It has been widely reported that in a 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) report that the United State ranked 37th in the world in our health care system, behind countries such as Columbia, Greece & Chile. But it turns out that this isn’t so.
The truth is that the WHO survey ranked the United States Number 1 in the world in the Responsiveness of our healthcare system, and we ranked 15 in “Overall Level of Health” (Source: http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_annex_en.pdf, pg 196) and a 1% change would place us in the top 5 in overall health in the world.
So, why the reporting of being number 37? Because the report included two separate conclusions. One conclusion was strictly based on health (the one that we ranked 15 in the world), while the second conclusion was based on health plus the financing mechanism used. The United Nations, certainly not a bastion of competitive-market capitalists, gave the United States a rank of 55 for our financial fairness.
It seems to me that “fairness” is rather ideological phrase. How do you measure “fairness”? So, European Socialists and dictators don’t like the American model (nor does the left in this country), so what?
When I need health care services, I need health care services. And the United States has the most responsive healthcare system in the world according to WHO. By comparison, in Canada where 33 million people live (1/10th the size of the United States), the average wait between seeing a primary care physician and a specialist is more than 17 weeks (Source: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/researchandpublications/publications/6240.aspx). To quote the Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court “Access to a waiting list is not access to health care.”
And we’ve got the most responsive healthcare system in the world according to who? WHO!
Single payer, transportable, permanent, health insurance would be the biggest boost to freedom since interstate highways. Let’s roll.
Canada has a very conservative government. Why doesn’t the Prime Minister urge voters to scrap their single payer non profit insurance system in favor of an American style system? Because Canadians are happy with what they have. They would kick him out of office if he proposed turning Canadians over to for profit health insurance corporations where a dozen middlemen take a cut of our insurance premiums just for handling our money.
Voters all over the world are the ultimate proof of the utility of single payer non profit insurance pools. Every democracy that has single payer non profit insurance, the voters vote to keep it. Heard any news lately where voters anywhere in the world with national non profit insurance demand for-profit insurance corporations take over their health care payments?
If we could just come together on this we really could simplify, reinvent, make better. It’s a shame this is being pushed by Democrats, otherwise us Republicans could be for it.
Republicans would never be for something that will cost jobs, increase taxes and destroy our way of life, rationing health care and telling people that they are going to die because the government finds their treatment to be “unneccessary.”
My aunt was told 6 years ago that she had less than a year to live due to ovarian cancer. Due to the agresssive treatment she received, she lived for six more YEARS and got to meet two of my children that she would not have under Obama’s plan.
Her younger sister (another aunt) has breast cancer that is “not treatable.” Because her team of doctors are treating this as a “chronic illness” and giving her years on her life that she would not have under Obama’s plan.
The WHO isn’t lying. There is a reason people come from Canada, England, France and all over the world to get treatment here in the good old USA. Our system might not be perfect, but we churn out the best doctors and we do what it takes to maintain life.
Obama’s plan would do neither. Doctors would be better off pursuing a different line of work and there would be no incentive to prolong the life of a patient with a mysterious illness or cancer.
Not to mention that the undue tax burden this will put on our already bankrupt economy.
Dave, the business about people coming here for medical care because of national health is insurance company crap. More Americans go to Canada and Mexico for prescriptions and surgery than foreigners coming here. But that really has no bearing one way or the other on how we can do better here. We can do better you know. We are not perfect. We are not the best. We are not so great we can never improve. We can do way better.
With single payer health insurance doctors could cut their administrative stall by 80%. Those paperwork costs would instead go to care giving. We want things better, not worse.
But you never commented on why not one single democratically elected government that has cradle to grave single payer health insurance has proposed scrapping it. The answer is they love it. They laugh at what we have. Love the competitive advantage and quality of life bonus national single payer gives them.
We are going to make things better in the U.S., you keep making it sound like we want to make things worse.
because nobody knows how to unring the bell.
“But you never commented on why not one single democratically elected government that has cradle to grave single payer health insurance has proposed scrapping it.”
Well, I’ll give an answer a try.
