TheAtomicBomb
FreeHealthcre
Russia'sDaddy
USA FUCK YEAH

"BEST HEALTHCARE IN THE WORLD after 35 other much poorer nations, one of which is Cuba."

Michael Bay
Jerry Brucheimer
google
West Virginia
O.J.
FEMA
Adam Smith
Lake Minatonka
Detroit

lol if you truly think our healthcare is worse than cuba's. not that ive read whatever study you are referring to, but id be interested to see what their statistical metrics are.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=world+healthcare+rankings


It's hard to believe I know.

Oh and I guess I was wrong, we're now 37th and Cuba is 39th. So we've surpassed a poverty stricken third world nation.

Look, I don't want to rehash a bunch of political talking points so I'm going to direct you to a few places to get informed Monte:

This explains the metrics of the WHO's ranking of healthcare systems: http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=2610

And here's the ranking on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO%27s_ranking_of_health_care_systems

As you can see we spend the most money per capita yet reap a very in efficient healthcare system for what we pay. France on the other hand is 4th in per capita spending but reaps the most efficient healthcare system. They have what is known as universal healthcare.

Canada is 10th in per capita spending and comes in with the 30th best national healthcare. England is probably one of the most efficient nations with the 26th per capita spending and the 18th best healthcare.



The knee-jerk talking point I would expect someone to throw at me next would be that the United States has the best specialist in the world or something of that nature. And I would agree that, by virtue of the fact that we have the best schools in the world, we have many of the best doctors in the world too. But you don't measure a healthcare system by the care of its best doctors and the treatment of its wealthiest patients. You measure it by the care of all of its doctors and the treatment of all of its patients.

yah, thats our main difference. im thinking from a personal point-of-view, which is upper middle class, instead of a universal point-of-view.

im too lazy to research outside of reading your cliff notes of wikipedia/WHO/etc. but thanks or the info.

however, i wonder if making universal healthcare in america would increase its efficiency at all. i also wonder how much our current law system affects costs (i.e. i dont give a fuck if youre trying to save my life, if you screw up even the slightest bit, i will sue for millions). thats my biggest pet peeve against our system. my grandfather once had open heart surgery, triple byass. docs told him everything went well. about 5 years later he started getting all spacy, and everyone (family and docs) attributed it to just getting old/senile. after a few more years of spaciness and constant oxygen breathing, they did a minor surgery on something in his chest area, and the doc noticed that his diaphragm had been sliced/damaged ever since the triple bypass, when apparently the doc accidentally sliced it, and didnt notice. zomg, potential zillion dollar lawsuit, right? nope, my grandparents decided that the original doctor had no mal-intent, and on the other hand were still thankful for the bypass surgery, since it extended his life. and they were thankful that the diaphragm was repaired several years later, and the spaciness disappeared too.

fucking greedy americans nowadays just want to sue for any slip-up instead of being appreciative for how much good the doctors are doing.

meh.

Yup, unfortunately that difference of perspective is lost on a lot of the Americans that write our laws and govern out nation. It's actually pretty ironic because most congressmen have government run healthcare and the controversial healthcare bill back in 2009 was actually going to give the rest of the country the same government options that all our statesmen have. Looking back on it it seems kind of elitist to not afford the rest of us these options. Oh and the reason government healthcare is cheaper in many respects than private healthcare is because it's bought in bulk, for all government employees.


"however, i wonder if making universal healthcare in america would increase its efficiency at all."
Well I don't know about making doctors and nurses better practitioners but it would definitely cut down costs by virtue of the fact that we would cut out the middleman (insurance companies) and therefore there wouldn't be anyone skimming profit off the top. Something a lot of Americans don't understand is that by the law of averages health insurance is actually a big moneysink for the health industry (something like billions of dollars in revenue for these companies). Oh and the biggest part of our budget is made up of medicare and medicaid which goes entirely to insurance companies. Pretty crazy how much of our money goes through them every year huh?



"i also wonder how much our current law system affects costs (i.e. i dont give a fuck if youre trying to save my life, if you screw up even the slightest bit, i will sue for millions)." Oh man I definitely agree with you here. Your grandfather sounds like a stand-up guy and I think the whole country would be better off if people were more like him. As far as a solution to this issue, I'd probably take a look at what other countries have in place, I mean... the way I see it if another country is doing something better than us it's probably prudent to understand how they do it. I wouldn't say I don't think patients should be entitled to compensation for malpractice but at the same time I think there should be some kind of moderation in these cases, on both sides. I certainly don't think a hospital should lose millions and millions over an innocent mistake. At the same time I understand how even a large sum of money isn't adequate compensation.

Anyway I hope I conveyed my point of view on this matter well. And sorry to trendz for hijacking your thread.

http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=2610

Another big problem with this country and the healthcare system is my usual gripe with America. We have a lot of lazy ass stupid motherfuckers here.

The above article faults a lot of things, but one thing it faults is the number of preventable deaths caused by concious choices made by Americans. Smoking, drugs, alcohol, obesity, etc., etc...

We have a lot of fat people and smokers in this country that do very little to help themselves. These people cause major health problems later in life, cost our healthcare system trillions, and lower the life expectancy of the whole country.