Canadian Premier Comes To USA For Surgery

[Lucrum]

Quote from a_person:


How can you be so sure? How can you possibly know that you are getting a bigger bang for the buck than a canadian/french/italian dude with education, income, family and job comparable to yours. All objective data point otherwise, you pay more and get less.

I was facetiously referring to my relative position in the US, not the rest of the world.

...That's the essence of the problem, in countries with reasonably well managed Universal Healthcare 100% of the legal population are "more or less happy with what they have" but they pay on average 30-50% less than the average american taxpayer and they on average get a little more out of it.

1) A problem with Obamacare is that there will still be millions uninsured. In fact if you throw out the 47 Million number of uninsured that the looney left like to toss around, and use a more realistic 13 - 15 million. There would be roughly the same number of uninsured with Obamacare as before its implementation. IOW nothing gained (except maybe the existing conditions changes) and billions (we don't have) spent in the process.
2) I read a report to congress on health care recently. (suggested by one of our resident liberals) If memory serves, the US does pay more on average BUT they receive more on average as well. More diagnostic equipment and shorter wait times for procedures I remember for sure.

One apparently causative issue, as I recall, is that US doctors are among the highest paid in the world. They also spend more becoming doctors than most. (overpriced fucked up education system?) And then there is the fact that Americans are running to a doctor with every little ache and pain.

The current US system probably needs some reform. But to let the US federal government take it over would be like throwing gasoline on a fire.

 

[bugscoe]

Quote from a_person:

Wow, that puts me in the top 1%. I'm an elitist and didn't even know it.
How can you be so sure? How can you possibly know that you are getting a bigger bang for the buck than a canadian/french/italian dude with education, income, family and job comparable to yours. All objective data point otherwise, you pay more and get less.

Perhaps some specific examples would help you make your case. Saying "bigger bang for the buck" is as vague as you can get.

Bring to the table factual examples that demonstrate your point.

 

[bigdavediode]

Quote from Lucrum:

I was facetiously referring to my relative position in the US, not the rest of the world.


1) A problem with Obamacare is that there will still be millions uninsured. In fact if you throw out the 47 Million number of uninsured that the looney left like to toss around, and use a more realistic 13 - 15 million.

Actually the number comes from the US Census Bureau. "Census Bureau: Number of U.S. Uninsured Rises to 47 Million Americans are Uninsured: Almost 5 Percent Increase Since 2005."

If you include anyone who hasn't had insurance within the last two years, the number is around 87 million. Yes, that high.

There would be roughly the same number of uninsured with Obamacare as before its implementation.

So the above statement is factually incorrect.

2) I read a report to congress on health care recently. (suggested by one of our resident liberals) If memory serves, the US does pay more on average BUT they receive more on average as well. More diagnostic equipment and shorter wait times for procedures I remember for sure.

Actually Americans generally receive less. They visit the doctor less than Canadians (and therefore have less preventive care) <http://econ.arts.ubc.ca/evans/384physic.pdf> and wait times are only applicable to elective procedures.

One apparently causative issue, as I recall, is that US doctors are among the highest paid in the world. They also spend more becoming doctors than most. (overpriced fucked up education system?) And then there is the fact that Americans are running to a doctor with every little ache and pain.

Actually Americans visit the doctor less -- see above.

 

[a_person]

Quote from bugscoe:

Perhaps some specific examples would help you make your case. Saying "bigger bang for the buck" is as vague as you can get.

Bring to the table factual examples that demonstrate your point.

Fair question. Here is a link to a huge statistical report providing the data on healthcare for virtually all countries. Page 107 of the report deals with healthcare expendirures and demonstrates that Americans pay significantly more as percentage of GDP than citizens of any other developed nation. Specifically Americans pay 50% more (15% of the GDP) than Canadians (who pay 10%) and the ratio is even worse with most other countries.

Despite these substantial expenditures we're behind the rest of the developed nations in almost all categories like child mortality, immunization, life expectancy, number of doctors per capita etc.

http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS09_Full.pdf