In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
Over 2 million people have enrolled in health insurance plans through the federally run HealthCare.gov and state healthcare websites since enrollment began in October, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
While the numbers of enrollees fall short of the 3.3 million enrollees the Obama administration was hoping for by the end of year, the number is a dramatic improvement from the early weeks of the program when barely 150,000 signed up for coverage through HealthCare.gov because of a series of technical problems.
HealthCare.gov covers 36 states; another 14 states have their own websites.
Sign-ups for what has become known as "Obamacare" picked up during December as the website's performance improved, and as more Americans focused on getting coverage by the new year.
Many of the newly insured under the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" enrolled just ahead of a Dec. 24 deadline to receive benefits on Jan. 1, giving health insurers a tight framework to create accounts that can be accessed by doctors. The Obama administration was alerted to HealthCare.gov's problems as early as March, and the site crashed soon after its launch on Oct. 1, as millions of visitors entered the site, and remained balky for much of the ensuing weeks.
They're getting closer to the 4.5mil-6mil that have lost their insurance as a result of Obamacare. I'm guessing they didn't hit their goal of circa 40% young people since they have doggedly refused to release those statistics just like their refusal to say how many of their "enrollees" have paid their first months premium (as the industry usually calls an enrolled member). I don't blame them grasping for straws. This is the administration that advocated a smarter, not bigger, government prior to becoming the government. I haven't been hearing that line lately, no surprise.
Lost implies that they didn't get another plan from same company within a day for about the same price with more benefits. I know someone who got that notice and she basically got the notice and included were alternative plans she could pick she picked one and moved on. The fact that absolutely nothing changed for her and she gets included in those 4.5M makes me chuckle every time.
And enrolled implies that they've started their first month paying for their plans, but the Obama administration conflates that with just signups. The last data released showed that only 5-15% of those the administration considered enrolled had actually ... enrolled. Your anecdotal evidence is more than matched with every single report on citizens with cancelled plans that only have more expensive alternatives. In 49 states the average increase in plan cost is 41%. Worst Hit: Young and Healthy. They aren't similarly laughing at the minority that experienced similar costs or lesser costs after Obamacare.
It's just a projection made by a specific institute (the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank).
Publications from the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center, by contrast, are taken for the voice of God in this thread. They surveyed the most populous zip codes for each county, contrasting the 5 cheapest plans before and after, and drew subsidy beneficiaries and median houshold incomes by age from IPUMs database. Now, I know I'm wasting my breath here. It's not easy to surmount the confirmation bias present: denying any right-of-center analysis out of hand ... presumably because Republicans aren't supposed to think, they're just supposed to go along with it all.
It's an exercise in futility trying to explain that the immense backlash is not due to widespread premium increases after loss in current insurance, but irrational hatred or a bad burrito.
On January 03 2014 01:11 farvacola wrote: No one has suggested that the enrollment hasn't been really shitty, as to do so is to practically ignore reality irregardless of political inclination. The part where informative sleight of hand comes in deals in how big the mess is, how its cleanup is going, and whether or not we'll ever get the stain out. If you happen to think that groups like Cato and the Manhattan Institute are actual good sources of unbiased information, then oh my God, better remove the carpet because shit is leaking into the baseboard. Everyone else, however, realizes (or desperately ought to) that quoting estimates as already instantiated facts is the work of a carpet salesmen with no interest in saving what might be a very cleanable piece of flooring that guarantees coverage for those who previously had slept on concrete their entires lives
Otherwise, we might actually start having compassion on all those happy with their current plans that have lost them and been forced into a debacle of government's making. It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Plan C does include ripping out the newly installed shit-carpet and putting in a new one, neglecting that there's a 1x1 foot clean patch in the corner, somewhere between the tax increases, medicare cuts, rise in minimum actuarial rate, and website.
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
"You see, what other countries do can't be applied here. We're different."
Millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance were informed this fall that their policies would no longer be offered starting in 2014 because they do not meet the higher standards of the federal Affordable Care Act. The actual number of people receiving the notices is unclear, in part because officials in nearly 20 states say they do not have the information or are not tracking it.
