Re: OT: Who you gonna vote for now?

Eagle wrote:
On Oct 1, 5:56 pm, Stephen Farrow <stephen.far...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Eagle wrote:
"Better care" according to what standard?
People live longer.

Unless you have cancer. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6955545.stm
And life expectancy, overall, is longer in the UK than in the USA (and
the UK consists of more than just England).

There are many factors that contribute to the difference (differing
populations with differing genetic makeups, for one), and I challenge
you to provide evidence that the difference is clearly the result of
government vs. private healthcare.

In other words, you're unwilling to countenance any argument that challenges your carefully-held world view.


Yes. No system is perfect, but generally people are happy with the
standard of care they receive. I've certainly no cause to complain about
any treatment *I've* ever received in either the UK or Canada.

I've no doubt there are many who are satisfied with their care in the
UK and Canada, just as there are many satisfied with private
healthcare in America. Anecdotal evidence either way is only of
limited value. But if you insist on anecdotal evidence, then one can
point to many horror stories about government run healthcare as well.
And many Canadians (who can afford it) reportedly come to the U.S. for
treatment. Even Canadian MP Belinda Stronach herself traveled to
California for *her* cancer treatment (see
http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/10/the_rich_and_famous_guide_to_c.php),
which raises eyebrows, since as I understand it, she has been a vocal
opponent of a two-tier system, which makes her seem awfully
hypocritical, and doesn't bolster my confidence in government run
healthcare.

Well, Belinda Stronach is widely known to be, let's say, something of a hypocrite, so I wouldn't put much store in anything she has to say on any subject.


In Canada?
Yes.

See above.

I certainly don't know a single Canadian who would be prepared, even for
a second, to trade the healthcare system in Ontario (healthcare in
Canada is organised on a provincial basis) with what's in place south of
the border.

I don't know why you're specifically saying Ontario now (might it be
different situation in another province?),


I specifically said Ontario because healthcare in Canada is organised on a provincial rather than a federal basis, and Ontario's is the system that I've used myself.

but *Canadian* MP Belinda
Stronach came to the U.S. for treatment. And it's not at all
uncommon. Note all the Canadians in the comments section of this
article about Stronach (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/
CTVNews/20070914/belinda_Stronach_070914/20070914?hub=TopStories)
complaining about the Canadian healthcare system. And yes, I know
it's just a movie, but there was even a very good film a number of
years ago called "The Barbarian Invasions" about the problems of
Canada's healthcare system (where the capitalist son provides the
socialist father with a humane end to his life). See
http://www.amazon.com/Barbarian-Invasions-Barbares/dp/B0001XAPWE

So? No system is perfect. If you look for faults, you'll find them.


2. Private expenditure on healthcare is *much* lower in the UK than in
the USA.
If most of the US population wasn't so used to getting their
healthcare through their employer (note that this situation came about
because of a freeze on wages during the World War II, not because the
government thought it best to have employers provide health
insurance), and if the tax incentives for employer-provided health
insurance were removed, and if state mandates for health insurance
were removed, and if the free market were allowed to actually function
*freely*, then when competition is allowed to work, private
expenditure on healthcare would probably plummet and become much lower
in the U.S. than in England and other countries with socialized
medicine.
Yes, but that's *not* what's in place, so your argument here is pure
conjecture with no basis in fact.

The fact is that on balance throughout history, freer markets tend to
produce better goods at lower prices and a higher general standard of
living. And it's also a fact that when it is claimed that the free
market in healthcare has failed, it is a false claim, since the
government has greatly interfered with market forces and distorted
it. I just told a friend about how it came to be that most people get
their health insurance through their employers, and he was shocked to
learn that it came to pass because of wage freezes during World War
II, and companies offering benefits instead of wages to attract
workers, coupled with the greater tax incentives given to companies
rather than individuals to purchase health insurance -- and I bet most
people would be shocked to learn how it came about as well.
*Government* created the problem of health insurance non-portability,
yet almost all of the proposed solutions we hear about it are
*government* solutions - a typical pattern - which will inevitably
lead to further problems (which will typically be blamed on the "free
market"), which will lead to more government solutions being proposed
to fix them, solutions which will create more problems that will be
blamed on the free market, and more government solutions will be
proposed, and so on and so on.

Again, all this proves is that you're absolutely unwilling to contemplate an argument that challenges your view of the situation.

Consider this: one reason that spending on healthcare is far lower in the UK than in the USA is that the money that's being spent in the UK is from the public purse - and if you're funded with public money, you have to hold yourself to a far higher degree of accountability than would be the case in a private corporation.


