight]factors that are arguably unrelated to actual health performance[/highlight], some of which could even improve in response to worse health performance.”

  • “[highlight]To use the existing WHO rankings to justify more government involvement in health care is to engage in circular reasoning[/highlight] because the rankings are designed in a manner that favours greater government involvement.”

  • “There is good reason to account for the quality of care received by a country’s worst-off or poorest citizens. Yet the Health Distribution and Responsiveness Distribution factors do not do that.”
[...]​
Trouble in the Ranks
How the World Health Organization unfairly evaluates national health care systems


~Continued below~​



I'll go with the World Health Organization over right wing opinions any day!!!
 
[h=2]US Ranks Last in Health Care vs AUS, CAN, GER, NETH, NZ, UK | The Big Picture[/h]
"Among the seven nations studied—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last overall, as it did in the 2007, 2006, and 2004. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, coordination, efficiency, and equity. The Netherlands ranks first, followed closely by the U.K. and Australia.”

Sources:
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally
Karen Davis, Ph.D., Cathy Schoen, M.S., and Kristof Stremikis, M.P.P.
Commonwealth fund, June 23, 2010
 
I'll go with the World Health Organization over right wing opinions any day!!!

Of course you will.
Because you do not care that it was wrong and biased to begin with.
Your saying that the rest of the industrialized word received superior care, is just proof that you do not know what you are talking about.

Read what is in red.

Ill-Conceived Ranking Makes for Unhealthy Debate
In the Wrangle Over Health Care, a Low Rating for the U.S. System Keeps Emerging Despite Evident Shortcomings in Study

October 21, 2009
The trouble is, the ranking is dated and flawed, and has contributed to misconceptions about the quality of the U.S. medical system.

Among all the numbers bandied about in the health-care debate, this ranking stands out as particularly misleading. It is based on a report released nearly a decade ago by the World Health Organization and relies on statistics that are even older and incomplete.
[...]
The objects of his criticism, including Christopher Murray, who oversaw the ranking for the WHO, responded in a letter to the Lancet arguing that WHO "has an obligation to provide the best available evidence in a timely manner to Member States and the scientific community." It also credited the report with achieving its "original intent" of stimulating debate and focus on health systems.

Prof. Murray, now director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, Seattle, says that "the biggest problem was just data" -- or the lack thereof, in many cases. He says the rankings are now "very old," and acknowledges they contained a lot of uncertainty. His institute is seeking to produce its own rankings in the next three years. The data limitations hampering earlier work "are why groups like ours are so focused on trying to get rankings better."


A WHO spokesman says the organization has no plans to update the rankings, and adds, "We would not consider it current."​

[...]

An Ill-Conceived Health-Care Ranking - WSJ.com


The italicized portion. :doh
Simply wow.
[paraphrased] We knew the data was bad, but we really just wanted to stimulate debate. [/paraphrased]
 
That's just it, there are no more limits (except in overhead costs and excessive profits by health care executives) than under our private health care system. Otherwise they would not be getting better health outcomes. Limiting overhead and excessive profits in exchange for lower costs and better health outcomes does not bother me the way it seems to bother you.

I admit I am an arrogant person, but I really do not like the idea of being mean to you, frankly because on the environmental side of things I find you to be an ally. But I have to apply the pressure here, and I'm sensing the only way I can do it is to give simple examples.

Say we have UHC now, whereby everyone can get a colonoscopy, because it is preventive as well as curative (GD polyps, get 'em out!). Do you cap what a doctor can charge for a colonoscopy? Do you prevent a person from getting a colonoscopy annually versus once every five years? What if a doctor figures out a way to ram it up there at twice the speed and charge $500 more for his procedure, in order to up his profits. What does the government do about doctors like that? And keep in mind, this is just a single procedure. There are hundreds or thousands more subject to this same sort of intense scrutiny and cost-control issue. Medical necessity is a judgment call and the doctor (who stands to profit) is the only one who really knows the patient and the only one who can speak to medical necessity. How do you control for him maximizing what he can rake in? Ultimately, there have to be LIMITS. OPPRESSIVE LIMITS. I'm asking you to think about that, because it is never as simple as Universally entitling people to Health Care and then expecting costs to magically come down. There has to be active management of those costs. Explain what you think the USG is prepared to do to actively manage those costs, or admit defeat.
 
