An outsider watching the US health care debate

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Originally Posted by raybbaby

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Originally Posted by rocko

do you really "believe" that if the federal government controls health care, child mortality rates will improve, life expectancy will increase, and general care will improve?

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Yes, yes I do. you don't think there's a cause and effect between being ranked the 29th in the worldfor infant mortality, and 37th for overall healthcare by the W.H.O. and being the only country in the world with "for profit" healthcare?

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US infant mortality rates suffer from a large number of low birth weight babies. If Canada (for example) had the same percentage of low birth weight babies as the US does, they'd have a higher percentage of infant mortality than the US does.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/127038.html

As for the WHO rankings, first off they are relatively old. Secondly, more than half of the ranking is from factors that have nothing to do with the quality of health care delivered - those factors essentially measure how socialized a health care is system is and OF COURSE the US is going to do badly in that measure.

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Originally Posted by trish

Every developed western democratic nation with a national health care system does better than we do by these measures. Moreover, their child mortality rates and life expectancies are comparable to each others. Our rates are the outliers. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to do just as well by adopting similar policies.

http://brightcove.newscientist.com/s...id=30583310001

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When you adjust for accidents and murders - things that the health care system cannot fix - the US rises in the life expectancy rankings.

http://politicalcalculations.blogspo...in-united.html

"...once fatal injuries are taken into account, U.S. "natural" life
expectancy from birth ranks first among the richest nations of the
world."

http://www.aei.org/docLib/20061017_O...esentation.pdf

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

US infant mortality rates suffer from a large number of low birth weight babies. If Canada (for example) had the same percentage of low birth weight babies as the US does, they'd have a higher percentage of infant mortality than the US does.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/127038.html.

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Reason Magazine, your premier source for half-assed rhetoric.

So why do we have more low-birth-weight babies in the U.S. than in Canada? The author blames teen mothers and moves on, ignoring the facts that:

1) Teen pregnancy, from a public health perspective, is a failure of preventive care.

2) Far more significant contributors to low birth weight are poor maternal nutrition and lack of prenatal care.

Nonetheless, when you look at the data, rather than relying on oddball libertarian web sites, health outcomes are pretty similar across developed countries. Different countries may rank marginally higher or lower in various measures, but essentially, citizens of developed nations largely enjoy good health enabled by widely available medical research and technology.

The issue is that in the U.S., these outcomes cost twice as much and are not universally shared. Socioeconomic and ethnic disparities in health outcomes are huge in the U.S. I think that's unjust, and I think that government is an effective tool to address these disparities (see SSI, medicaid, WIC, VHA, etc.).

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Originally Posted by thombergeron

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

US infant mortality rates suffer from a large number of low birth weight babies. If Canada (for example) had the same percentage of low birth weight babies as the US does, they'd have a higher percentage of infant mortality than the US does.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/127038.html.

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Reason Magazine, your premier source for half-assed rhetoric.

So why do we have more low-birth-weight babies in the U.S. than in Canada? The author blames teen mothers and moves on, ignoring the facts that:

1) Teen pregnancy, from a public health perspective, is a failure of preventive care.

2) Far more significant contributors to low birth weight are poor maternal nutrition and lack of prenatal care.

Nonetheless, when you look at the data, rather than relying on oddball libertarian web sites, health outcomes are pretty similar across developed countries. Different countries may rank marginally higher or lower in various measures, but essentially, citizens of developed nations largely enjoy good health enabled by widely available medical research and technology.

The issue is that in the U.S., these outcomes cost twice as much and are not universally shared. Socioeconomic and ethnic disparities in health outcomes are huge in the U.S. I think that's unjust, and I think that government is an effective tool to address these disparities (see SSI, medicaid, WIC, VHA, etc.).

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Ah...

If the facts aren't on your side, attack the source. I note that you can't impeach the study, so you attack the messenger.

How will you prevent teens from getting pregnant - 24/7 monitoring? How do you prevent poor maternal nutrition - free food?

"...and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess.
They [socialists] always run out of other people's money. It's quite a
characteristic of them.

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How will you prevent teens from getting pregnant - 24/7 monitoring?

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Look up "preventive care," it's not what you think.

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Originally Posted by trish

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How will you prevent teens from getting pregnant - 24/7 monitoring?

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Look up "preventive care," it's not what you think.

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Which begs the question. What measures is preventive care going to have to take to prevent teen pregnancies?