No, actually, if you show up at an NHS medical practice or hospital with
a potentially cancerous lump, or some other symptom indicating the
potential presence of a cancer, all the anecdotal evidence I've seen
from people I know suggests that you get treatment *very* quickly.

Yet I keep reading anecdotes that contradict what you say -- for
instance in the comments section I noted above: the woman with a lump
in her breast who had to wait 10-1/2 weeks to see a specialist, and
still didn't get a mammogram.

You see what you look for. No system is perfect, and there's always, here and there, going to be an occasional case that falls through the cracks, and that's as true in the USA as it is here. But the fact is that, basically, if you show up at an NHS medical practice displaying symptoms that indicate the presence of cancer, or something that's immediately life-threatening, you will be seen with due urgency. The British electorate is not stupid, and people would not tolerate a system in which people with cancer symptoms were routinely left untreated for weeks and weeks and weeks.


The
idea that cancer patients are routinely left for weeks and weeks and
weeks to wait for treatment under the NHS is an absolute myth.

So all the stories one hears to the contrary are lies?

I didn't say that. I said that by and large the situation you presented has little bearing on how the NHS actually works.


It *is* true, however, that sometimes waiting times for treatments for
non-life-threatening conditions are longer than they could be. But if
it's urgent, under the NHS, the system works *very* promptly.

Not according to various accounts I've read by an awful lot of
people. What about the woman with a lump in her breast? Not a life-
threatening condition? I'm just using her as one example. There are
countless others.

Then cite some of them.

I'm 35 in a few weeks. I've been using the NHS for about 27 years (the other 8 years I was in a different country). Members of my family have been using the NHS ever since it was founded. I'm not saying that a cancer patient has *never* slipped through the cracks, but it's not something that happens routinely, or even regularly. If it did, if people with symptoms indicating serious illnesses that required prompt treatment were routinely left to wait for a length of time that put lives in jepoardy, the British media would have a field day (our press, unlike yours, is not afraid to do its job and be loudly critical of the government when necessary). The government of the day *would* fall. The British electorate, as I said, is not stupid, and people simply *would not* tolerate a health service that was inefficient enough to put people in danger on a regular basis.


5. The rates of infant mortality are higher in the USA than in the UK.
A misleading statistic. I see you make no mention of the marked
differences in how infant mortality is counted in the U.S. as opposed
to the U.K. See what I said above about statistics.
And I see you don't bother to provide any kind of citation backing up
your claim that the two sets of statistics are collected using different
methodologies.

See here: http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/060924/2healy.htm

6. The rates of maternal mortality - death during childbirth - are
higher in the USA than in the UK.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Citation?

I didn't mean to imply that it's a "lie" per se, only that statistics
can be easily manipulated to prove just about anything you want.

In other words, if it contradicts your argument, the data must have been manipulated.

You were never on the high school debating team, were you?


You want a citation about the unreliability of such statistics? How
about from WHO at http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/publications/maternal_mortality_2000/index.html
--

"...Nonetheless, problems of underreporting and misclassification are
endemic to all methods and estimates that are based on household
surveys are subject to wide margins of uncertainty because of sample
size issues. For all these reasons. it is difficult to compare the
data obtained from different sources and to assess the overall
magnitude of the problem."

If you die of cancer in the England rather than having it discovered
earlier and being treated and surviving it in the U.S., I'd say the
disaster is living in England with cancer.
Emotive bull***.

If it's true that England has a poor cancer survival rate, what's
"emotive bull***" about it?

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that any cancer diagnosis in the UK is a death sentence. It is not.

(And, please, find a reference book and look up the difference between England and the United Kingdom.)


Then why are drug prices in the USA so much higher than elsewhere in the
world?

For one, it's hugely expensive for drug companies to jump through the
government hoops in order to get a drug approved by the FDA (and
because of the expense - an expense imposed by the government --
smaller drug companies that can't afford the approval process are shut
out of the market), and U.S. consumers basically are subsidizing
cheaper drug prices offered elsewhere.

Well, no. Drug prices are higher in the USA largely because of the insurance system. In countries where healthcare is funded from the public purse, drug companies can't charge what they like, because - as I said somewhere else - when you spend public money you have to keep a much tighter hold on the purse strings.



Well, no, it's definitely a public service, as well as a basic human
right.

It is not a right,

Well, yes, actually, it is. Healthcare is a basic human right. Either you believe it, or you don't. You don't, I do, neither of us is going to be swayed by the other, and the Declaration of Independence has buggerall to do with what constitutes a human right outside of the USA.

--

Stephen

#437-It's hard to fly with the eagles when you're surrounded by turkeys.
.