Does the U.S. Have the World's Best Health Care System? Yes, If You're Talking About the Third World

[dreamdancer 0]

interesting...

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Last week, the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD) released the results of its most recent study of the health care systems in its member countries, including the U.S., plus six others, for a total of 40. And those results are illuminating.

If Boehner and his fellow Republicans had characterized the U.S. system as the most expensive in the world, they would have been right on target. But they would have been way off base by calling it the best.

The OECD report is just the most recent evidence that Americans are not getting nearly as much bang for the health care buck as citizens of most other developed countries -- and even some countries in the developing world.

The OECD found that the United States spends two-and-a-half times more on health care per person than the OECD average. The U.S. even spends more than twice as much as France, which many experts contend has one of the best health care systems on the planet.

The average expenditure per person in the U.S. is $7,960, a third more than in Norway, the second highest. The OECD average, by comparison, is just $3,233. (It is $3,873 in France.)

Here are some reasons why: Hospital spending is 60 percent higher than the average of five other relatively expensive countries (Switzerland, Canada, Germany, France and Japan); spending on pharmaceuticals and medical goods is much higher here than any of the other countries; and administrative costs are more than two-and-a-half times the average of the others.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/29-6

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[ShcShc11 0]

The U.S healthcare is a double-edged sword.

For the average Americans, they pay more and get less. The last health care survey placed the U.S about 35-40th place for AVERAGE care while paying the most.

However, the U.S is the leading country in terms of pharmaceutical and medical advancements. If it wasn't for the U.S, drugs such as Provenge from Dendreon (for prostate cancer) wouldn't be researched.


Very much-like the education system.
Top-notch Universities in the world, below-average High School education for the average Joe.

[DesertAttorney 0]

What happens after you take away everything from "the Rich?" They won't have anything to work with to produce, and you will have removed their incentive to produce in the future.

[mpohl 1]

I know a lot of people who aren't rich. But they work hard and produce! Every day!

What is this infatuation w/ the "rich"??? Are they supposed to watch over us? Will we wither and die w/o any rich people around?

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What happens after you take away everything from "the Rich?" They won't have anything to work with to produce, and you will have removed their incentive to produce in the future.

[BoogeyMan 0]

"The OECD report is just the most recent evidence that Americans are not getting nearly as much bang for the health care buck as citizens of most other developed countries -- and even some countries in the developing world.

The OECD found that the United States spends two-and-a-half times more on health care per person than the OECD average. The U.S. even spends more than twice as much as France, which many experts contend has one of the best health care systems on the planet."

Seems like a good argument to redirect the US foreign aid back to America.

[DesertAttorney 0]

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I know a lot of people who aren't rich. But they work hard and produce! Every day!

What is this infatuation w/ the "rich"??? Are they supposed to watch over us? Will we wither and die w/o any rich people around?

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What happens after you take away everything from "the Rich?" They won't have anything to work with to produce, and you will have removed their incentive to produce in the future.

It's not my obsession with the Rich. It's DD's tedious mantra about "The 1%" and how anyone with a seven figure income is satan and should be deprived of all their net worth.

Socialism/Communism was tried. It was the Soviet Union, and we all see how well that worked.

[kallend 2,027]

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I know a lot of people who aren't rich. But they work hard and produce! Every day!

What is this infatuation w/ the "rich"??? Are they supposed to watch over us? Will we wither and die w/o any rich people around?

Quote

What happens after you take away everything from "the Rich?" They won't have anything to work with to produce, and you will have removed their incentive to produce in the future.

It's not my obsession with the Rich. It's DD's tedious mantra about "The 1%" and how anyone with a seven figure income is satan and should be deprived of all their net worth.

Socialism/Communism was tried. It was the Soviet Union, and we all see how well that worked.

Nice diversion, but the fact remains that the USA has the most expensive healthcare system, but far from the best.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[DesertAttorney 0]

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I know a lot of people who aren't rich. But they work hard and produce! Every day!

What is this infatuation w/ the "rich"??? Are they supposed to watch over us? Will we wither and die w/o any rich people around?

Quote

What happens after you take away everything from "the Rich?" They won't have anything to work with to produce, and you will have removed their incentive to produce in the future.

It's not my obsession with the Rich. It's DD's tedious mantra about "The 1%" and how anyone with a seven figure income is satan and should be deprived of all their net worth.

Socialism/Communism was tried. It was the Soviet Union, and we all see how well that worked.

Nice diversion, but the fact remains that the USA has the most expensive healthcare system, but far from the best.

So what is the solution?

[mnealtx 0]

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Nice diversion, but the fact remains that the USA has the most expensive healthcare system, but far from the best.

Only if you DON'T define 'best' as 'best care'...after all, the WHO *did* rate the US as #1 in efficacy of care.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[DesertAttorney 0]

If our system is so awful, why are all the Phoenix AZ/outlying Hospitals' parking lots full of RVs with Canadian license plates?

