Nationalized Healthcare? Not In My Back Yard!

[Masquerouge]

Im guessing we arent talking about the style of the late-baroque archetect?

That's what the mandatory internet search provided, but if it's indeed him that we're referring to, then I fully and proudly acknowledge my total adhesion to all of his baroque values.

 

[Volum]

Thats not what I said now is it? I asked you a question. So? Why are ******** people my responsibility and not that of the ******** persons family. Why should I pay for some one who will never put in a fraction of what they take out? Why should I carry that burden?

Because its the Jesus way!

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

I think the biggest problem with US health care is its too focused on sick care rather than preventative care. That's why if your sick, the best place to be to get treated is in the US and why a lot of people make a long journey hear to get treated. However, since not as much effort and money is spent on preventing these medical problems we have the burden of the higher cost of fixing the problem.

 

[Masquerouge]

I think the biggest problem with US health care is its too focused on sick care rather than preventative care. That's why if your sick, the best place to be to get treated is in the US and why a lot of people make a long journey hear to get treated. However, since not as much effort and money is spent on preventing these medical problems we have the burden of the higher cost of fixing the problem.

Just one correction: if you're sick AND rich, the best place to get treated might be the US.

Because if you're not rich, there are a lot of places to go - even for Americans:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/story?id=2320839&page=1

More and more Americans are looking across the border and overseas to get their medicine. Jeff Schult, author of "Beauty from Afar," a guide to medical tourism, estimates that more than 100,000 Americans a year travel beyond the boarder for cosmetic procedures alone.
In 2005, for example, Bumrungrad Hospital in Thailand served more than 50,000 American patients, a 30 percent increase from the previous year. Thailand is just one of the countries where foreign patients have flocked. India, Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico all market themselves as medical destinations, according to Schult.

Granted, that's mostly for cosmetic surgery... but read this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism

it's rather interesting. Will healthcare soon be outsourced just like IT did?

 

[mdwh]

Health costs associated with things like smoking are paid for by the smokers via taxes anyway.

I've got a good job, seem generally healthy, but am in favour of national healthcare (I'm in the UK). Why? Because it means less worry about footing a massive bill if I should be unfortunate to suffer illness or injury. Private insurance only helps to a degree - there is still the problem of pre-existing conditions (so you get whacked with massive insurance bills in future forever through no fault of your own) and discrimination (charging people where there is a clear causation, e.g., smoking, may be reasonable, but it's less clear that people who fit into some profile or group should be charged more based on the average health of others in their group, even if they themselves have a healthy lifestyle).

Another point is that illness affects everyone - things such as diseases which spread, and an unproductive workforce. Giving people healthcare benefits even those who already have it.

 

[Whomp]

I think I see yet another chance for America to innovate. It used to be our knack to take something an improve on it.

Why not take the best that national health care has to offer (routine care) and the best the private sector can do and merge them? The answer does not have to be all of one or all of the other.

Additionally, I think that in this debate that many corporations in the US would favor some kind of nationalized system because hashing out medical care as a benefit and its costs is a massive headache exercise.

Man, that sounds so pragmatic that it's almost too smart.

I think the biggest problem with US health care is its too focused on sick care rather than preventative care. That's why if your sick, the best place to be to get treated is in the US and why a lot of people make a long journey hear to get treated. However, since not as much effort and money is spent on preventing these medical problems we have the burden of the higher cost of fixing the problem.

Spot on. Emergency care is not the answer to preventing outcomes.

I think we should all agree that a national system is not going to happen in the US. A state run system which blends well with our current system (possibly Massachsetts system?) makes sense. I think it took the state of California, not the federal government, to make a law that a right turn on red makes sense.

To John's comment on obesity I think that's easily addressed by requiring PE instead of taking it away from school's that don't meet "no child left behind" requirements. Is it any wonder 1/3 of inner city kids are obese? Tack on the removal of food programs and what you have is kids eating junk food.

There's also a bit of a cultural issue at hand here too. The most popular girl in my gal's 7th grade class (inner city) weighs 300 pounds. The school she's moving to in the burbs is quite the opposite where that child would be ostercized and after school programs are promoted.

Something that doesn't get discussed nearly enough in some of the European systems, in particular, is the future cost of health care considering the negative population trends (more older people = 4x the health needs versus a shrinking working population)

 

[Masquerouge]

Something that doesn't get discussed nearly enough in some of the European systems, in particular, is the future cost of health care considering the negative population trends (more older people = 4x the health needs versus the working population)

Of course it is!

We're
a. letting our elderly without the A/C on during summer - less elderly! Win!
b. letting in migrants for Muslim countries free so that they can have big families and pay for the remaining elderlies' care! Win!



More seriously, you're completely right. Pensions and health care are the biggest challenges facing the slow-growing Western nations.

 

[JohnRM]

I'm hurt John! I don't even get named?

I didn't want to call you out like that, bro. You know who you are.