Bill, first of all, I think you should be up front and acknowledge you are no more a Republican than Arlen Spector was. You are a left wing utopian statist with a truly unshakeable, deeply held religious belief in the efficacy of the state as regards all matters dealing with the human condition. You don’t believe in freedom. You believe in state control–for the good of the people, of course.
Of course, governments wedded to universal health care don’t propose to dislodge it, for to do so would put the government out of business. Each bureaucrat who maintains and regulates the system would be out of a job.
Now, as for a democracy’s people voting out a universal health care system: The difficulty of dislodging socialism/communism, once established, has often been noted.
That difficulty arises from two main sources; First, governmental control of a nation’s economy, while often easily achieved, is extremely difficult to reverse. Even more germane is the second difficulty referred ot above, which difficulty arises from the establishment of the vast bureaucracy necessary to administer and regulate the personal and economic affairs of a nation’s citizens.
The vast horde of bureaucrats who are appointed to control every aspect of a populace’s health– especially when manufacturing and energy are also nationalized– create a paralyzing governmental construct, an apparatus that once in place is almost impossible to dislodge.
The result is that votes for change become almost meaningless, as officials who are “elected” represent merely changes of faces, not policy. The voter in a socialist/communisst state is inconsequential, as his/her personal choices are planned by the state, which has metastacized into the entire body politic. The statist bureaucracy grinds on and on.
The above is why universal health care, along with other statist programs is not voted out. The system runs he people; not the people the system.
In brief, the control reaches a proportion of such enormity it becomes tyrannous.
Therefore, asking socialist democracies to vote out universal health care, total control by government of manufacturing and energy is like asking the Russian people under Stalin to vote to repeal his 5 year plans. Once his vast governmental bureaucracy was in place and enforced, resistance was futile.
Only a revolution by the people would be able to dislodge it.
Best,
Fay Voshell
Fay, glad to see bloviating is a two way street.
Thank you for defining who is and who is not a Republican. I can assure you I am GOP. The moment I read about President Lincoln and the Homestead Act giving free land to everybody I said, count me in. I’m a good solid Republican.
I have a feeling that the Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly called “The Interstate System” would have scared the hell out of you. Similar your public health insurance phobia.
What with the hordes of government bureaucrats and subsidized overpaid government workers building huge highways North South East and West. All for the purpose of controlling the places we could go, the direction we travel. Old folks, like communist zombies, compelled to drive non-stop to Florida. Who gave the Government the power to say where we put roads? I feel your fear Fay. Sounds almost exactly like the fear Glen Beck is experiencing.
You mention communism, socialism, Russia, Stalin, 5 year plans all as an argument against Medicare? Is that your objection to a new non profit health insurance system for America? It’s communism? Freedom is not being able to afford health insurance? Freedom is old folks eating dog food with no money for prescriptions. We take care of people in America Fay. That’s why even our poorest live pretty good. That’s why we are a great Nation. We share. We are very very big on the Common Good.
One can never be too careful, but I hope you know Marxism is dead. You know. I know. Everybody knows it. Liberals know. Conservatives know it. Nobody wants a dead America filled with mindless subjects. This not some great discovery you just made here – like some people like communism and you don’t.
Back in the day, calling somebody a communist was fighting words. The last resort for the bankrupt mind was calling somebody a commie.
Were the Founders statists? After all they constructed this Government of which is the subject of your fear and loathing. E Pluribus Unum. From many one. It that a collectivist sentiment? Making one from many. The strength of unity. All the words about promoting the general welfare. Insuring happiness. Domestic tranquility. All the values that guide us presently.
Fay, you are the Utopian here. Thinking that 300 million people, moving around in cars and airplanes, communicating at the speed of light – that this kind of complex modern society can function without a massive publicly organized infrastructure.
What would your revolution look like Fay? Smashing down the doors of the SEC and FDA and throwing the hordes of bureaucrats out in the street. Grounding the government GPS satellite fleet. Power to the people. WTF?
Get real. Your assertion that all the democracies in the world except us have public health care because they are captive mindless subjects unable to escape the apparatus of the State is not a convincing argument. The real answer is simple. They are satisfied.