Lots of Canadians coming down here for treatment in a supposedly horrid system...

[wmw999 2,446]

Mike, there's a difference between best health care, and best health care system. Conflating them doesn't add clarity.

A system is evaluated by service delivery to multiple levels. You could say that America's school system is the best in the world, because of the presence of Harvard.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[lawrocket 3]

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Hospital spending is 60 percent higher than the average of five other relatively expensive countries (Switzerland, Canada, Germany, France and Japan)

Yes. So in the US we actually treat the seriously ill and injured versus other countries where that care is rationed.

I’ve spent years putting this out here and nobody has any solution. Here it is for you, dreamdancer, to tell me how I’m wrong and to propose a solution:

Health care policy has three things that are balanced that we want. We want healthcare to be:
(1) High quality;
(2) Inexpensive; and
(3) Available on demand

We cannot have all three. If we have high quality healthcare that is inexpensive, it must be rationed to control the price. If we have high quality that is available on demand it will be expensive. If we have inexpensive health care that is available on demand, quality must suffer.

So I’d like you to answer something: how can a healthcare system be made high quality, inexpensive, and available on demand? It hasn’t happened anywhere because I believe that it cannot be done.

Also, I note this: what is the side effect of high quality medicine? If you said, “Price” then you are correct. Quality and cost feed off of each other in a positive feedback loop. Here’s what I mean. Dude has cellulitis. It becomes intense pain and starts looking black. He goes to the hospital where he is diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis and is in surgery a half hour later getting it debrided. Another hour and he would have been dead. He got high quality care on demand and lived through it.

How does this implicate cost? Because he’s alive to face another medical issue. People are less expensive dead than they are alive. How does this implicate quality? Because the medical professionals have more and more experience handling these things, which increases surivivability. Which increases costs. Etc.

So, back again to my issue: I see you’ve bitched about the American health care system. What would you do to fix it? How can a healthcare system be inexpensive, high quality and not rationed?

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[mnealtx 0]

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Mike, there's a difference between best health care, and best health care system. Conflating them doesn't add clarity.

Neither does an arbitrary "fairness" ranking.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[wmw999 2,446]

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How can a healthcare system be inexpensive, high quality and not rationed?

It can't be.

But to say that health care in the US isn't rationed is wrong; it is. By money (whether you have it or not), or insurance companies (is it available?). I'll submit that medical care at the very top level is ALWAYS available if one has enough money.

What the US has, with its "system" is a focus on research into health problems that affect people with money or insurance, or lots of people (enough of whom generally have money or insurance to pay). We are extremely well-served in that area, including things like Botox & Viagra.

We are pushing boundaries in ways that other countries, with more centrally-controlled health care systems, probably aren't. The cost is, however, that care is largely money-driven, and people without money (not always easy to get), or whose care is so expensive that they'd have to be supremely rich to afford care, are either not served, or served by a public health system that's more expensive because of the small (in comparison to the general population) set of people it serves.

As in schools, there isn't a perfect answer.

But I will say that rich people will always be able to get top tier care. They can go wherever they want to, and pay whatever it takes. No system has taken that away entirely. Only systems that control travel to other countries can even limit it.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[winsor 236]

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What happens after you take away everything from "the Rich?" They won't have anything to work with to produce, and you will have removed their incentive to produce in the future.

Hey! Just because that's the way it has worked every time it has been tried doesn't mean that, uh, ...

Yeah, I guess it does.

[kallend 2,027]

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What happens after you take away everything from "the Rich?" They won't have anything to work with to produce, and you will have removed their incentive to produce in the future.

I don't think raising tax brackets to the Clinton era levels constitutes "taking everything". In fact, I doubt it would change anyone's behavior very much at all.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[wmw999 2,446]

There are rich people in some of the western and northern European countries with high taxes and "extravagant" services. Some of those countries have very high overall citizen satisfaction, too.

Many of htem are also fairly homogeneous. Some people are fine with subsidizing people "like them." They're not so happy if it's someone who doesn't look like, act like, worship like, screw like -- etc.

Then it's bad.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[lawrocket 3]

[kelpdiver 2]

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But I will say that rich people will always be able to get top tier care. They can go wherever they want to, and pay whatever it takes. No system has taken that away entirely. Only systems that control travel to other countries can even limit it.

The difference in the US is that quite a few besides the top tier can get it as well. If you're a full time employee at a typical US company, you're doing pretty well. It's the other 30% who don't fare so well, and would likely do better in the European model. And that's why we hold to the status quo - majority doesn't want to give up a good thing.

If you were to be shot, would you rather be in an American city, or in any European one?

If you tore your knee ligaments up in a sporting activity, which would you prefer?

If you insist on snorting coke or eating fast food every day till your heart bursts, which would you prefer?