 

[Whomp]

Of course it is!

We're
a. letting our elderly without the A/C on during summer - less elderly! Win!
b. letting in migrants for Muslim countries free so that they can have big families and pay for the remaining elderlies' care! Win!



More seriously, you're completely right. Pensions and health care are the biggest challenges facing the slow-growing Western nations.

Funny you should mention that. France seems to be doing pretty well in this category, led by the Muslim population, according to The Economist this week.I posted a couple articles in this thread.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5753276&postcount=31

Here's what it said about France.

Spoiler :

France is leading the way.
Last July the French statistical office announced new population projections. France's population, it said, would grow by 9m from 2005 to 2050, when it would level off at 70m. At that point, assuming Germany's population continues to fall, France would become the most populous country in western Europe.
If that occurred, it would mark an historic recovery. France was the largest country in Europe up to the time of Napoleon, when it contained about a fifth of all Europeans and was the world's third-most-populous nation. The forecast growth would therefore negate 200 years of French paranoia about its more numerous eastern neighbour. Since European integration has been spurred, on the French side, by this fear, France's demographic recovery could have profound political implications for Europe.
France is one of three EU countries with a fertility rate above the magic replacement level (Denmark and Ireland are the others). It is natural to assume that this is because France also has many Muslim immigrants and Muslims have large families. Because France does not collect official statistics by religion, it is hard to know whether that assumption is accurate. But the country does register the birthplace of parents, so that one can calculate the family size of immigrants; and on the face of it, a study by Laurent Toulemon of the Institut national d'études démographiques appears to confirm the assumption. He found that immigrant women do indeed have high fertility: 2.5 compared with 1.65 for French-born women. But because immigrants make up only one-twelfth of women of childbearing age, this raises the national fertility rate only slightly.
However, Mr Toulemon also found that immigrants have a peculiar demographic profile: they are much more likely to have a baby during the first year or two after arriving in France than later. Young women, it seems, are waiting to conceive until they get to France. If you adjust their lifetime fertility rate to take account of this bulge of babies on arrival, you find immigrant fertility is about 2.2, not much above average. Immigrants are not pushing up the birth rate as much as they seem to be.
It is still possible that second- and third-generation Muslims (ie, those born in France) account for a disproportionate share of the country's high fertility. It is also possible that even if immigrants in France are not responsible for a higher birth rate, they are in other countries (Britain recently reported that 21.9% of births in 2005 were to mothers born outside Britain, compared with just 12.8% in 1996). Still, the evidence for all this is patchy; and it does not suggest that immigrants are responsible for a particularly large part of the overall fertility rise, in France at least.

 

[Masquerouge]

Funny you should mention that. France seems to being pretty well in this category ,led by the Muslim population, according to The Economist this week.I posted a couple articles in this thread.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5753276&postcount=31

Here's what it said about France.

Spoiler :

France is leading the way.
Last July the French statistical office announced new population projections. France's population, it said, would grow by 9m from 2005 to 2050, when it would level off at 70m. At that point, assuming Germany's population continues to fall, France would become the most populous country in western Europe.
If that occurred, it would mark an historic recovery. France was the largest country in Europe up to the time of Napoleon, when it contained about a fifth of all Europeans and was the world's third-most-populous nation. The forecast growth would therefore negate 200 years of French paranoia about its more numerous eastern neighbour. Since European integration has been spurred, on the French side, by this fear, France's demographic recovery could have profound political implications for Europe.
France is one of three EU countries with a fertility rate above the magic replacement level (Denmark and Ireland are the others). It is natural to assume that this is because France also has many Muslim immigrants and Muslims have large families. Because France does not collect official statistics by religion, it is hard to know whether that assumption is accurate. But the country does register the birthplace of parents, so that one can calculate the family size of immigrants; and on the face of it, a study by Laurent Toulemon of the Institut national d'études démographiques appears to confirm the assumption. He found that immigrant women do indeed have high fertility: 2.5 compared with 1.65 for French-born women. But because immigrants make up only one-twelfth of women of childbearing age, this raises the national fertility rate only slightly.
However, Mr Toulemon also found that immigrants have a peculiar demographic profile: they are much more likely to have a baby during the first year or two after arriving in France than later. Young women, it seems, are waiting to conceive until they get to France. If you adjust their lifetime fertility rate to take account of this bulge of babies on arrival, you find immigrant fertility is about 2.2, not much above average. Immigrants are not pushing up the birth rate as much as they seem to be.
It is still possible that second- and third-generation Muslims (ie, those born in France) account for a disproportionate share of the country's high fertility. It is also possible that even if immigrants in France are not responsible for a higher birth rate, they are in other countries (Britain recently reported that 21.9% of births in 2005 were to mothers born outside Britain, compared with just 12.8% in 1996). Still, the evidence for all this is patchy; and it does not suggest that immigrants are responsible for a particularly large part of the overall fertility rise, in France at least.

