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

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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I feel a need to point out the poor reporting methods of "civilized" western nations. That is very important when it comes to things like stillborns and such,

I would also point to some of this as evidence of our inner city problems. We have so much inner city poverty it is tough to do anything. Why? We have 304 million citizens. A lot harder to realistically handle that,
 
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a351 said:
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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I have read we have outstanding treatment, but bad prevention. How exactly do you provide cost efficient preventative medicine to 310 million people without falling off in other abilities?
 
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Problems of scale abound in other industries and are regularly resolved by them. How can USPS get a letter from any American to any other American within two days for 45 cents? If our health care system were that efficient, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
 
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Cardinal Fang said:
Problems of scale abound in other industries and are regularly resolved by them. How can USPS get a letter from any American to any other American within two days for 45 cents? If our health care system were that efficient, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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How do you make health care as efficient as the USPS? Not to mention the USPS is STILL having financial trouble. Problem of scales CAN be resolved as long as they are taken PROPERLY into consideration. Scales will be a huge issue for any kind of free health care in the United States. We have have so many people that would probably abuse the system (as it is now...emergency services get abused horrifically...hence $800 bills just to ride in an ambulance). The COST would be the biggest problem. As it is now...how much of the cost is handled through that wonderful...albeit irritating...capitalist scheme of insurance?
 
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Catawba said:
We will have to eventually upgrade to single payer plan as the rest of the industrialized world has done, people will not continue to support the worst outcomes for the highest cost.
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They will suffer with so-so health care, higher taxes to support it and by God they better be happy with it.....just like the rest of the industrialized world. Going to be major suckage for the lawyers though....
 
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Cardinal Fang said:
Problems of scale abound in other industries and are regularly resolved by them. How can USPS get a letter from any American to any other American within two days for 45 cents? If our health care system were that efficient, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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Not a good example I am afraid. The USPS is bleeding money at the moment. Their problem is the internet and competition that is vastly more efficient than they are. I have a hunch the USPS will not be around a few years from now. At least not as we know it.
 
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BretJ said:
Not a good example I am afraid. The USPS is bleeding money at the moment. Their problem is the internet and competition that is vastly more efficient than they are. I have a hunch the USPS will not be around a few years from now. At least not as we know it.
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The problem is what Congress did to their pension system
 
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Cardinal Fang said:
Problems of scale abound in other industries and are regularly resolved by them. How can USPS get a letter from any American to any other American within two days for 45 cents? If our health care system were that efficient, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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Sadly they can't deliver that letter for 45 cents, not without the occasional infusion of cash from elsewhere.
 
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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.
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You must be joking! The German tax code is just as obtuse, and their bureaucracy more intense. The economy is far more regulated than the US.

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.
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And in Germany, they went on a TV show and said that the US factory opened earlier!!

And what's that you say? The govt helped them buy land?

Damn that bureaucracy!!
 
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ecofarm said:
If someone thinks other countries have such great healthcare, go see. I did, it's not so great in Europe.
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It's a hell of a lot better than here.

I didn't experience any wait. In fact, it was twice as fast as it is in America, in my experience.

And then there's the simple fact that I was able to access health care at all without pawning half my belongings. I have a good job with insurance, and I live in a state with one of the best public care systems in the country, and still, one little tiny illness is enough to completely screw me financially. Standard deductibles on high-deductible plans have quadrupled just since I was in high school, less than a decade ago.

Honestly, I felt embarrassed for my country when I saw what healthcare was like in Europe. Completely ashamed.
 
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SmokeAndMirrors said:
It's a hell of a lot better than here.

I didn't experience any wait. In fact, it was twice as fast as it is in America, in my experience.

And then there's the simple fact that I was able to access health care at all without pawning half my belongings. I have a good job with insurance, and I live in a state with one of the best public care systems in the country, and still, one little tiny illness is enough to completely screw me financially. Standard deductibles on high-deductible plans have quadrupled just since I was in high school, less than a decade ago.

