This is when you know reform is needed:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Economist praises the Swedish health care system over the American on issues of incentives.

Article linked here:

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13899647

Also....an image worth keeping in mind for defenders of the broken system:



Now, there's something wrong with this picture. See if you can tell me what it is.....

X-posted from my own LJ.

Comments

[weswilson]

Better than where? Do you have any independent research to back that up?

[merig00.livejournal.com]

ok.. since i'm too lazy to do independent research... let me rephrase it care in USA is top notch

[dwer.livejournal.com]

if you can afford it.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

yes as i've said before the cost is the problem

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Why do you hate capitalism? Those prices are dictated by the free market.

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

When medical care in USA was dictated by free market, most people were paying for it out of pocket.

Now legislature is dictating most of the cost of medical care.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

How is legislature dictating most of the cost of health care?

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

by doing what it does best - overlegislating

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

How is legislature dictating most of the cost of health care?

by doing what it does best - overlegislating

Okay, so legislature is overlegislating, which is very vague. Can you provide examples that are more specific or are you just repeating something you've been told?

Re: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

look up tort law and hipaa to start

Re: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

And? You're still not saying anything.

Re: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

Am I being paid to educate you on the US legislation?

[merig00.livejournal.com]

I blame my government for legislating in a way that the costs to the taxpayers have exploded without little real benefit to taxpayers.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Who legislated it? When was this done?

[weswilson]

Again... there is good care in the U.S. But even our citizens don't think we have great care.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136990,00.html

Every study I've found shows we have comparable care... not superior.

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

Kinda hard to compare two things when you have only experienced one.

[weswilson]

I have never experienced the distances between the sun and the moon, but I can adequately compare the distances from them. From my studies, I have seen how many people are happy with American health care, and I know how many people are happy with Canadian health care, and I can compare those numbers quite easily.

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

still it is not a real comparison whether one is better than the other

USSR citizens believed that their education and healthcare were unsurpassed up until late 80s.

[weswilson]

Then feel free to find any metric you desire by which to compare the first world health systems.

Here's a few:
http://www.openmedicine.ca/article/view/8/1

http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/2009/en/index.html

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/23/3/89

You'll find we never really outshine everyone in our health care. We have a comparable health system, where we pay several times as much for that comparable care.

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

The thing is that I've had it with all the metrics.

The view on healthcare should be comprehensive and should come from observation of large samples of real people over some period of time.

Back in 1987 in USSR I got my shots in school, during 1st grade Russian language class. All the students got lined up and marched to nurses' office. Everyone got the required shots (copies of med records were held in school) using multiple use steam sterilized syringes. Same way the medical care was for dental checkups (there was a dental office in school) and just regular checkups. This is how to achieve 100% immunization rate simply, cheaply and effectively. I was lucky, this region was rich, but not hospitable (like Alaska), so in order to keep the population anywhere close to being in working condition, the medical system was setup pretty well and upto the spec; in other areas it was a disaster everywhere except the reports.

[weswilson]

The view on healthcare should be comprehensive and should come from observation of large samples of real people over some period of time.

What do you think I've been presenting here? That is what a metric is... a way to measure. If you can't find a way to measure, then you can't say one system is any better or worse than another.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

What's telling is that we have "comparable" care using metrics that are not equal. Things like life expectancy (which is influenced by our homicide rate, a non-health indicator) or infant mortality (for which there is no international standard being used) knock us down quite a bit, yet we're still along the top by those same metrics that work against us.

[weswilson]

I have no problems looking for that information that discard the data incongruous with finding a good method of measurement.

But if we have no way to measure, then there is no way people can say our coverage is better. It's a double-edged sword.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, the thing is, there are objective results. People overhwelmingly like the care they get here, we have some of the best cancer survival rates around, and our innovation is unparalleled. What we lack in full coverage can be fixed without converting to the type of care that gives worse results in the rest of the areas.

[weswilson]

The only overwhelmingly part is how badly Americans rate their system compared to how other countries rate theirs.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136990,00.html

I don't think I ever argued that our cancer survival rates weren't high, but I did argue that while we are high in some areas, we are low in others. We have COMPARABLE care.

Do you have some source for the other metrics you present?