Re: Best comment from Judge Vinson's decision

Carbon <nobrac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 

About that $100: I went to emergency once. I had a piece of some crappy
frozen dinner lodged in my esophagus. After a couple of hours gagging
into the sink at work (I'm stubborn) I resigned myself to the idea that
someone might have to go down after it with a scope. Right after
speaking to the doctor but before anything was done the obstruction
magically cleared. My cost for having a doctor lean on the doorjam for
one (1) minute and ask how I was doing? $539. What this would have cost
anywhere else in the first world: $0.

You didn't pay the doctor for what he did. You never do. You paid him
for what he knows, for the years of experience and training.


US residents pay more per capita for healthcare than any other people on
the planet. Wouldn't the cost of US healthcare be less stratospherically
expensive if it were more efficient?

(2b: Does more money get you better health care?)

Again. Cost no object healthcare is definitely better. I have never
suggested otherwise.

I used the Canadian rate because I know it. But in fact every other
country in the first world pays pay less per capita for healthcare and
all have better average life expectancy rates.

I believe these stats are significant. Per capita healthcare costs as a
percentage of GDP, in which the US system is the most expensive in the
world, and the ALE, in which the US is the worst in the first world.
What the ALE really speaks to is, among other things, the quality of
care that the poor get. Ok, no one cares about the poor. I get it. But
as you yourself have argued, they still by and large do get care.
However the way it is delivered to them is freakishly expensive.

To reiterate (again): I'm not claiming that any universal healthcare
systems are objectively better than the cost no object US system. The US
system is obviously the best if you can afford it. However, only a
percentage of the population gets such care. The poor get crappy care,
which drives up the costs for those like you and me who get stuck
paying for their trips to the emergency ward and all the rest of it.

The US system too expensive for what it delivers.
.

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