any american who expects any third party — whether it’s an insurance bureaucrat or a government bureaucrat — to pick up the tab for each and every one of his or her healthcare expenditures, has no business complaining when the bureaucrats ration medical services to hold down costs.

paying a monthly premium and a co-pay does not entitle any of us to gorge ourselves at an all-you-can-eat healthcare buffet.

what could be a better starting point for a discussion?”

That IS where the discussion should start.

There is virtually NO transparency on price, quality and other measures of evaluation today. Much of the distortion is the direct result of government interference in health care markets.

The pursuit of consumer directed health care principles would be a place to begin. For example, health savings accounts (HSA) are needed. HSAs would allow people to save for future health care expenditures as they get older (when most health care dollars are consumed). Portability would also address most prior condition issues.

Unfortunately, we are not having an honest discussion about providing health care at affordable prices to as many people as possible (remember, many people who could get insurance refuse to purchase it).

Instead, we are discussing whether or not to give the government the power to make life and death decisions for us and distributing the cost in an inequitable manner across the citizenry. Rationing will be the order of everything. Once a bureaucrat makes the decision that from a cost-benefit perspective (i.e. cost to the government) you are no longer “productive” enough, then you will be “rationed” away.

Why do you think the Canadians and Brits come here for treatment? Because they would die waiting at home.

It’s your life. Why would you give the government this power over you?

The Gernam concentration camp brothels
More on the EPA quashing their own climate skeptical report
White House: "not ruling out" middle class tax hike"
From Mankiw in the NYT, who says the gummint could make it’s own public option in…

after all, this is a libertarian-dominated site isn’t it?

i’d like to hear someone debunk the old fee-for-service model as a completely free-market approach to healthcare.

i get sick. i visit a doctor. s/he treats me. i pay for the treatment.

what could be a better starting point for a discussion?

I guess that’s why the Saudi Crown Prince comes to the US for his health care?

http://www.javno.com/en-world/saudi-crown-prince-heads-for-us-medical-checks_206767

Sam/Someone why not stick to golf?

A brief synopsis is that the numbers cited above, although widely accepted and repeated, were merely projections for 2005. Upon viewing actual results from 2005 it emerged that the U.K. was near the bottom of the list, lagging behind even the underdeveloped portions of Europe. The U.S. had far better survival rates than Europe as a whole lagging behind only Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The researchers theorized that because people of Nordic descent have significantly lower incidents of cancer in the U.S. that genetic predispositions could be at play.

Obviously the results of a research study into one disease is far from adequate to recommend one course of action over another. It seems instructive in this case to at least acknowledge that there is some nuance to the way statistics are used, and sometimes misused.

The OECD Health Data from 2004 lists:
United States: 321.9 deaths per 100,000 peopl
Australia: 298.9 deaths per 100,000 peopl
Norway: 289.4 deaths per 100,000 peopl
France: 286.1 deaths per 100,000 peopl
Austria: 280 deaths per 100,000 peopl
Sweden: 268.2 deaths per 100,000 peopl
Finland: 255.4 deaths per 100,000 peopl
United Kingdom: 253.5 deaths per 100,000 peopl

View it here: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_dea_fro_can-health-death-from-cancer

see: EUROCARE-4 studies bring new data on cancer survival
Mike Richards
The Lancet Oncology,
Vol. 8 No. 9 pp 752-753

Protip:

If you insist on making things up choose something that can’t be easily checked.

In fact the ONLY country lower than the US that does NOT have Universal Healthcare is Australia and they have a much more liberal system than the US yet still (*which isn’t saying much).

Seems like I am able to point out holes with the US system using facts and figures but all people have against Universal Healthcare Systems are vague anecdotes.

For example “I hear everyone in Europe complain about Universal Healthcare!” Well no kidding, I hear everyone in the US complain about schools, taxes, public transport, local services, the US postal service, road works, etc, it is just natural to bitch about stuff that is “free.”

Are there waiting lists? Sure. But that is true in the US too since specialists, equipment, and time is finite.

Cancer deaths are twice as high in Europe that in the US. Mostly because of a lack of specialists due to government rationing. As stated above, the barriers to entry are the biggest problem we have in the US when it comes to health care. Hospitals have to get certificates of need, there is a limit to the number of med schools we can have in the US. The FDA constantly slows down the process to get new drugs to market. These are the issues that are plaguing us, not insurance companies.

p.s. great post Mikel in #45; I couldn’t agree more.

-Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin (Canadian Supreme Court)

I’m not sure what your odd remarks about Muslims has to do with a discussion about health care so I’m just going to mark that entire paragraph as ignorant racial slurs and move on.

The Doctor’s who move to the US do so because the money is better in the US. The US as I said pays the most for their healthcare in the world but yet supply some of the worst.

By your logic we should make schools private and require everyone buys “School Cover” from a third party, which they can then redeem at any local pay-for school of their choice.

The entire US system has a basis in greed and is designed to let the poor literally die.

people don’t talk about how the liberal welfare system is bringing Europe down. poor muslims are taking over inner cities and, since they don’t have to work, they have lots of free time to force their narrow views on the rest of the citizens.

the beauty of not being as much of a welfare state- when immigrants come to america, they’re expected to work. they don’t have as much time to be assholes because they’re too busy taking care of their families and being productive.

this is anecdotal, I know, but doctors working around here after starting in England say we’re in for a cluster…

Poor people don’t die because they can’t afford the $5000 for the ambulance to hospital, the $500 bandage, or the $10,000 x-ray.

In terms of quality of health, the US is very low, and the countries with universal healthcare are significantly higher. That despite Americans paying significantly more than almost anyone else.