Some states tracked the policy notifications through their insurance departments or health care exchanges. In other states, the largest private insurers released the number of discontinuation notices they issued.
President Barack Obama then said insurance companies could allow the older policies to continue, but left that decision to the states and individual insurers. The response has been mixed.
This chart shows that at least 4.7 million Americans received the cancellation notices. It also provides details about what decision has been made in each state since Obama's announcement (some states had previously decided to allow insurers to continue older policies for a limited time).
It reflects reporting by AP staffers in every state and the District of Columbia and does not include policy cancelations in the small-business insurance market.
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
"Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
I agree that the full socialized medicine countries do outperform in some cases. Canada drastically outperforms America with it's average wait of ~18 weeks between primary care physician visit and the followup specialist. Much much longer. And to pay for this great service? Well, it outperforms for the tax burden as % of gdp ... circa 28% back in 2007.
Rationed care? There's the 2012 story of sending sickly babies home to die. Eventually, you're just complying with laws. Make the ambulances wait at a distance so you can comply with regulators in the government system (don't worry, they're fined after 30 minutes of waiting, so comforting). More recently, in April of this past year your health secretary warned that the increase in emergency room visits were the "biggest operational challenge" to NHS. And here we're all being told that PPACA will reduce emergency room visits and encourage preventative care.
I don't want to waste any more time on a detailed response when you quote one sentence from my first post to go off running, so I'll try to bottom line it. The fundamentals are increased taxation and rationed care. The denials are that you can wish away costs for expensive treatments, that medical innovation won't decline, and that government can do a better job at appropriating scarce resources to the patient than anybody else. Pardon me if we've been trending towards more government meddling far before PPACA and can't present a true free market health insurance and health care system to contrast. The progressives don't always move by leaps and bounds, sometimes its just steady undermining of the current system. The distortions are from laws prohibiting insurance sales across state lines, benefits to employers denied to individual market purchasers, and keeping your insurance across employers.
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
Yeah, people in the US never draw comparisons with other countries
On January 03 2014 09:22 Danglars wrote: "Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
The use of national healthcare is increasing disproportionately in many countries because people needing healthcare are actually getting healthcare now. It seems like right - wing American logic implies that a healthcare system is only good if no one is able to us it and the government is working best if it isn't working at all.
And if you think the UK isn't a good example take Germany. We're also pretty federal with taxes on different levels and we have a very similar healthcare system in place.(technically it's not single - payer because rich guys can opt - out, but the overwhelming majority of people is publicly insured.)
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
"Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
I agree that the full socialized medicine countries do outperform in some cases. Canada drastically outperforms America with it's average wait of ~18 weeks between primary care physician visit and the followup specialist. Much much longer. And to pay for this great service? Well, it outperforms for the tax burden as % of gdp ... circa 28% back in 2007.
Rationed care? There's the 2012 story of sending sickly babies home to die. Eventually, you're just complying with laws. Make the ambulances wait at a distance so you can comply with regulators in the government system (don't worry, they're fined after 30 minutes of waiting, so comforting). More recently, in April of this past year your health secretary warned that the increase in emergency room visits were the "biggest operational challenge" to NHS. And here we're all being told that PPACA will reduce emergency room visits and encourage preventative care.
I don't want to waste any more time on a detailed response when you quote one sentence from my first post to go off running, so I'll try to bottom line it. The fundamentals are increased taxation and rationed care. The denials are that you can wish away costs for expensive treatments, that medical innovation won't decline, and that government can do a better job at appropriating scarce resources to the patient than anybody else. Pardon me if we've been trending towards more government meddling far before PPACA and can't present a true free market health insurance and health care system to contrast. The progressives don't always move by leaps and bounds, sometimes its just steady undermining of the current system. The distortions are from laws prohibiting insurance sales across state lines, benefits to employers denied to individual market purchasers, and keeping your insurance across employers.
Do you even understand the difference between tax burden and % of GDP(whatever else relevant) spent on healthcare ? Do you also understand that there is no easy correlation between waiting times and quality of healthcare. Waiting times in public systems are based on need. We are much poorer than Canada, but if I would be in risk of death I would be seen by specialist immediately. Global waiting times are pretty useless metric. Ideal system would be public system with no waiting lines. But if you have to sacrifice something the empirical evidence of other countries shows that smartly increasing waiting times by triage is much better solution for the society than denying care based on financial exclusion.