Honestly, I felt embarrassed for my country when I saw what healthcare was like in Europe. Completely ashamed.
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First, I don't consider healthcare to be a right and so we might have some different ideas there. Anyway, I found the Euro system, particularly in Sweden where I lived for two years, simply atrocious. Forget about the shoddy and slow general care, the geriatric care was a miscarriage of intergenerational justice, as elders we cast aside into squalor, the lowest competency employees (generally uneducated immigrants from developing countries with a certificate in bed-changing) and constant nation-wide rotating strikes. I lived with the regional manager for geriatric hospitals and carehomes and the horror stories that she would tell...
 
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Dragonfly said:
New Health Rankings: Of 17 Nations, U.S. Is Dead Last - Grace Rubenstein - The Atlantic



PHUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!
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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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SmokeAndMirrors said:
It's a hell of a lot better than here.

I didn't experience any wait. In fact, it was twice as fast as it is in America, in my experience.

And then there's the simple fact that I was able to access health care at all without pawning half my belongings. I have a good job with insurance, and I live in a state with one of the best public care systems in the country, and still, one little tiny illness is enough to completely screw me financially. Standard deductibles on high-deductible plans have quadrupled just since I was in high school, less than a decade ago.

Honestly, I felt embarrassed for my country when I saw what healthcare was like in Europe. Completely ashamed.
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Indeed, a whole new industry has sprung up in the US to help direct "medical tourists" from the US to better and less expensive medical services abroad.
 
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ecofarm said:
First, I don't consider healthcare to be a right and so we might have some different ideas there. Anyway, I found the Euro system, particularly in Sweden where I lived for two years, simply atrocious. Forget about the shoddy and slow general care, the geriatric care was a miscarriage of intergenerational justice, as elders we cast aside into squalor, the lowest competancy employees and constant nation-wide rotating strikes. I lived with the regional manager for geriatric hospitals and carehomes and the horror stories that she would tell...
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I could certainly imagine it varies by country. Sweden is one of the places I haven't been.

There can be a wait if you have something rare, but that's true no matter where you are -- America too. Hell, I had to wait over a month for "emergency" surgery to remove a cyst that could have burst and killed me at any moment. And again, this is in one of the best states in the country for health care, and I had insurance.

Also, American care homes can be extremely foul. I have found that to be true the world over, actually. Elderly care in general, everywhere, is atrocious. When I lived in NZ, I used to walk by a care facility on my way home from work, and I would stop every night and talk to a lady who lived there, because not only did she never get visitors, but the nurses pretty much just ignored her. She was wheelchair-bound, and they just left her to struggle, fall, get sores, etc. It was despicable. But it's just as bad here.
 
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Re: We're Number......LAST

ecofarm said:
First, I don't consider healthcare to be a right and so we might have some different ideas there. Anyway, I found the Euro system, particularly in Sweden where I lived for two years, simply atrocious. Forget about the shoddy and slow general care, the geriatric care was a miscarriage of intergenerational justice, as elders we cast aside into squalor, the lowest competency employees (generally uneducated immigrants from developing countries with a certificate in bed-changing) and constant nation-wide rotating strikes. I lived with the regional manager for geriatric hospitals and carehomes and the horror stories that she would tell...
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Sweden may not be the best example. Germany in my opinion is the best health care example. I've been through the medical system in every different form in the US, and I've been through a lot in Germany whether me or my family or extended family, and I have to say every experience I've had has been pretty stellar. The wait times for surgeries are a fraction what they are in the US, absolutely everything is covered, and the doctors and equipment are more than competent.

SmokeAndMirrors said:
I could certainly imagine it varies by country. Sweden is one of the places I haven't been.

There can be a wait if you have something rare, but that's true no matter where you are -- America too. Hell, I had to wait over a month for "emergency" surgery to remove a cyst that could have burst and killed me at any moment. And again, this is in one of the best states in the country for health care, and I had insurance.

