An outsider watching the US health care debate

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Originally Posted by jaycanuck

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

]You have to address the DATA.

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On numerous times we've given opposing arguments to your DATA Duplicatt. When we rebut it, you hold onto it thinking we'll forget it and then you bring it up again. Like the marrow discussion. We read your data and dispute it. You keep harping on elements even though we come up with our own.

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You need to address data WITH data. You haven't done so.

You say you addressed the bone marrow transplant thing. I just went back and re-read the entire thread, Jay. The closest you come to addressing the bone marrow transplant thing is saying that you were for spending more money on health care and you said something about liver transplant wait times and try to claim that the transplants aren't done because of lack of donors. Well, you aren't in charge of spending money more. One down. Liver transplant wait times are irrelevant to bone marrow transplants. Two down. Dr. Galal says that money is the decisive issue in bone marrow transplant, not donors. Inning over.

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Originally Posted by trish

The very form of my argument grants the premise that low birth weight babies contribute to child mortality. :roll:

Oh my I'm such a naughty girl. I don't prove my contentions. I misrepresent. I'm never the subject of an ad hominem argument.

Yes, duplicatt. You're excused.

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Where have you proven anything, Trish?

And, as for ad hominem, I haven't done that to you.

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duplicatt wrote:
Moreover, Canadian hospitals do not get enough funding to do all of the bone marrow transplants that are indicated.

Every system has its own drawbacks.

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You're right...we don't get enough funding. But if you lived here in the 90s you would know that that's the fault of a Conservative government who slashed more than just health care. We're still trying to fix his mess. Unfortunately he didn't listen to his voters.

According to an article I found Ontario performs 70 out of the 120 surgeries per year that need to be performed. Considering each surgery is between $200,000 - $500,000 that's pretty good. And as I said before, I would be willing to pay a lot more tax to make sure that that number of surgeries is bumped up.

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looks like debatable data to me. I agreed with your statement for one that every system has it's own drawbacks. I didn't say our system was perfect. I then followed up with the point that with a public health care service people don't need to pay $200,000 - $500,000.

Oh and then I continued to address another point that donations are also an issue. Even in the US.

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Although in the States you can go from state to state to get shorter wait lists, the fact is you still have wait lists in the States. It's 16,000 people for a liver transplant? In both cases (liver and bone marrow) the major issue is donations.

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Further addressing that no system is perfect.

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

Where have you proven anything, Trish?

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Your contention is that the high infant mortality rate in the U.S. is explainable. It’s due to an inordinate number of low birth weight babies. If we toss those low birth weight babies from the data our infant mortality is perfectly respectable! Therefore low infant mortality shouldn’t be used as an argument for heath care reform.

It’s an amazing argument. Don’t you think? Let’s grant the premise. We have an inordinate number of low birth weight babies. Let’s even grant that if we toss those low weight babies out of the data, our infant mortality would be in alignment with other developed western nations. Okay. Now what? What rules of logic lead from these premises to the stated conclusion? There is no reference to health care in the premises, and so there can be no reference to health care in any valid logical conclusion. The argument nicely demonstrates the fallacy known as drawing a non sequitur. Viola, I’ve proven something. The above argument is logically invalid.

We have more low birth weight babies because we have more premature births ( http://hsc.virginia.edu/UVaHealth/pe...ewborn/lbw.cfm ). A primary contributor to the higher occurrence of premature births is lack of prenatal care ( http://www.marchofdimes.com/prematurity/21326_1157.asp ). Gee, why are so many expectant mothers not getting proper prenatal care? Perhaps because tens of millions of young American women can’t afford medical coverage. Perhaps because millions thought their medical insurance covered prenatal care when it didn’t. Why would we think tens of millions of young American women have no medical coverage? Because nearly fifty million Americans have no coverage. Seniors are covered by Medicaid, so the bulk of those fifty million are men and women of reproductive age.

Is this a “proof”. Of course not. I rarely claim to prove anything that isn't of a formal nature (like the form of an logical argument or a mathematical proposition). Is it a convincing argument? That’s for the reader to judge.

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Originally Posted by jaycanuck

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duplicatt wrote:
Moreover, Canadian hospitals do not get enough funding to do all of the bone marrow transplants that are indicated.

Every system has its own drawbacks.

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You're right...we don't get enough funding. But if you lived here in the 90s you would know that that's the fault of a Conservative government who slashed more than just health care. We're still trying to fix his mess. Unfortunately he didn't listen to his voters.