Last edited:
[h=2]US Ranks Last in Health Care vs AUS, CAN, GER, NETH, NZ, UK | The Big Picture[/h]
"Among the seven nations studied—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last overall, as it did in the 2007, 2006, and 2004. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, coordination, efficiency, and equity. The Netherlands ranks first, followed closely by the U.K. and Australia.”

Sources:
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally
Karen Davis, Ph.D., Cathy Schoen, M.S., and Kristof Stremikis, M.P.P.
Commonwealth fund, June 23, 2010
lol
:doh

The Commonwealth Fund is hardly a bastion of unbiased honesty.

Their studies are as flawed as the WHO reports are, for the very same reasons.
 
Of course you will.
Because you do not care that it was wrong and biased to begin with.
Your saying that the rest of the industrialized word received superior care, is just proof that you do not know what you are talking about.

Read what is in red.

Ill-Conceived Ranking Makes for Unhealthy Debate
In the Wrangle Over Health Care, a Low Rating for the U.S. System Keeps Emerging Despite Evident Shortcomings in Study

October 21, 2009
The trouble is, the ranking is dated and flawed, and has contributed to misconceptions about the quality of the U.S. medical system.

Among all the numbers bandied about in the health-care debate, this ranking stands out as particularly misleading. It is based on a report released nearly a decade ago by the World Health Organization and relies on statistics that are even older and incomplete.
[...]
The objects of his criticism, including Christopher Murray, who oversaw the ranking for the WHO, responded in a letter to the Lancet arguing that WHO "has an obligation to provide the best available evidence in a timely manner to Member States and the scientific community." It also credited the report with achieving its "original intent" of stimulating debate and focus on health systems.

Prof. Murray, now director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, Seattle, says that "the biggest problem was just data" -- or the lack thereof, in many cases. He says the rankings are now "very old," and acknowledges they contained a lot of uncertainty. His institute is seeking to produce its own rankings in the next three years. The data limitations hampering earlier work "are why groups like ours are so focused on trying to get rankings better."


A WHO spokesman says the organization has no plans to update the rankings, and adds, "We would not consider it current."​

[...]

An Ill-Conceived Health-Care Ranking - WSJ.com


The italicized portion. :doh
Simply wow.
[paraphrased] We knew the data was bad, but we really just wanted to stimulate debate. [/paraphrased]



You reference one report, way back in 2000, that may have had some data errors. All the the health organizations that have compared the world's health care system, year after year, come up with the same conclusion, that UHC provides better health outcomes for lower cost. That is why you don't see countries that have switched to UHC wanting to switch back to private health care systems.

What fault have you found with all the reports since 2000, like the Commonwealth Fund's report I referenced above?

What world health organizations can you reference that have studies that show that our private health care system has better outcomes???
 
lol
:doh

The Commonwealth Fund is hardly a bastion of unbiased honesty.

Their studies are as flawed as the WHO reports are, for the very same reasons.

What do you base this on? And where are the world organizations claiming that private health care provides better outcomes???
 
You reference one report, way back in 2000, that may have had some data errors. All the the health organizations that have compared the world's health care system, year after year, come up with the same conclusion, that UHC provides better health outcomes for lower cost. That is why you don't see countries that have switched to UHC wanting to switch back to private health care systems.

What fault have you found with all the reports since 2000, like the Commonwealth Fund's report I referenced above?

What world health organizations can you reference that have studies that show that our private health care system has better outcomes???
I swear. You really are living in denial.
The internet is replete with examples.


Commonwealth Ranking: Are We Really 19th Out of 19?