And your cherry-picked anecdotes are such a strong argument. Or do you think anyone actually argued that public systems are perfect, because that is the only scenario where your arguments would have any relevance. If you want create a statistic of bad things happening in US vs UK (any other first/former second world country) relative to population, be my guest, I am pretty confident UK will come up on top. In the meantime it would be good to avoid arguments based on anecdotes.
On January 03 2014 09:22 Danglars wrote: "Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
The use of national healthcare is increasing disproportionately in many countries because people needing healthcare are actually getting healthcare now. It seems like right - wing American logic implies that a healthcare system is only good if no one is able to us it and the government is working best if it isn't working at all.
And if you think the UK isn't a good example take Germany. We're also pretty federal with taxes on different levels and we have a very similar healthcare system in place.(technically it's not single - payer because rich guys can opt - out, but the overwhelming majority of people is publicly insured.)
From general hearsay UK system is judged rather poorly among public systems, or am I wrong ? And it still works pretty well.
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
"Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
I agree that the full socialized medicine countries do outperform in some cases. Canada drastically outperforms America with it's average wait of ~18 weeks between primary care physician visit and the followup specialist. Much much longer. And to pay for this great service? Well, it outperforms for the tax burden as % of gdp ... circa 28% back in 2007.
Rationed care? There's the 2012 story of sending sickly babies home to die. Eventually, you're just complying with laws. Make the ambulances wait at a distance so you can comply with regulators in the government system (don't worry, they're fined after 30 minutes of waiting, so comforting). More recently, in April of this past year your health secretary warned that the increase in emergency room visits were the "biggest operational challenge" to NHS. And here we're all being told that PPACA will reduce emergency room visits and encourage preventative care.
I don't want to waste any more time on a detailed response when you quote one sentence from my first post to go off running, so I'll try to bottom line it. The fundamentals are increased taxation and rationed care. The denials are that you can wish away costs for expensive treatments, that medical innovation won't decline, and that government can do a better job at appropriating scarce resources to the patient than anybody else. Pardon me if we've been trending towards more government meddling far before PPACA and can't present a true free market health insurance and health care system to contrast. The progressives don't always move by leaps and bounds, sometimes its just steady undermining of the current system. The distortions are from laws prohibiting insurance sales across state lines, benefits to employers denied to individual market purchasers, and keeping your insurance across employers.
Do you even understand the difference between tax burden and % of GDP(whatever else relevant) spent on healthcare ? Do you also understand that there is no easy correlation between waiting times and quality of healthcare. Waiting times in public systems are based on need. We are much poorer than Canada, but if I would be in risk of death I would be seen by specialist immediately. Global waiting times are pretty useless metric. Ideal system would be public system with no waiting lines. But if you have to sacrifice something the empirical evidence of other countries shows that smartly increasing waiting times by triage is much better solution for the society than denying care based on financial exclusion.
And your cherry-picked anecdotes are such a strong argument. Or do you think anyone actually argued that public systems are perfect, because that is the only scenario where your arguments would have any relevance. If you want create a statistic of bad things happening in US vs UK (any other first/former second world country) relative to population, be my guest, I am pretty confident UK will come up on top. In the meantime it would be good to avoid arguments based on anecdotes.
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
"Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
I agree that the full socialized medicine countries do outperform in some cases. Canada drastically outperforms America with it's average wait of ~18 weeks between primary care physician visit and the followup specialist. Much much longer. And to pay for this great service? Well, it outperforms for the tax burden as % of gdp ... circa 28% back in 2007.
Rationed care? There's the 2012 story of sending sickly babies home to die. Eventually, you're just complying with laws. Make the ambulances wait at a distance so you can comply with regulators in the government system (don't worry, they're fined after 30 minutes of waiting, so comforting). More recently, in April of this past year your health secretary warned that the increase in emergency room visits were the "biggest operational challenge" to NHS. And here we're all being told that PPACA will reduce emergency room visits and encourage preventative care.
