Breaking News
Oprah Quitting TV Show In 2011
Oliver Willis
Like Kryptonite To Stupid
-
-
Breaking News
- Tila Tequila Live Streaming Mental Meltdown
- 31 Die In Chinese Mine Blast In Heilongjiang Province, 82 Trapped
- Victoria Justice Stars In New Nickeloden Show “Victorious”
- CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Back Up And Running
- Megan Fox Alive For Transformers 3
- Maryna Linchuk @ 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show
- Madison Parker Works Out
- Sony Reveals Lame Attempt To Fight iTunes
- Brian Thomas: UK Man Gets Away With Killing Wife In His Sleep
- Olivia Wilde @ US Weekly Hot Hollywood 2009 Party
Live News
Glad you’re featuring this, O. Very effective!
Does anything in that video refute the simple fact that Michael Moore is fat? Huh? Anything? Well OK, then.
I assume that Republicans either don’t trust the WHO or don’t care what the country is ranked as a whole, since they’ve got healthcare for themselves, correct?
It’s nice enough propaganda, but it’s disconnected from reality. The reality is that the US currently has not only the best (if certainly one of the costliest) health care systems in the world, we also have the highest non-trauma life expectancy. In other words, if you take murder and auto accident deaths out of the picture – deaths which cannot be attributable to the “health care industry,” as raising the dead isn’t covered by *any* health care system – the average American life expectancy is 76.9 years… second place is Switzerland with 76.6. The UK comes in at 75.7.
See the stats here:
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=3507
What utter bullshit. If you take out murder and auto-accidents, any nation’s life expectancy goes up.
But here’s a question for you: How many medical bankruptcies have occured in American families over the past two decades? Tens of thousands. How many have occured in places like England, France, and Germany? Zero.
Wow, then the idiot you linked to tries to argue that the incredibly high infant mortality rate in the US has nothing to do with mothers not getting pre-natal treatment, but because so many of them are skinny teen-agers giving birth to underweight babies, so he takes them out of the mix as well.
In statistics, this is called “cherry picking.”
And the dude can’t spell either.
More info about the staggering rate of medical bankruptcies in the US, something that simply doesn’t exist in advanced, first-world nations like England, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, etc.:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/health-care-reform/2009/06/new_study_shows_medical_bills.html
Anyone else freaked out by the fact that the singer looks like Charles Krauthammer?
Actually, here in the UK, some people lose their houses after being in accidents and waiting for the insurance companies to pay out. There was a guy who lost an arm and a leg saving 30 other guys by cutting a cable on an oil rig they were building who had to wait 7 years for compensation.
Another woman was forced to concede in court that she was making a saving on shoes and tights due to her having lost her legs in an auto accident.
And you trust them to run health? Wow.
In America people go bankrupt even when they have insurance.
If a British person has to declare bankruptcy waiting for an accident insurance claim, that sucks. But at least they get treatment without having to sell his or her house, no questions asked.
If the Democrats get their way, we’ll be number #137
Frank DiSalle: If the Democrats get their way, we’ll be number #137
And you say that based on….?
Yeah, thought so.
What’s the matter? I didn’t answer fast enough for you? (20 minutes)
I was out getting that good ol’ free healthcare that costs $298 a month, plus co-pays for prescriptions.
It is based on the unadulterated , indisputable history of the Democratic Party’s ability to engage in any endeavor at a greater cost , and greater waste, and more superfluous employees, than any institution since the Pharoahs used Hebrews to build the pyramids.
Asked what you based your opinion on, and got more opinion and no examples.
Yeah, thought so.
>If you take out murder and auto-accidents, any nation’s life expectancy goes up.
If you could be bothered to read the data, that was factored in. The thing is, the US has a high rate of both murder and auto accidents, which drives down the life expectancy. This is incorrectly attributed to the health care industry.
“I was out getting that good ol’ free healthcare”
Frank, why are you such a Communist? A real American would refuse socialized health-care.
Oh, but I forgot — you’re a chickenshit and a hypocrite.
“If you could be bothered to read the data”
I couldn’t get past all the typos.
> How many medical bankruptcies have occured in American families over the past two decades?
Too many. This argues not for “universal health care,” but for lowering the cost of health care. Get rid of the bulk of the lawyers and the lawsuit lottos, for starters. Allow insurance plans to cross state lines. Encourage competition between doctors and hospitals. Don’t use state of the art expensive equipment for every problem. All kinds of things can be done here.
> the idiot you linked to tries to argue that the incredibly high infant mortality rate in the US has nothing to do with mothers not getting pre-natal treatment, but because so many of them are skinny teen-agers giving birth to underweight babies
And is he wrong?
Additionally: a stillborn baby in the US is counted as a Dead Baby, thus addign to the infant mortality rate. Is this true for all other nations? Nope:
http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=3848
“Switzerland, for instance, doesn’t count the deaths of babies shorter than 30 cm, because they are not counted as live births…”
If two nations do not share the same statistical methodology, then their statistics cannot be directly compared with any accuracy.