By Linda Gorman
July 30, 2008


If you think that the quality of your health care depends on whether your doctor keeps your medical records on an interoperable computer system or on whether the country has national health insurance – even it if it means that sick people will die while waiting for care – then Why Not the Best? Results from the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, 2008 from the Commonwealth Fund is the scorecard for you.1​

{Just the Headings of the Paragraphs.}
Choosing Nonmedical Benchmarks.
Cherry-Picking the Benchmarks.
Using Questionable Benchmarks.
Equating Low Spending with Efficiency.
Using Questionable Measurements
Confusing "Access" with "Third-Party Insurance."
Ignoring Self-Insurance.
Ignoring Assets.
Applying the Commonwealth Criteria of "Underinsured" to the Medicare Population
Ignoring Rationing by Waiting
Misusing Statistics.
Where the United States Improved.

http://healthblog.ncpa.org/commonwealth-ranking-are-we-really-19th-out-of-19/




The Agenda

NRO’s domestic-policy blog, by Reihan Salam.

The Commonwealth Fund Rags On U.S. Health Care
By Avik Roy
June 27, 2010 10:06 A.M.


One of the disappointing things about healthcare policy research is that its volume is inversely proportional to its quality. Each year, sheaves of research papers are produced by academics and think-tankers, thick with tables and charts, purporting to argue that 62% of all bankruptcies are due to medical expenses, or that 45,000 people a year die because they don’t have health insurance. These studies are then broadcast uncritically by the press, and repeated as gospel by soundbite-seeking politicians. Unfortunately, the methodologies used in such research are often poor, and in the two examples above, intentionally misleading. (Megan McArdle is one of the few writers who has tackled this subject well.)

Such is the case with a new study published last week by the Commonwealth Fund that argues that, compared to six other developed countries, “the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last” on measurements of its quality, access, efficiency, equity, and “healthy lives.” Overall, the study ranked the Netherlands first, followed by the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, and Canada, with the U.S. ranking dead last.

The study is typical of the genre: drawing conclusions that are not warranted by the data; failing to account for alternative (and more plausible) explanations; and using flawed methodologies. The point of view of the authors is clear: in the first paragraph of the report, they write that “newly enacted health reform legislation in the U.S. will start to address these problems by extending coverage.” But they do their cause no favors with such a tendentious report.
[...]​

The Commonwealth Fund Rags On U.S. Health Care - By Avik Roy - The Agenda - National Review Online



We can keep going on and on like this, but you have bought into an agenda, and you may even agree with it, but you do not get to blow smoke up our collective asses.
The agenda you have bought into is harmful.
 
What do you base this on? And where are the world organizations claiming that private health care provides better outcomes???
I think your first question has already been answered.
Or would you like their mission statement too?

We do not need any cough world organizations to tell us the obvious.
 
I swear. You really are living in denial.
The internet is replete with examples.


Commonwealth Ranking: Are We Really 19th Out of 19?

By Linda Gorman
July 30, 2008


If you think that the quality of your health care depends on whether your doctor keeps your medical records on an interoperable computer system or on whether the country has national health insurance – even it if it means that sick people will die while waiting for care – then Why Not the Best? Results from the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, 2008 from the Commonwealth Fund is the scorecard for you.1​

{Just the Headings of the Paragraphs.}
Choosing Nonmedical Benchmarks.
Cherry-Picking the Benchmarks.
Using Questionable Benchmarks.
Equating Low Spending with Efficiency.
Using Questionable Measurements
Confusing "Access" with "Third-Party Insurance."
Ignoring Self-Insurance.
Ignoring Assets.
Applying the Commonwealth Criteria of "Underinsured" to the Medicare Population
Ignoring Rationing by Waiting
Misusing Statistics.
Where the United States Improved.

http://healthblog.ncpa.org/commonwealth-ranking-are-we-really-19th-out-of-19/




The Agenda

NRO’s domestic-policy blog, by Reihan Salam.

The Commonwealth Fund Rags On U.S. Health Care
By Avik Roy
June 27, 2010 10:06 A.M.


One of the disappointing things about healthcare policy research is that its volume is inversely proportional to its quality. Each year, sheaves of research papers are produced by academics and think-tankers, thick with tables and charts, purporting to argue that 62% of all bankruptcies are due to medical expenses, or that 45,000 people a year die because they don’t have health insurance. These studies are then broadcast uncritically by the press, and repeated as gospel by soundbite-seeking politicians. Unfortunately, the methodologies used in such research are often poor, and in the two examples above, intentionally misleading. (Megan McArdle is one of the few writers who has tackled this subject well.)