Serious trauma, acute failures like heart attacks, and sport injuries in general all favor being in the US.

It's the greater picture - average outcome of the aggregate population, where the US loses out. People are free to and apparently choose to be unhealthy and we're not really trying to change that. (not enough to make a difference). But you can see how other nations are slipping as well. Cardiovascular disease in China is skyrocketing, and England and Australia are challenging the US on obesity rates. Will their health care systems still look so good now that their people are choosing to live unhealthy lifestyles?

[wmw999 2,446]

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I, myself, have a problem with a system that would rather see a citizen die than go elsewhere for top tier treatment.

That's generally a political system, not a medical care system, right?

And I completely agree that there's too much focus on curing now, because it's so cheap and easy, and generally more fun than prevention.

Except, well, I'm a pretty good cook, so healthy eating is both fun and easy for us

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[lawrocket 3]

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What happens after you take away everything from "the Rich?" They won't have anything to work with to produce, and you will have removed their incentive to produce in the future.

I don't think raising tax brackets to the Clinton era levels constitutes "taking everything". In fact, I doubt it would change anyone's behavior very much at all.

The Clinton cuts sure did. It had a higher bar for the rich but lowered capital gains taxes. hence, the super wealthy lived off of capital gains as income and paid those tax rates.

Haven't you complained about that very thing? It DID change behavior. A LOT!

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[rehmwa 2]

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it's someone who doesn't look like, act like, worship like, screw like -- etc..

"screw like" - wow, that's a very intrusive census if you ask me

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[devildog 0]

Go to the heart of the Congo and get some medical care there if you thing ours is worse.

You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.

[lawrocket 3]

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And I completely agree that there's too much focus on curing now, because it's so cheap and easy, and generally more fun than prevention.

Here's a proposed cure: You are responsible for yourself. Example: you develop type 2 diabetes and are obese, it’s on you. You pay for it.

Smoke two packs a day and get lung cancer? The rest of us aren’t paying for it.

Drink a twelve a day of beer and develop esophageal varices? Pay for your own damned new liver.

People don’t face the financial consequences of their behavior. The person in a group plan who is 5’8 and 325 pounds pays the same as the person who is 6’1” and 180, despite the OBVIOUS idea that the former is probably a significantly larger drag on the health care system. The financial incentive to take care of oneself has been eroded.

Perhaps if people weighing down the system (i.e., the big three of obese, smokers and drinkers) had to cover their own costs to the healthcare system (and society in general) then there’d be plenty fewer of them. Yes, we hear the horror story of the poor uninsured woman blinded by diabetes and is uninsurable. Yet those of us who know a bit about the disease also know that peripheral neuropathy is a slow process brought on by years of deliberate failure to control the diabetes. How many people do damage to themselves but we pay for them? They spread the cost to all.

It’s yet another circumstance where the healthy pay more and the unhealthy pay less. If the lack of health was something that was not their fault, then I can understand that. But the massive costs brought about by lifestyle choices of so many and being borne equally. To me that sucks when a person who takes care of herself pays more that her share of healthcare costs while a person who does not gets more bang for the buck for healthcare costs.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[mpohl 1]

Actually i it is a lot better in the third world....

Dentist (US-trained), Dominican Republic, white filling, front tooth, $25.63 (typically $200+ in the US);

Dentist (US-trained), Dominican Republic, Cleaning and Diagnosis, $30 (typically $200+ in the US):

CT Pelvis, Abdomen; $6,000+ in the US w/ insurance!; $0 in Austria w/ insurance, reimbursable at $25 (!) per scan to US providers.


The US health care system is just a gigantic scheme. Million dollars salaries for CEOs, hundred of thousands for MDs, and no affordable health care options for the 99%!!!

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interesting...

Quote

Last week, the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD) released the results of its most recent study of the health care systems in its member countries, including the U.S., plus six others, for a total of 40. And those results are illuminating.

If Boehner and his fellow Republicans had characterized the U.S. system as the most expensive in the world, they would have been right on target. But they would have been way off base by calling it the best.

The OECD report is just the most recent evidence that Americans are not getting nearly as much bang for the health care buck as citizens of most other developed countries -- and even some countries in the developing world.

The OECD found that the United States spends two-and-a-half times more on health care per person than the OECD average. The U.S. even spends more than twice as much as France, which many experts contend has one of the best health care systems on the planet.

The average expenditure per person in the U.S. is $7,960, a third more than in Norway, the second highest. The OECD average, by comparison, is just $3,233. (It is $3,873 in France.)

Here are some reasons why: Hospital spending is 60 percent higher than the average of five other relatively expensive countries (Switzerland, Canada, Germany, France and Japan); spending on pharmaceuticals and medical goods is much higher here than any of the other countries; and administrative costs are more than two-and-a-half times the average of the others.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/29-6