Also, American care homes can be extremely foul. I have found that to be true the world over, actually. Elderly care in general, everywhere, is atrocious. When I lived in NZ, I used to walk by a care facility on my way home from work, and I would stop every night and talk to a lady who lived there, because not only did she never get visitors, but the nurses pretty much just ignored her. She was wheelchair-bound, and they just left her to struggle, fall, get sores, etc. It was despicable.
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It's funny you bring up a cyst example. My mother in law here in Germany just had a cyst, as soon as she noticed it, she went to the doctor the same day, and he scheduled her for surgery the next day. That was even considered (for her at least) a non-emergency surgery. I still can't get over how much faster and cheaper the German system is to ours.
 
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RabidAlpaca said:
It's funny you bring up a cyst example. My mother in law here in Germany just had a cyst, as soon as she noticed it, she went to the doctor the same day, and he scheduled her for surgery the next day. That was even considered (for her at least) a non-emergency surgery. I still can't get over how much faster and cheaper the German system is to ours.
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It didn't start as an emergency, but I had to go through so many referrals before I got to someone who was qualified to assess such a rare kind of cyst that by the time I got there -- some 2 months later -- it had become pretty serious. There was no reason for me to go through half a dozen different doctors. It was obviously unusual on the ultrasound. They could have sent me to a specialist right away, but no, because specialists are booked out for months, so they send you to someone less qualified instead and hope for the best.

I can't help but laugh when Americans go on about wait times in other countries.
 
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SmokeAndMirrors said:
It didn't start as an emergency, but I had to go through so many referrals before I got to someone who was qualified to assess such a rare kind of cyst that by the time I got there -- some 2 months later -- it had become pretty serious. There was no reason for me to go through half a dozen different doctors. It was obviously unusual on the ultrasound. They could have sent me to a specialist right away, but no, because specialists are booked out for months, so they send you to someone less qualified instead and hope for the best.

I can't help but laugh when Americans go on about wait times in other countries.
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I remember back in the US I had to get an MRI on my knee and it took 2 months to finally get there, by that time it had mostly healed and showed nothing, so they didn't do anything for me. Even though the Xray I got the day after showed how swollen it was. And that was in the Army, which is supposed to be faster (though not necessarily better) medical care than the civilian world.

Here my wife got an MRI on her knee within a week.
 
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Cardinal Fang said:
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.
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Average male life expectancy with medical care is 17.2 years. What is it without medical care? I will not take Government Medical, including Medicare; which means that at age 65 I lose my medical care. I'll likely be blind within 8-12 months from my glaucoma, and dead within 36 months (at the outside).

head of joaquin said:
Another motif of conservatism -- a culture of death.
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We Conservatives don't fear Death the way that so many of you Progressives and Liberals seem to. We believe there's something more beyond this life, whereas many of you seem to feel that Death is the End. Maybe that's why we're not scared of Death like you folks are.
 
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Cardinal Fang said:
Problems of scale abound in other industries and are regularly resolved by them. How can USPS get a letter from any American to any other American within two days for 45 cents? If our health care system were that efficient, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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USPS is bleeding money. Our health care system is a mess. Both are semi-run by the government. Coincidence? Or is that the government is totally unable to ever run anything efficiently or for that matter, rarely effectively. I find it funny, so many want to turn over something as important to them as Healthcare to the government with the governments track record on management.
 
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head of joaquin said:
We have the most expensive system in the advanced world, with some of the worst health outcomes. That's because our for profit pay for service model is totally and completely maladapted for health care -- for well known reasons, the most obvious being lack of price elasticity.