I don't want to waste any more time on a detailed response when you quote one sentence from my first post to go off running, so I'll try to bottom line it. The fundamentals are increased taxation and rationed care. The denials are that you can wish away costs for expensive treatments, that medical innovation won't decline, and that government can do a better job at appropriating scarce resources to the patient than anybody else. Pardon me if we've been trending towards more government meddling far before PPACA and can't present a true free market health insurance and health care system to contrast. The progressives don't always move by leaps and bounds, sometimes its just steady undermining of the current system. The distortions are from laws prohibiting insurance sales across state lines, benefits to employers denied to individual market purchasers, and keeping your insurance across employers.
Do you even understand the difference between tax burden and % of GDP(whatever else relevant) spent on healthcare ? Do you also understand that there is no easy correlation between waiting times and quality of healthcare. Waiting times in public systems are based on need. We are much poorer than Canada, but if I would be in risk of death I would be seen by specialist immediately. Global waiting times are pretty useless metric. Ideal system would be public system with no waiting lines. But if you have to sacrifice something the empirical evidence of other countries shows that smartly increasing waiting times by triage is much better solution for the society than denying care based on financial exclusion.
And your cherry-picked anecdotes are such a strong argument. Or do you think anyone actually argued that public systems are perfect, because that is the only scenario where your arguments would have any relevance. If you want create a statistic of bad things happening in US vs UK (any other first/former second world country) relative to population, be my guest, I am pretty confident UK will come up on top. In the meantime it would be good to avoid arguments based on anecdotes.
There's no doubt that the US is able to cure cancer, the problem most of us have with the system is that you'll have to spend your next ten years living in a cardboard box paying your hospital bills
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
"Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
I agree that the full socialized medicine countries do outperform in some cases. Canada drastically outperforms America with it's average wait of ~18 weeks between primary care physician visit and the followup specialist. Much much longer. And to pay for this great service? Well, it outperforms for the tax burden as % of gdp ... circa 28% back in 2007.
Rationed care? There's the 2012 story of sending sickly babies home to die. Eventually, you're just complying with laws. Make the ambulances wait at a distance so you can comply with regulators in the government system (don't worry, they're fined after 30 minutes of waiting, so comforting). More recently, in April of this past year your health secretary warned that the increase in emergency room visits were the "biggest operational challenge" to NHS. And here we're all being told that PPACA will reduce emergency room visits and encourage preventative care.
I don't want to waste any more time on a detailed response when you quote one sentence from my first post to go off running, so I'll try to bottom line it. The fundamentals are increased taxation and rationed care. The denials are that you can wish away costs for expensive treatments, that medical innovation won't decline, and that government can do a better job at appropriating scarce resources to the patient than anybody else. Pardon me if we've been trending towards more government meddling far before PPACA and can't present a true free market health insurance and health care system to contrast. The progressives don't always move by leaps and bounds, sometimes its just steady undermining of the current system. The distortions are from laws prohibiting insurance sales across state lines, benefits to employers denied to individual market purchasers, and keeping your insurance across employers.
Do you even understand the difference between tax burden and % of GDP(whatever else relevant) spent on healthcare ? Do you also understand that there is no easy correlation between waiting times and quality of healthcare. Waiting times in public systems are based on need. We are much poorer than Canada, but if I would be in risk of death I would be seen by specialist immediately. Global waiting times are pretty useless metric. Ideal system would be public system with no waiting lines. But if you have to sacrifice something the empirical evidence of other countries shows that smartly increasing waiting times by triage is much better solution for the society than denying care based on financial exclusion.
And your cherry-picked anecdotes are such a strong argument. Or do you think anyone actually argued that public systems are perfect, because that is the only scenario where your arguments would have any relevance. If you want create a statistic of bad things happening in US vs UK (any other first/former second world country) relative to population, be my guest, I am pretty confident UK will come up on top. In the meantime it would be good to avoid arguments based on anecdotes.