Such is the case with a new study published last week by the Commonwealth Fund that argues that, compared to six other developed countries, “the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last” on measurements of its quality, access, efficiency, equity, and “healthy lives.” Overall, the study ranked the Netherlands first, followed by the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, and Canada, with the U.S. ranking dead last.

The study is typical of the genre: drawing conclusions that are not warranted by the data; failing to account for alternative (and more plausible) explanations; and using flawed methodologies. The point of view of the authors is clear: in the first paragraph of the report, they write that “newly enacted health reform legislation in the U.S. will start to address these problems by extending coverage.” But they do their cause no favors with such a tendentious report.
[...]​

The Commonwealth Fund Rags On U.S. Health Care - By Avik Roy - The Agenda - National Review Online



We can keep going on and on like this, but you have bought into an agenda, and you may even agree with it, but you do not get to blow smoke up our collective asses.
The agenda you have bought into is harmful.



I see, you rely on right wing opinion blogs for your analysis of world health outcomes. That explains your perspective greatly, thanks!
 
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I see, you rely on right wing opinion blogs for your analysis of world health outcomes. That explains it!
Like I said; The internet is replete with examples.

And who the heck do you think is going to provide the factual information to counter the lefts crap?

They are explaining The Commonwealth Fund's deceit, with factual information and you want to dismiss it?
That is typical fashion for a liberal isn't it?
You really do want to blow smoke up or collective asses in favor of an agenda.
That is truly a shame.

The only thing that should matter is if the information is accurate.
If not, then complain, otherwise you got nothing except an agenda based on falsities and outright deceit.
 
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Like I said; The internet is replete with examples.

They are explaining The Commonwealth Fund's deceit, with factual information and you want to dismiss it?
That is typical fashion for a liberal isn't it?
You really do want to blow smoke up or collective asses in favor of an agenda.
That is truly a shame.

The only thing that should matter is if the information is accurate.
If not, then complain, otherwise you got nothing except an agenda based on falsities and outright deceit.


As I have noted, every world health organization has made the same conclusion, year after year.

Where are the world health organizations claiming private health care systems provides better outcomes for lower costs? You have yet to answer this question, even thought I've asked 3 times now.
 
As I have noted, every world health organization has made the same conclusion, year after year.

Where are the world health organizations claiming private health care systems provides better outcomes for lower costs? You have yet to answer this question, even thought I've asked 3 times now.
Your question and premiss is false.

Those organizations are all biased by what they believe should be.
And then they pass judgement based on it.
That would be like judging the US solely on a socialist's/communist's requirement of what a Government should be.
That would be like judging the US solely on a liberal's/democrat's requirement of what a Government should be.
That would be like judging the US solely on a conservative's/republican's requirement of what a Government should be.
It is wrong to do that.
You may agree with it, but it is still wrong.


As already pointed out, the WHO organizations criteria was flawed.
And they Judged this County's HC on it. They were wrong and even admitted it.

The real problem here is that you buy into the propaganda that they put forth and then try to blow it up our collective asses.
 
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Interesting discussion.

The bottom line to all of this is that we can't afford the health care system we have now. We probably won't be able to afford Obomneycare, either

and, there is no such thing as free care, unlimited care, or free unlimited care. All health care, including ours, is rationed in one way or another.

The world is full of examples of health care systems that work, cost far less than what we have, and have outcomes at least as good as, if no better than, what we enjoy here.

So, what is the solution?
 
The world is full of examples of health care systems that work, cost far less than what we have, and have outcomes at least as good as, if no better than, what we enjoy here.
I haven't seen one yet that comes even close to being able to provide what one can receive by paying for it individually.
And by "receive", I am speaking not only about quality, but the actual service performed also.
Just because others can not afford it, matters not, because they aren't going to receive that level of care under any UHC program unless they have been elected or appointed to a high position in Government.
 
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