Healthcare & rationing

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:58 pm

Skipjack wrote:Msimon, I guess you are an exception then and I do find your ability to learn admirable. So dont think I am rude. But honestly, do you think that you represent the average person?
Dont assume that because you are smart, everybody else is. Remember, we were talking about the average person and I am still not convinced that they have your ability to learn and understand these matters.
The average is those people that buy books on accupuncture, urin therapy and rekhi and then they think they know it all and better than their phycisian.

PS: Quite an admirable curriculum vitae there, Sir. Very impressive.

As I said being a contractor has lots of rewards. The work is not steady but the education is excellent.

Will every one do what I am doing - of course not. But it only takes 10% or so doing it to keep a system tight.

choff · Post by **choff** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:07 pm

Skipjack, in comparing Austia's system with Canada's, remember you are comparing your teeny tiny country with a vast territory 100 times its size. Just getting to a doctor in Canada can be an epic journey in the far north. Then there's the population density to consider.
We come from a tradition that says we don't mind waiting so much if its cheap, while yours expects promptness. The doctor shortage is as much because our doctors have a pretty good closed shop union. Plenty of immigrant doctors drive cabs here.
Also, one fundamental difference is that here we care more for our youngest, while other countries value the old. When I get old and sick, I'd rather go sit on an ice flow and drift off with the tide than burden my family.
All kidding aside we are aware of our shortcomings and make plans to resolve them. We look at how other countries do things and copy the best. Canada is a younger country than yours and we're still working all the bugs out.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:21 pm

Choff, I did not mean to offend you or your country. I was simply trying to defend my POV and my country against an unfair comparison.
Also to be fair, one could say that Austria, as a tiny country, with no naturaly resources and pretty much only the labour and know how of its people to live off, has done pretty good for itself. I mean sure it has its flaws, but hey if you compare the US, which has almost everything in natural resources (only lacking titan I believe), we are not that far behind. And we had a devastating war in our own country. The US had no battles worth mentioning on their own soil in the last century. I mean come on, even the civil way before that war was a skirmish compared to any of the wars we have been through. So we are doing quite well, I think and even our health care is OK. Sure it is not perfect and I am the first to critizise is flaws, but it does work.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 10:01 pm

The US had no battles worth mentioning on their own soil in the last century.

True. But we had to pay dearly to support our allies.

And Canaris was pretty sure that if Austria had resisted the Austrian Corporal even a little the European unpleasantness might have been avoided. Water under the bridge. Although his social policies seem to have won even if his total program was rejected.

Fortunately America stationed troops in Europe after the war and the Euros gave up their militaries in favor of social programs. But given the low birth rates the social programs as they stand are unsustainable. In fact even in the USA with a better birth rate such programs are unsustainable.

There is a desperate need in the West for new energy sources to generate the profits needed to sustain the system we all enjoy. Otherwise we are headed for collapse.

Profits first. Social programs second.

TDPerk · Post by **TDPerk** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:41 am

But honestly, do you think that you represent the average person?

You seem to be honestly telling us the laws should be written so the MSimon's of the world have no advantage from their ability to learn, and that you actually do think it is silly to try to learn all you can about a condition you have, so you can act as something other than a rubber stamp for the doctor. It's is as is you think they are unable to err, or that in any case it is not possible for a mere patient to catch them at it.

And if flying a plane without government paper horrifies you, you must avert your eyes from this link:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/buildaplane/

He didn't just build it, it was flown.

You keep telling us your nation's healthcare is nothing like the NHS, and yet if I am correct it is Austria, your infant mortality rate is suspiciously low.

The infant in this story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... limit.html

was recorded as a still birth although born alive.

Please research your nation's habits of recording what is and is not a stillbirth.

In the US, this would be accounted a dead child, part of the reason our infant mortality rate is relatively high.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:37 am

You seem to be honestly telling us the laws should be written so the MSimon's of the world have no advantage from their ability to learn, and that you actually do think it is silly to try to learn all you can about a condition you have, so you can act as something other than a rubber stamp for the doctor.

I did nowhere say that. He will always have an advantage. However, you can not expect the average person to be so smart. Heck in the US your laws are taking this much further than we do. In Austria, people are expected to have a certain level of base intelligence and understanding.
E.g. you are expected to understand that you must not leave the steering wheel of your camper while driving, even if there is no warning on it. You are expected to understand that the kickstand of your bike is meant to be up while driving, even if it does not say so on the darn thing. You are expected to know that coffee is hot, because it has to be boiled in order to make it. A country where parents dont let their neighbours children play with their children in their backyards out of fear one of them might fall over a root, or a mole hill and they will get sued.
In the US, the individual is, by law, not expected to know anything or to have any kind of self accountability. Yet you want me to go all the way to the other extreme and have the laws changed for the few Msimons on the US that might, or might not be geniuses and are able to learn everything they need to know about any illness in a matter of hours, instead of years as it takes a doctor. So that they have an advantage over everybody else.
Btw, the examples above are all court cases that were the result of these people having medical bills to pay (their own and/or someone elses) that they could not. How much less needless courtcases (and needless warning stickers or warning signs) would there be in the US with everyone having health insurance?

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:45 am

You keep telling us your nation's healthcare is nothing like the NHS, and yet if I am correct it is Austria, your infant mortality rate is suspiciously low.