There's no doubt that the US is able to cure cancer, the problem most of us have with the system is that you'll have to spend your next ten years living in a cardboard box paying your hospital bills
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
"Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
I agree that the full socialized medicine countries do outperform in some cases. Canada drastically outperforms America with it's average wait of ~18 weeks between primary care physician visit and the followup specialist. Much much longer. And to pay for this great service? Well, it outperforms for the tax burden as % of gdp ... circa 28% back in 2007.
Rationed care? There's the 2012 story of sending sickly babies home to die. Eventually, you're just complying with laws. Make the ambulances wait at a distance so you can comply with regulators in the government system (don't worry, they're fined after 30 minutes of waiting, so comforting). More recently, in April of this past year your health secretary warned that the increase in emergency room visits were the "biggest operational challenge" to NHS. And here we're all being told that PPACA will reduce emergency room visits and encourage preventative care.
I don't want to waste any more time on a detailed response when you quote one sentence from my first post to go off running, so I'll try to bottom line it. The fundamentals are increased taxation and rationed care. The denials are that you can wish away costs for expensive treatments, that medical innovation won't decline, and that government can do a better job at appropriating scarce resources to the patient than anybody else. Pardon me if we've been trending towards more government meddling far before PPACA and can't present a true free market health insurance and health care system to contrast. The progressives don't always move by leaps and bounds, sometimes its just steady undermining of the current system. The distortions are from laws prohibiting insurance sales across state lines, benefits to employers denied to individual market purchasers, and keeping your insurance across employers.
Do you even understand the difference between tax burden and % of GDP(whatever else relevant) spent on healthcare ? Do you also understand that there is no easy correlation between waiting times and quality of healthcare. Waiting times in public systems are based on need. We are much poorer than Canada, but if I would be in risk of death I would be seen by specialist immediately. Global waiting times are pretty useless metric. Ideal system would be public system with no waiting lines. But if you have to sacrifice something the empirical evidence of other countries shows that smartly increasing waiting times by triage is much better solution for the society than denying care based on financial exclusion.
And your cherry-picked anecdotes are such a strong argument. Or do you think anyone actually argued that public systems are perfect, because that is the only scenario where your arguments would have any relevance. If you want create a statistic of bad things happening in US vs UK (any other first/former second world country) relative to population, be my guest, I am pretty confident UK will come up on top. In the meantime it would be good to avoid arguments based on anecdotes.
There's no doubt that the US is able to cure cancer, the problem most of us have with the system is that you'll have to spend your next ten years living in a cardboard box paying your hospital bills
What percentage of the time does that happen?
Well given the fact that 50 million people in the US don't even have any kind of health insurance, and a substantial amount of people only have basic insurance that will leave them with tens of thousands of dollars in debt after cancer treatment my educated guess would be it happens quite a lot.
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
"Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
I agree that the full socialized medicine countries do outperform in some cases. Canada drastically outperforms America with it's average wait of ~18 weeks between primary care physician visit and the followup specialist. Much much longer. And to pay for this great service? Well, it outperforms for the tax burden as % of gdp ... circa 28% back in 2007.
Rationed care? There's the 2012 story of sending sickly babies home to die. Eventually, you're just complying with laws. Make the ambulances wait at a distance so you can comply with regulators in the government system (don't worry, they're fined after 30 minutes of waiting, so comforting). More recently, in April of this past year your health secretary warned that the increase in emergency room visits were the "biggest operational challenge" to NHS. And here we're all being told that PPACA will reduce emergency room visits and encourage preventative care.
I don't want to waste any more time on a detailed response when you quote one sentence from my first post to go off running, so I'll try to bottom line it. The fundamentals are increased taxation and rationed care. The denials are that you can wish away costs for expensive treatments, that medical innovation won't decline, and that government can do a better job at appropriating scarce resources to the patient than anybody else. Pardon me if we've been trending towards more government meddling far before PPACA and can't present a true free market health insurance and health care system to contrast. The progressives don't always move by leaps and bounds, sometimes its just steady undermining of the current system. The distortions are from laws prohibiting insurance sales across state lines, benefits to employers denied to individual market purchasers, and keeping your insurance across employers.
