Yes but your argument was not supported by your evidence. I explained why in my previous posts. None of those metrics actually give us information as to whether or not European Healthcare is better than American Healthcare. They rely too much on cost and perceived happiness of its participants. My argument is that we can't know for sure by my observations and personal experience lead me to believe that healthcare in the US is superior to anywhere else.
It's a long post to respond point by point, but there is more here to agree with than disagree with. Two points that seem obvious, however is... 1-- The current system that has the bottom line for the medical and insurance industries as its capstone is unsustainable. It had to be changed. 2-- The ACA is not set in stone. We can modify it as we go and keep what works, drop what doesn't and modify what is working poorly. But that is going to take politicians that are far less partisan and willing to make compromised for the sake of the nation.
That is your opinion. Others disagree. I can find more evidence if needed. You can't ignore costs in medical care or any other business. COst-effectiveness is essential to an affordable health care system. They key is affordability. We can't just double the costs of a procedure when it only provides a 2% improvement. Yet we do. We can't just let the pharmaceutical industry hose us down with frightfully expensive drugs that the rest of the world pays pennies for. It's not buying us better health. Americans gold-plate their medical care. We have a huge number of unnecessary operations and unnecessary prescriptions. We replace medical equipment that is not obsolete. We have WAY too many people involved in administrative, clerical and "front-end" jobs in clinics. This does not make up for shortages of doctors and nurses. Dude, all you are saying is that you trust your personal feelings and we should trust you. Sorry. America is only superior in cancer care.
You're confusing healthcare with healthcare system. Affordability, access, etc is a factor in our healthcare system and it's not the best in the world. Tough to argue that. But our healthcare is a different story. I don't think there's any place in the world that gives better care. Ignore price, access etc. No, read again. Actually I said it would be tough to see if our healthcare is better or worse. How do you gauge that. You can't go off of life expectancy etc because there are a ton of other factors especially across different nations.
I don't necessarily disagree with this assessment, Mancha. I too believe that there are a good many liberals who still pine for a single payer system. I just don't think Obama is one of them......anymore. Once upon he time he was but now that he owns this legislation, I think he's quite taken with it as an accomplishment of his. I still say that if the Republicans would offer a clear, comprehensive alternative that covered many of the popular aspects of the ACA (like pre-existing conditions, reaching the end of benefits, etc.) they would stand a far better chance of convincing the American people, rather than only talking about abolishing Obamacare without an alternative. All of this said, personally I think they will get the web site fixed and enrollment will go up, probably closer to the deadline, and this will be popular legislation once fully implemented. Yes, there are parts that will require revision as we go along but all in all I think this will turn out to be good law.
I'd like to see your evidence that the wait time for Emergency care in Sweden in 3 days. I have a good friend who lives there, he was a foreign exchange student when I was in high school, and he raves about their health care system. I haven't talked to him in a few months but, in fact, the last time we spoke I quizzed him about their health care system and he was sort of put out that I couldn't believe their system works so well. I asked him how long he waited to see a doctor when he got sick and he just snickered and asked me what I meant. I clarified for him, asked him how long do you wait in the waiting room when you go to the doctor? His answer was priceless; he said, "well, if you get their 20 minutes before your appointment, you are going to have to wait 20 minutes." So I further prodded him, thinking surely he sat in the room where the doctor would see him for several minutes. "No, if my appointment is at 2 p.m., I usually see the doctor by 2:05. The nurse only needs to weigh and measure me, take my temp and check my blood pressure. Many times the doctor is in the room before she is done." Now, I was paraphrasing most of the way there even though I put it in quotes. I am sure there are examples around the world where the single payer system doesn't work but I don't think Sweden is one of them. Did you mean somewhere else?
America is only superior in cancer care. This one is starting to take a hit. Talking with a cancer Dr. yesterday, he was telling me about under the new plan, one cancer procedure is going from once a year to three times in a lifetime.
This is good stuff, Winston, and I agree with just about everything here. I guess what has been most puzzling to me about this debate isn't that the Republicans put up a vicious fight even after the legislation was passed because that's just politics, it's that they still haven't set aside the politics and started making constructive recommendations about changes they feel need to be made to the law. Obamacare isn't perfect and if you find someone who says it is, well, even I will slap some sense into them. But we can start debating changes to the law as we see it's affects, good or bad.
One thing that must be acknowledged is that many of the features people are attracted to and by such as covering pre-existing conditions, no limit on treatment and spreading coverage to the poor uninsured will have a significant cost impact and will need to be accounted for. This is the case no matter what the system. It is vitally important that any adjustments made realize this. As I've said I don't see where the present AHCA does and that is backed up by many economists. We can't whistle by the graveyard as we did with Medicare part D (thank you W) or the AHCA (thank you Barry & Nancy). If we find savings or taxes to pay for it they must be real savings and equitable taxes.
Google search for Sweeden Healthcare wait times. Emergency care must be administered within three days per their law, and historically compliance has been abysmal. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aRXJhrzR9yzc http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/...book/health_glance-2011-en&mimeType=text/html not on waiting times but consider this food for thought. “