I dont understand the purpose of this sentence.
The story in the example you gave was not Austria. I honestly dont think that something like this would have happened here. I have never heard of anything like this happening. Heck, we are a country where a turkish woman who already had 8(!) healthy children gets an in vitro fertilization paid for by the government healthcare. So we pay her an expensive medical procedure so she can have a 9th child, even though nature says "you are done women, forget about it!". This is a story that I have a believable first hand account of.
Thats one of many examples where I think our system here is paying to much.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 9:45 am

Skipjack wrote:
You seem to be honestly telling us the laws should be written so the MSimon's of the world have no advantage from their ability to learn, and that you actually do think it is silly to try to learn all you can about a condition you have, so you can act as something other than a rubber stamp for the doctor.
I did nowhere say that. He will always have an advantage. However, you can not expect the average person to be so smart. Heck in the US your laws are taking this much further than we do. In Austria, people are expected to have a certain level of base intelligence and understanding.
E.g. you are expected to understand that you must not leave the steering wheel of your camper while driving, even if there is no warning on it. You are expected to understand that the kickstand of your bike is meant to be up while driving, even if it does not say so on the darn thing. You are expected to know that coffee is hot, because it has to be boiled in order to make it. A country where parents dont let their neighbours children play with their children in their backyards out of fear one of them might fall over a root, or a mole hill and they will get sued.
In the US, the individual is, by law, not expected to know anything or to have any kind of self accountability. Yet you want me to go all the way to the other extreme and have the laws changed for the few Msimons on the US that might, or might not be geniuses and are able to learn everything they need to know about any illness in a matter of hours, instead of years as it takes a doctor. So that they have an advantage over everybody else.
Btw, the examples above are all court cases that were the result of these people having medical bills to pay (their own and/or someone elses) that they could not. How much less needless courtcases (and needless warning stickers or warning signs) would there be in the US with everyone having health insurance?

Well yes. Personal injury law is out of control in the USA. And you know they are big supporters of our most "liberal" party. John Edwards is one of them.

The answer is not a total remake of our system. Some adjustments however are in order.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 4:06 pm

Yes, but you have to admit that one reason for all the personal injury lawsuits is the fact that people need to pay for their treatment after the injury. If you dont have health insurance and you get injured you have no other chance but to sue in order to get the money for your treatments.
People get injured here as well and they dont sue as much. Sure there are other reasons for that as well, but I can see why a judge would decide a certain way in the US. In any case all these lawsuits cost the US citizens dearly, plus they keep judges busy with unimportant stuff instead of real criminals.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 10:27 pm

Why demand for health care is rising in the USA:

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernande ... t-of-view/

The main factor is that the long-term income elasticity of the demand for healthcare is 1.6—for every 1 percent increase in a family’s income, the family wants to increase its expenditures on healthcare by 1.6 percent. This is not a new trend. Between 1875 and 1995, the share of family income spent on food, clothing, and shelter declined from 87 percent to just 30 percent, despite the fact that we eat more food, own more clothes, and have better and larger homes today than we had in 1875. All of this has been made possible by the growth in the productivity of traditional commodities. In the last quarter of the 19th century, it took 1,700 hours of labor to purchase the annual food supply for a family. Today it requires just 260 hours, and it is likely that by 2040, a family’s food supply will be purchased with about 160 hours of labor.

Fogel’s graphs and calculations, his estimates of total health costs and curves while interesting, are less fascinating than the philosophical perspective he brings to the debate. By contrast, Dr. Zeke Emmanuel’s age rationing diagram seems straight out of the Marxist 19th century. To Emmanuel, aging and its challenges are a cost to managed, for Fogel it is a market opportunity.

TDPerk · Post by **TDPerk** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 1:25 am

The story in the example you gave was not Austria.

I'm asking what criteria a live birth meets towards infant mortality statistics in your country. I gave an example of how the statistics in some countries are made meaningless in comparison to US statistics because different criteria are used.

vankirkc · Post by **vankirkc** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 2:20 am

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =112818960

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 2:44 am

Skipjack wrote:Yes, but you have to admit that one reason for all the personal injury lawsuits is the fact that people need to pay for their treatment after the injury. If you dont have health insurance and you get injured you have no other chance but to sue in order to get the money for your treatments.

I swear, Europeans act like the U.S. has no social safety net sometimes.

If you're poor, we have Medicaid. If you're disabled, you get Social Security. If you're neither, you pay it back when you're able. No one goes untreated. And we have far better health care.

People in the U.S sue more because of punitive damages. Our punitive damage laws are very different than those in Europe. This means our corporations have to be smart. Some would argue this is a benefit.

In any case all these lawsuits cost the US citizens dearly, plus they keep judges busy with unimportant stuff instead of real criminals.

Civil and criminal are separate courts.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 2:45 am

vankirkc wrote: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =112818960

Without public support the public option is not going to happen. And the public support is not there.

Me? I'm totally annoyed. The government is going to take $100 a month from me for an insurance option (Medicare) I do not want. My mate has a much better policy through her work.

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 2:48 am

TDPerk wrote:
The story in the example you gave was not Austria.
I'm asking what criteria a live birth meets towards infant mortality statistics in your country. I gave an example of how the statistics in some countries are made meaningless in comparison to US statistics because different criteria are used.

There was a recent well-publicized case in Britain where a 22-week infant was left to die because the guideline was 23 weeks.

But the really disgusting thing is that death isn't counted in the infant mortality statistics, because it's considered a stillbirth at that age. So Soros and merry band of socialists get to say health care in the UK is better than the U.S., where the baby would have been given a fighting chance, and counted against us if she died.