Do you even understand the difference between tax burden and % of GDP(whatever else relevant) spent on healthcare ? Do you also understand that there is no easy correlation between waiting times and quality of healthcare. Waiting times in public systems are based on need. We are much poorer than Canada, but if I would be in risk of death I would be seen by specialist immediately. Global waiting times are pretty useless metric. Ideal system would be public system with no waiting lines. But if you have to sacrifice something the empirical evidence of other countries shows that smartly increasing waiting times by triage is much better solution for the society than denying care based on financial exclusion.
And your cherry-picked anecdotes are such a strong argument. Or do you think anyone actually argued that public systems are perfect, because that is the only scenario where your arguments would have any relevance. If you want create a statistic of bad things happening in US vs UK (any other first/former second world country) relative to population, be my guest, I am pretty confident UK will come up on top. In the meantime it would be good to avoid arguments based on anecdotes.
There's no doubt that the US is able to cure cancer, the problem most of us have with the system is that you'll have to spend your next ten years living in a cardboard box paying your hospital bills
What percentage of the time does that happen?
Well given the fact that 50 million people in the US don't even have any kind of health insurance, and a substantial amount of people only have basic insurance that will leave them with tens of thousands of dollars in debt after cancer treatment my educated guess would be it happens quite a lot.
OK, but it seems like "quite a lot" of people die of cancer in the UK even though medical technology is sophisticated enough to save them. And keep in mind that if you do get stuck with bills that the US has forgiving bankruptcy laws.
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
"Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
I agree that the full socialized medicine countries do outperform in some cases. Canada drastically outperforms America with it's average wait of ~18 weeks between primary care physician visit and the followup specialist. Much much longer. And to pay for this great service? Well, it outperforms for the tax burden as % of gdp ... circa 28% back in 2007.
Rationed care? There's the 2012 story of sending sickly babies home to die. Eventually, you're just complying with laws. Make the ambulances wait at a distance so you can comply with regulators in the government system (don't worry, they're fined after 30 minutes of waiting, so comforting). More recently, in April of this past year your health secretary warned that the increase in emergency room visits were the "biggest operational challenge" to NHS. And here we're all being told that PPACA will reduce emergency room visits and encourage preventative care.
I don't want to waste any more time on a detailed response when you quote one sentence from my first post to go off running, so I'll try to bottom line it. The fundamentals are increased taxation and rationed care. The denials are that you can wish away costs for expensive treatments, that medical innovation won't decline, and that government can do a better job at appropriating scarce resources to the patient than anybody else. Pardon me if we've been trending towards more government meddling far before PPACA and can't present a true free market health insurance and health care system to contrast. The progressives don't always move by leaps and bounds, sometimes its just steady undermining of the current system. The distortions are from laws prohibiting insurance sales across state lines, benefits to employers denied to individual market purchasers, and keeping your insurance across employers.
Do you even understand the difference between tax burden and % of GDP(whatever else relevant) spent on healthcare ? Do you also understand that there is no easy correlation between waiting times and quality of healthcare. Waiting times in public systems are based on need. We are much poorer than Canada, but if I would be in risk of death I would be seen by specialist immediately. Global waiting times are pretty useless metric. Ideal system would be public system with no waiting lines. But if you have to sacrifice something the empirical evidence of other countries shows that smartly increasing waiting times by triage is much better solution for the society than denying care based on financial exclusion.
And your cherry-picked anecdotes are such a strong argument. Or do you think anyone actually argued that public systems are perfect, because that is the only scenario where your arguments would have any relevance. If you want create a statistic of bad things happening in US vs UK (any other first/former second world country) relative to population, be my guest, I am pretty confident UK will come up on top. In the meantime it would be good to avoid arguments based on anecdotes.
how about the overall US life expectancy -- how does that stack up vs. these same countries?
heh
On January 03 2014 11:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote: OK, but it seems like "quite a lot" of people die of cancer in the UK even though medical technology is sophisticated enough to save them. And keep in mind that if you do get stuck with bills that the US has forgiving bankruptcy laws.
US life expectancy seems quite low even though we spend astronomically more on public health initiatives and health care in general
this obviously isn't a direct response to what you're saying but i'm wondering how you respond to a similar sort of perplexing thought -- exactly the sort you broached with regard to cancer rates by country
On January 03 2014 08:14 Danglars wrote: It doesn't get much clearer than this in the health insurance industry: Government is not the solution to the problem, Government is the problem.