According to an article I found Ontario performs 70 out of the 120 surgeries per year that need to be performed. Considering each surgery is between $200,000 - $500,000 that's pretty good. And as I said before, I would be willing to pay a lot more tax to make sure that that number of surgeries is bumped up.

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looks like debatable data to me. I agreed with your statement for one that every system has it's own drawbacks. I didn't say our system was perfect. I then followed up with the point that with a public health care service people don't need to pay $200,000 - $500,000.

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What is debatable about it? Do you dispute what the head of the busiest transplant centre in Ontario says?

$200-500,000 is what Ontario pays. Over 83% of Americans have health insurance (call it 50 million - which is high - uninsured in a nation of 307 million) and do not pay $200-500,000 out of pocket to get the same operation either. Another 9% will get Medicaid if they have a medical need this big - because the hospital will make them apply for it - and they will not see that bill either.

I asked you before if you really considered 58% to be pretty good. You never answered.

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Originally Posted by jaycanuck

Oh and then I continued to address another point that donations are also an issue. Even in the US.

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Although in the States you can go from state to state to get shorter wait lists, the fact is you still have wait lists in the States. It's 16,000 people for a liver transplant? In both cases (liver and bone marrow) the major issue is donations.

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Further addressing that no system is perfect.

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Dr. Galal said that the limiting issue for bone marrow transplants in Canada was money, not donors.

Furthermore, liver donations and bone marrow donations, while both can be done done with live donors, are not in the same league as each other. Donating a piece of your liver is a serious, major and possibly life threatening operation with major recovery needed. A bone marrow donation, while nothing to sneeze at, is not in the same category in terms of risk to the donor.

So, no, you haven't adequately addressed this at all, Jay.

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

I asked you before if you really considered 58% to be pretty good. You never answered.

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Sure I'll answer. It's acceptable. I say acceptable because you completely bypassed what I said about our struggle with politicians up here. We demand more taxes be taken off. Why? Because of something else that I already mentioned...and that's that we used to have a BETTER system than the one we already have. Election after election the number 1 issue with Canadians is health care.

I've already mentioned the Harris Gov. of the 90s destroying it. That's why it's at 58%.

For pete's sake Duplicatt, what you aren't getting is that the more money that's put into the system the better the care, the better the care the healthier the nation is. You just don't understand.

Your statement of "Over 83% of Americans have health insurance" is rather misleading. Are you saying that everyone has the ease of paying insurance costs. C'mon D

Here's a quick image from the The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations based on people buying their own coverage.
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/healthc...s/chart_10.jpg

Is this the only poll? No...but c'mon...i mean you have to realize that there are a large number of people who don't have employee medical coverage and can't afford it (or your statistic...are having a hard time affording it). You can't be that naive.

We can bat statistics and stories around all we want, you just won't get it. It's a shame.

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

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Originally Posted by Rogers

Americans' are spending almost twice as much on healthcare as anywhere else in the world.

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What do you mean by that? Absolute amount? Per person? Percent of GDP?

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It's funny how you've dodged my posts about how the current system is both damaging and corrupting to the medical profession itself, but somehow found the time to reply to that cherry-picked sentence. :wink: Ahahaha. If others can't see the flaw in your attempt at "logic", duplicitous, then I feel obliged to point it out to them. Anyone can read what I said anyway they like, because it still doesn't change the fact that almost 1/3 of health insurance goes to cover paperwork which the companies use to try and swindle their own customers out of the care they both need and paid for. :idea:

"Fully $350 billion a year could be saved on paperwork alone if the U.S. went to a single-payer system — more than enough to pay for the whole goddamned thing, if anyone had the balls to stand up and say so."

Nevermind the money the I.C.s' use to pay their lackey politicans. :twisted:

"Max Baucus, a right-leaning Democrat from Montana who has received $2,880,631 in campaign contributions from the health care industry"

"Grassley (who has received $2,034,000 from the health sector), Snowe ($756,000) or Enzi ($627,000)"

"It was Baucus' own committee that held the first round-table discussions on reform. In three days of hearings last May, he invited no fewer than 41 people to speak. The list featured all the usual industry hacks, including big insurers like America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Blue Cross and Aetna. It's worth noting that several of the organizations invited — including AHIP and Amgen — employ several former Baucus staffers as lobbyists, including two of his ex-chiefs of staff."

Source:
Sick and Wrong
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...sick_and_wrong

This is all part of the reason why, "Americans' are spending almost twice as much on healthcare as anywhere else in the world". :!: :!: :!:

The GOP plans!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-usmv...layer_embedded