Once again, the Economist knows what it's talking about

 

[JohnRM]

Of course, none of this addresses my original point, but then again, I know that this is the intention of the pro-nationalized healthcare camp.

 

[GinandTonic]

Of course, none of this addresses my original point, but then again, I know that this is the intention of the pro-nationalized healthcare camp.

Your questions have been answered. You have, as many posers have noted, failed to answer masque's cross.

In your own time old boy. We'll just amuse ourselves untill you do...

 

[El_Machinae]

Costing less for who, Masquerouge? Does the government spend more per capita in the USA, or are you including monies spent by private citizens directly in that as well?

I might be too late to contribute, but I can contribute quickly.

If we compare Canada, UK, and the USA we can compare two systems that are nationalised and one that is not.

Some quick things to note (all of what I say below is per capita). You already know that Canada and UK gov't pick up a larger % of the bill.

Canada/UK spend less of their GDP, than the US, on health care (totalled gov't + out of pocket).
Canada/UK gov't pays less than the US gov't
Canada/UK citizens pay less out of pocket than US citizen
Canada/UK gov't puts less of its total revenues (%) to health care than US.
Canada/UK has higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality.
http://www.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_select_process.cfm?countries=all&indicators=nha
Edit: There, fixed the link

You'll really want to check out the link

US gov't pays: $2724.7 USD per person.
UK gov't pays: $2501.8 USD per person
Cdn gov't pays: $2120.9 USD per person.

In fact, the total per capita spent in Canada is only slightly more than what the US gov't pays per capita.

However, the best-spent health-care dollars are R&D and preventative. Our enormous savings are due to preventative savings as well as much higher efficiencies in bureaucracy. Our doctors don't have to hire insurance specialists in order to nagivate the systems of getting permission to treat a patient.

 

[GinandTonic]

El Mach you are saying that the NHS costs less than Medicaid?

 

[Zardnaar]

What makes me laugh is that people try and prove America has a bad health care system. It may not be the best but its still one of the best, just different to what we're used to.

Just another Europe vs America thread move along.

 

[El_Machinae]

In my link above, I found it easiest to compare between US and UK, because of ease-of-scrolling.

You are talking about a difference in life expectancy of a matter of a few years, which can be explained by any number of things. Think about the Chinese being better at Math or those people in Italy never getting heart disease. At very least there is no conclusive link between the type of medical system and life expectancy. Otherwise, why don't Cubans live forever?

There is a correlation between life expectancy and health care: there's got to be, right? And the difference (in the graph you quoted and I'm replying to) between Canada and the US life expectancies is roughly what you'd find if half of Canadian were magically immune to cancer.

Not to mention that you have a much higher chance of survival with cancer or other diseases, in America, than in Europe.

Over half of all deaths are due to cancer or heart disease. If Americans had better chances vs. those factors, they'd have a higher life expectancy.

 

[GinandTonic]

If the NHS costs less than US Gov medical spending how come the NHS is the worlds 4th largest employer, after the US and Chinese militaries and Wallmart?

 

[plarq]

Nationalized Healthcare? How much? From cradle to grave, or from a clinic to a hospital?

My take: 1)Social Darwinism doesn't apply: diseases and ill life style are infectious. If your neighborhood is filled with tuberculosis, pneumonia and smoking people, it certainly increase the risk of lung disease. That is, sanitation and medicine is a social engineering, not a private thing such as a house or a sports car.
2)A high profit medical system decrease the intention of disease prevention. (Why kill the goose that lays golden egg?)A non-profit medical system decrease the level of medicine research and employment. It's almost a catch-22 to set up a "appropriate" level of profit of medical system.

 

[El_Machinae]

I can't believe anyone is seriously considering nationalized healthcare in the United States. First of all, the United States can't even handle the present entitlement systems. The government severely mismanages money and is 9 trillion dollars in debt and is running a ~0.4 trillion dollar deficit. And people want the government to handle even MORE of our money and an amount that would dwarf present entitlement spending?

This is the main problem. The US government seems entirely too incompetant and corrupt (endemically, as a system) to be able to handle the change. Canada adopted the change to a nationalised system in ~60s, and it was apparently decently tough. Although the health care field was a lot younger at the time and more malleable.

However, the pains were worth it, considering our massive savings.

 

[El_Machinae]

El Mach you are saying that the NHS costs less than Medicaid?

http://www.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_select_process.cfm?countries=all&indicators=nha

The link was broken above, here it is again, plus I editted up there.

I'm not too sure what you're asking, but I'll try to answer. All figures are per capita:

US gov't: $2724.7 USD (18.9% of total gov't budgets)
UK gov't: $2501.8 USD (15.9% of total gov't budgets)

Head-to-head, more tax dollars are spent on health in the US vs. UK. If Americans could magically get their gov't to spend as much as the UK gov't, each American could get a cheque for $224 every year.