Except, you know, in literally every other first world country. American exceptionalism hard at work here.
It was first said and remains true in one government. I understand your system does not involve the tax-collecting apparatus playing a crucial role in the implementation.
You were making a broader ideological point that flies in the face of evidence worldwide. This is what confuses me about Americans, it's like you honestly don't understand that your country isn't breaking new ground and pushing back the frontiers of freedom and human society. Gays in the military and everyone speculates about what it could mean instead of just looking at another country which already did it and seeing what happened. Gay marriage, same. Here you're claiming that government is the problem with healthcare while disregarding the fact that every other place with government healthcare outperforms your healthcare system. You don't even address it, it's like other countries aren't even there, predictions about the great unknown must be rooted in ideology rather than reality.
Here's a theory for you. Government isn't the problem, Americans are.
"Breaking new ground" can apply as much to digging cemetery plots as to helpful progress. I mean, your national health service has broken new ground, as they released statistics showing an increase of 18 million (2005) to 22 million (2012) in ER room visits. 22% increase in 7 years, population increase of 4 percent. Progress!
I agree that the full socialized medicine countries do outperform in some cases. Canada drastically outperforms America with it's average wait of ~18 weeks between primary care physician visit and the followup specialist. Much much longer. And to pay for this great service? Well, it outperforms for the tax burden as % of gdp ... circa 28% back in 2007.
Rationed care? There's the 2012 story of sending sickly babies home to die. Eventually, you're just complying with laws. Make the ambulances wait at a distance so you can comply with regulators in the government system (don't worry, they're fined after 30 minutes of waiting, so comforting). More recently, in April of this past year your health secretary warned that the increase in emergency room visits were the "biggest operational challenge" to NHS. And here we're all being told that PPACA will reduce emergency room visits and encourage preventative care.
I don't want to waste any more time on a detailed response when you quote one sentence from my first post to go off running, so I'll try to bottom line it. The fundamentals are increased taxation and rationed care. The denials are that you can wish away costs for expensive treatments, that medical innovation won't decline, and that government can do a better job at appropriating scarce resources to the patient than anybody else. Pardon me if we've been trending towards more government meddling far before PPACA and can't present a true free market health insurance and health care system to contrast. The progressives don't always move by leaps and bounds, sometimes its just steady undermining of the current system. The distortions are from laws prohibiting insurance sales across state lines, benefits to employers denied to individual market purchasers, and keeping your insurance across employers.
Do you even understand the difference between tax burden and % of GDP(whatever else relevant) spent on healthcare ? Do you also understand that there is no easy correlation between waiting times and quality of healthcare. Waiting times in public systems are based on need. We are much poorer than Canada, but if I would be in risk of death I would be seen by specialist immediately. Global waiting times are pretty useless metric. Ideal system would be public system with no waiting lines. But if you have to sacrifice something the empirical evidence of other countries shows that smartly increasing waiting times by triage is much better solution for the society than denying care based on financial exclusion.
And your cherry-picked anecdotes are such a strong argument. Or do you think anyone actually argued that public systems are perfect, because that is the only scenario where your arguments would have any relevance. If you want create a statistic of bad things happening in US vs UK (any other first/former second world country) relative to population, be my guest, I am pretty confident UK will come up on top. In the meantime it would be good to avoid arguments based on anecdotes.
On January 03 2014 11:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote: OK, but it seems like "quite a lot" of people die of cancer in the UK even though medical technology is sophisticated enough to save them. And keep in mind that if you do get stuck with bills that the US has forgiving bankruptcy laws.
US life expectancy seems quite low even though we spend astronomically more on public health initiatives and health care in general
this obviously isn't a direct response to what you're saying but i'm wondering how you respond to a similar sort of perplexing thought -- exactly the sort you broached with regard to cancer rates by country
Life expectancy is affected by healthcare as well as other factors. It's a useful metric to look at, but it shouldn't be the only metric you look at.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/72070179/Cancer.JPG)