Look up “begging the question” because it doesn’t mean what you think either. Preventive care isn’t going to take any such measures because that’s not the prevue of preventive care. We have a high mortality rate among children because expectant mother’s aren’t getting the prenatal care they need to prevent complications that result in spontaneous abortion, premature birth, illness and defects that endanger the life of the child. Of course you wouldn’t want any of your precious tax dollars going toward preventing any of that, would you?

One might also add that our rate of teen pregnancy is not unrelated to the idiotic policy of abstinence only. Perhaps a little money spent on real sex education would prove more economic in the long run.

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Originally Posted by trish

Look up “begging the question” because it doesn’t mean what you think either. Preventive care isn’t going to take any such measures because that’s not the prevue of preventive care. We have a high mortality rate among children because expectant mother’s aren’t getting the prenatal care they need to prevent complications that result in spontaneous abortion, premature birth, illness and defects that endanger the life of the child. Of course you wouldn’t want any of your precious tax dollars going toward preventing any of that, would you?

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging...n#Modern_usage indicates my usage is A correct one.

As for the rest, you don't prove anything. Whereas I posted evidence that no one has been able to dispute.

BTW, spontaneous abortions do not contribute to infant mortality statistics.

Seems there are several arguments all at once.

We spend TRILLIONS of dollars a year on health care period. Single Payer would spend about a 1/3 of that to cover everybody.

Now, the problem is Insurance Companies, Medical Supply Companies and Big Pharma.

In other countries, the cost of drugs is CONTROLLED by the Government, you wonder why drugs are so cheap in Mexico? Because its REGULATED. Drugs in Sweden, Denmark, Britain, Canada even Switzerland are all REGULATED.

Keep that point in mind.

When Republicans stand up and say we have the best health care system in the world. They are half right. Because of so much technology Hospitals and Doctors sell MRI's, CATScans, etc.

We have more MRI machines than all of Canada, so when they say "Canadians come down here to use our system" They are correct, but ONLY those that can afford to do it.

They are not talking about the mass population.

You have to dig pretty deep to find people against Britain's NHS and of course Conservatives FOUND that ONE person and put him on a typically Conservative Faux News Channel and Web Sites, how convenient...

If you have lost faith in the Government doing the right thing, its not their fault, its largely our fault. The problem mostly is Congress.

They gave away Single Payer right off the bat like that would have been demonized any less than "The Public Option". Then by not saying simply "You can buy into Medicare" (Making it solvent long term) they lost the Message War in the Cable Media.

The problem really is the middle and the deep south, it couldn't be more simple than that.

These areas elected seriously Conservative people, Republican or Dem, it doesn't matter.

These are the people holding up any "real" reform because they don't want higher taxes or something silly.

I firmly believe if we had the large social safety nets like in Britain or France or Denmark (Cradle to Grave) you wouldn't mind the "taxes" so much.

Your taxes go up to PAY FOR WARS, not for social systems, please.

Just look at the tab run up on Iraq and then look how much was spent on Social Security and Medicare combined since the early 70's

We have had three very COSTLY and largely UNNEEDED Wars or War on Terror, even the War on Drugs is a joke.

As somebody once said, whenever the United States declares "War" on something, be afraid...

Government is not the solver of all problems, however there are social parts of our society that don't need a "Profit Motive". Medical Services is one of them.

If your taxes go up, it would not be NEARLY as much as your Premiums would increase as the years go by, its data that's readily available.

Nevermind that California Nurses recently released the "Smoking Gun" that all the major Health Insurance Companies in California denied claims at a rate of 1 in every 5 for PacifiCare.

Locally to me, Nataline Sarkisyan was in the hospital down the street from my house in need of a liver transplant that Cigna constantly denied and it was only after KABC here in Los Angeles covered her story and her dire need for the transplant or she would die that Cigna finally relented and approved the transplant, Nataline died hours later from complications of Liver Failure.

Now its totally unacceptable for the so-called "Best Country and Richest Country" in the World to have between 30-50 million people who for whatever reason don't have Health Insurance. 22,000 people die a year because of lack of coverage or "not having enough" coverage (under insured). Also 61% of the Bankruptcies are Medical Related.

Finally most things run by the Government are fine, what happens is Conservatives in trying to cut the size of Government down constantly underfund programs.

They complain SSC will go broke by I think its 2030 because they keep skimming off the top to pay for "Military Activities"

Why are you personally worried about the National Debt? Really?

What about all that personal debt you have?

What about all the Tax Dodging by Rich People?

Put all this together and you have one of MANY problems in America from Governance to Military Industrial Complex to Health Care and its all interconnected....