> I couldn’t get past all the typos.
Wow. So a typo can keep you mired in ignorance. Good to know.
If two nations do not share the same statistical methodology, then their statistics cannot be directly compared with any accuracy.
And, yet, he does.
People! Perspective, please!
The reason the WHO findings matter at all is because defenders of the current system keep boasting that we enjoy “the greatest health care in the world!!” We don’t. Compared with many nations, we’re fortunate. Compared with industrialized democracies, we fare less well. We’re the only country in this latter group that doesn’t systematically cover all citizens.
However, what’s hardest to explain about our current medical system is why we spend so much more per person than other countries without getting better results. We spend in the neighborhood of $7,200 per person per year on health care. That’s twice as much as countries like France and Canada and three times as much as Japan.
In short, we’re getting robbed.
> We’re the only country in this latter group that doesn’t systematically cover all citizens
And yet… we do. No matter how penniless you may be, there will be a county hospital that will treat your serious ills. It generally boils down to being at the local property taxpayers expense.
And any doctor would tell you that a major problem is that Americans don’t get routine health-care because they can’t pay out of pocket for check-ups or needed medication. So they go to the ER once they have a life-threatening situation, and if they don’t have insurance then the government basically pays for them anyways at taxpayer expense.
So it will be cheaper and we’ll have a healthier populace with the public option. And we’re going to get it.
And yet… we do. No matter how penniless you may be, there will be a county hospital that will treat your serious ills.
That’s great. If you don’t have insurance, just wait until your minor condition becomes serious, then you can see a doctor. Other industrialized countries don’t do it that way.
Are you saying this is the best we can and should do?
Also, ScoLow: You have nothing to say about the highway robbery underway?
Scott Lowther: And yet… we do. No matter how penniless you may be, there will be a county hospital that will treat your serious ills. It generally boils down to being at the local property taxpayers expense.
Ah, yes. The emergency room as primary care physician. Hardly an economical or healthy approach.
You’re completely overlooking the many people who, lacking health insurance, avoid going to the hospital until things are more dire – bad if what you’re striving for is a healthy citizenry. They put it off because, lacking insurance, they (and not the local property owners) are the ones on the hook for the massive expense.
They can’t pay (and potentially end up bankrupt) which does then up moving the cost to others, including the less quantifiable cost of adding them to the dole – bad economically.
Family medical coverage in the U.S. costs about $8,000 a year more than in Japan, Italy, Greece, or Spain. It costs about $6,000 a year more than in Canada, Great Britain, or France.
We’re being robbed.
Never mind that he argues by anecdote, bryan doesn’t seem to understand the difference between health insurance and disability insurance. I want to take all his recommendations about health care!
Scott, thank you for an intelligent post. Unfortunately, as others point out, you still seem not to recognize the significance of comparing incommensurate statistics, even thought you specifically recognize that has happened. For example, do you really think that having more driving, and therefor more car accidents, makes the US the more dangerous place?
I most appreciate your linking to, “… why U.S. infant mortality rates are higher – more low weight births… Teen mothers are much more likely to bear low birth weight babies and teen motherhood is almost three times higher in the U.S. than it is in Canada.” We can improve US healthcare dramatically by making birth control as available and respectable as Canada and Europe does.
The fact remains: when US citizens really need their health insurance, their insurance companies avoid paying. That is how insurance companies make their profits.
And that is not propaganda.
> The fact remains: when US citizens really need their health insurance, their insurance companies avoid paying. That is how insurance companies make their profits.
That is undoubtedly a problem. So here’s a suggestion:
Since the Obama plan, if enacted, will inevitably lead to the end of private health insurance, why not skip a step, and simply ban health insurance? If you break a leg or catch a disease, you write a check to the doctor. In order for this to have a chance of working, we will also have to enact tort reform. I like the British “loser pays” system, but I’d add a twist: “losing *lawyer* pays.” Take the profit motive out of filign frivolous lawsuits, and they’ll pretty much dry up. Once that happens, malpractice insurance dries up, as does the drive to do innumerable expensive and pointless tests in the hopes of avoiding a lawsuit.
>do you really think that having more driving, and therefor more car accidents, makes the US the more dangerous place?
To a certin limit of the definition of “dangerous.” I’ll take American danger over time-averaged European danger. The statistical risk of car accidents and crime in the US weighed agaisn the statistical risk of car accidents, crime and genocide in Europe looks pretty good.
> The emergency room as primary care physician. Hardly an economical or healthy approach
OK. So why are ER’s so expensive? Rather than coming up witha massive government bureaucracry to pay for somethign that’s needlessly expensive, why not reduce the cost to a practical level, and eliminate the need for the massive government bureaucracy?
> If you don’t have insurance, just wait until your minor condition becomes serious, then you can see a doctor. Other industrialized countries don’t do it that way.
They also don’t live as long as we do.
Asked what you based your opinion on…. got more opinion.. no examples..