It's time for single payer. End of story. Our rationing of health care by income has failed.
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We have the highest health care cost because we're the fattest country in the world bar none, we have the most smokers (myself included), we eat the most sugar than anyone else, and eat the most processed foods. Your health is almost always determined by what and how much you eat, period. I agree that in a free society you can't legislate behavior, but you sure as hell can admonish it publicly. Of course that assumes that people feel shame, but the latest evidence is that shame is no longer in the lexicon.


Tim-
 
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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I'd hardly rank car-accidents: which are due to road conditions, number of autos in use, etc - and things like coronary heart disease as being in the same 'category' of concern because of the vast difference in causes.

What are things per populous? I've done enough with statistics to know that sometimes per-populous is vastly different than per set unit (IE: per 100,000)
 
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Hicup said:
We have the highest health care cost because we're the fattest country in the world bar none, we have the most smokers (myself included), we eat the most sugar than anyone else, and eat the most processed foods. Your health is almost always determined by what and how much you eat, period. I agree that in a free society you can't legislate behavior, but you sure as hell can admonish it publicly. Of course that assumes that people feel shame, but the latest evidence is that shame is no longer in the lexicon.


Tim-
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Context baby. Gotta love it.
 
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Tigger said:
Average male life expectancy with medical care is 17.2 years. What is it without medical care? I will not take Government Medical, including Medicare; which means that at age 65 I lose my medical care. I'll likely be blind within 8-12 months from my glaucoma, and dead within 36 months (at the outside).



We Conservatives don't fear Death the way that so many of you Progressives and Liberals seem to. We believe there's something more beyond this life, whereas many of you seem to feel that Death is the End. Maybe that's why we're not scared of Death like you folks are.
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There is a difference between being "scared of Death" and having a death wish.

Moreover, there is that quality of life thing. Your quality of life can be much better with a particular medication than it will be without it, depending, of course, on what life throws at you as you age.

Once you reach the magic age of 65, there is no alternative to Medicare unless you have far more money than most of us will ever see. Once you're on Medicare, there really is no difference from being on insurance anyway. You choose your doctor, you pay your copays, you get treatment, and life goes on.
 
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Dittohead not! said:
There is a difference between being "scared of Death" and having a death wish.
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True. Without a doubt. I don't have either. What I do have are Principles, which I hold more valuable than my life.

Dittohead not! said:
Moreover, there is that quality of life thing. Your quality of life can be much better with a particular medication than it will be without it, depending, of course, on what life throws at you as you age.
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I go out of my way to take as few medications as possible. I avoid pain medications, cold and flu remedies, etc... unless they are absolutely necessary, and even then rarely take them as often as recommended.

Dittohead not! said:
Once you reach the magic age of 65, there is no alternative to Medicare unless you have far more money than most of us will ever see. Once you're on Medicare, there really is no difference from being on insurance anyway. You choose your doctor, you pay your copays, you get treatment, and life goes on.
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You are correct that there is no alternative, in terms of getting care. I will not take Government Medical Care. It's just that simple. My principles are more important to me than my health or life.
 
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Tigger said:
We Conservatives don't fear Death the way that so many of you Progressives and Liberals seem to. We believe there's something more beyond this life, whereas many of you seem to feel that Death is the End. Maybe that's why we're not scared of Death like you folks are.
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Conservatives just get weirder and weirder. Now a debate about healthcare turns into proclamations about how brave rightwingers are in the face of death. I say, fine, don't seek medical care and let the rest of us take care of ourselves and kids with a rational single payer system. You guys can wither away in the corner, heroically.
 
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Hicup said:
We have the highest health care cost because we're the fattest country in the world bar none, we have the most smokers (myself included), we eat the most sugar than anyone else, and eat the most processed foods. Your health is almost always determined by what and how much you eat, period. I agree that in a free society you can't legislate behavior, but you sure as hell can admonish it publicly. Of course that assumes that people feel shame, but the latest evidence is that shame is no longer in the lexicon.


Tim-
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Nope, this doesn't explain the high inflation rate of health care. You're just making stuff up now.
 
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