Health care
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From the NYT (bobcp/bobcp) "To get effective reform, however, we'll need to shed some preconceptions - in particular, the ideologically driven belief that government is always the problem and market competition is always the solution. The fact is that in health care, the private sector is often bloated and bureaucratic, while some government agencies - notably the Veterans Administration system - are lean and efficient. In health care, competition and personal choice can and do lead to higher costs and lower quality. The United States has the most privatized, competitive health system in the advanced world; it also has by far the highest costs, and close to the worst results."[^]
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From the NYT (bobcp/bobcp) "To get effective reform, however, we'll need to shed some preconceptions - in particular, the ideologically driven belief that government is always the problem and market competition is always the solution. The fact is that in health care, the private sector is often bloated and bureaucratic, while some government agencies - notably the Veterans Administration system - are lean and efficient. In health care, competition and personal choice can and do lead to higher costs and lower quality. The United States has the most privatized, competitive health system in the advanced world; it also has by far the highest costs, and close to the worst results."[^]
Fold With Us! Beware of people who know the answer before having understood the question.
A programmer recently told my client that the rules for figuring out insurance billing are so complicated that it's impossible to code them into a computer. Something like 11 billion dollars a year is spent just on filling out the paperwork. As the VA, I've heard many, many people complain about how terrible the health care is. The problem is, health care isn't really privatized. It has to comply with reams and reams of local, state, and federal regulations. The other problem is that insurance companies and health care providers are both "for profit" businesses. This seems a bit contradictory to me. If both are "for profit", then effectively the consumer gets shafted with the bill, lower quality (when the insurance company can dictate the level of care), and argumentative insurance payers. It should have been easy to predict this scenario, I would think, but we didn't. Or didn't listen to those who did. Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
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From the NYT (bobcp/bobcp) "To get effective reform, however, we'll need to shed some preconceptions - in particular, the ideologically driven belief that government is always the problem and market competition is always the solution. The fact is that in health care, the private sector is often bloated and bureaucratic, while some government agencies - notably the Veterans Administration system - are lean and efficient. In health care, competition and personal choice can and do lead to higher costs and lower quality. The United States has the most privatized, competitive health system in the advanced world; it also has by far the highest costs, and close to the worst results."[^]
Fold With Us! Beware of people who know the answer before having understood the question.
Government run health care cannot be sustained for long while providing high level of services. People live longer than before, and those extra years require more health care. You got more drugs, new procedures, more demanding patients and shrinking young tax-paying population - the money will run out, see http://www.techcentralstation.com/031405A.html[^] for some deficit figures. No money leads to bad services (http://www.techcentralstation.com/030405F.html[^]), which leads to private medicine for the rich and other complaining about poor public services. Private health services suffers from over-complexity (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040705B.html[^]), but you can restructure bussineses. You cannot find money from nowhere to finance public systems.
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From the NYT (bobcp/bobcp) "To get effective reform, however, we'll need to shed some preconceptions - in particular, the ideologically driven belief that government is always the problem and market competition is always the solution. The fact is that in health care, the private sector is often bloated and bureaucratic, while some government agencies - notably the Veterans Administration system - are lean and efficient. In health care, competition and personal choice can and do lead to higher costs and lower quality. The United States has the most privatized, competitive health system in the advanced world; it also has by far the highest costs, and close to the worst results."[^]
Fold With Us! Beware of people who know the answer before having understood the question.
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From the NYT (bobcp/bobcp) "To get effective reform, however, we'll need to shed some preconceptions - in particular, the ideologically driven belief that government is always the problem and market competition is always the solution. The fact is that in health care, the private sector is often bloated and bureaucratic, while some government agencies - notably the Veterans Administration system - are lean and efficient. In health care, competition and personal choice can and do lead to higher costs and lower quality. The United States has the most privatized, competitive health system in the advanced world; it also has by far the highest costs, and close to the worst results."[^]
Fold With Us! Beware of people who know the answer before having understood the question.
Paul Krugman, not now there's an unbiased source. :laugh: "The Yahoos refused to be tamed."
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I think I'll search the "news" and find negative editorials about issues in other countries and post them... on second thought... no -- that would be pathetic. :doh: "Reality is what refuses to go away when I stop believing in it." Philip K. Dick
The problem isn't limited to the US. As Felix mentions on the post above, populations in western countries are aging, and health care costs are skyrocketting. Health care costs are a problem, and cause troubles in many countries. Many in my country advocates that we should privatize health care because the market is more efficient blah blah blah. Nonetheless, when we compare with a country (yours) where health care managment is mostly in the hand of the private sector, we can see that 1) more money is spent 2) the results are worse 3) we don't even mention universal access to health care.
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Government run health care cannot be sustained for long while providing high level of services. People live longer than before, and those extra years require more health care. You got more drugs, new procedures, more demanding patients and shrinking young tax-paying population - the money will run out, see http://www.techcentralstation.com/031405A.html[^] for some deficit figures. No money leads to bad services (http://www.techcentralstation.com/030405F.html[^]), which leads to private medicine for the rich and other complaining about poor public services. Private health services suffers from over-complexity (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040705B.html[^]), but you can restructure bussineses. You cannot find money from nowhere to finance public systems.
Felix Gartsman wrote: Private health services suffers from over-complexity (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040705B.html\[^\]), but you can restructure bussineses Private health services are more expensive, less socially efficient. Why would they need to restructurate, being driven by the profit, private companies have no interest in being for all. Felix Gartsman wrote: You cannot find money from nowhere to finance public systems. So you are advocating to have health care related to the money you can spend on it? Health for the wealthy ones only? If this solution might be accepted in the US, such social injustice would lead to a revolution there (at least I hope so :-D ).
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Paul Krugman, not now there's an unbiased source. :laugh: "The Yahoos refused to be tamed."
Probably not :) Anyway, is he lying? Doesn't the US spend more on health care than any other industrialized country (14% of GDP IIRC) for worse results as for life expectancy[^] or infant mortality [^]?
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Probably not :) Anyway, is he lying? Doesn't the US spend more on health care than any other industrialized country (14% of GDP IIRC) for worse results as for life expectancy[^] or infant mortality [^]?
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But are those not the life expectancy and infant mortality rates for the population as a whole. Surely you would have to break it down into those that can afford good healthcare and those who cannot, before you judge whether the money spent on health care is cost effective. The figures may just indicate that publicly funded healthcare (name?) in the US is really bad while private healthcare is good.
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The problem isn't limited to the US. As Felix mentions on the post above, populations in western countries are aging, and health care costs are skyrocketting. Health care costs are a problem, and cause troubles in many countries. Many in my country advocates that we should privatize health care because the market is more efficient blah blah blah. Nonetheless, when we compare with a country (yours) where health care managment is mostly in the hand of the private sector, we can see that 1) more money is spent 2) the results are worse 3) we don't even mention universal access to health care.
Fold With Us! Beware of people who know the answer before having understood the question.
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But are those not the life expectancy and infant mortality rates for the population as a whole. Surely you would have to break it down into those that can afford good healthcare and those who cannot, before you judge whether the money spent on health care is cost effective. The figures may just indicate that publicly funded healthcare (name?) in the US is really bad while private healthcare is good.
Dan Bennett wrote: But are those not the life expectancy and infant mortality rates for the population as a whole. Surely you would have to break it down into those that can afford good healthcare and those who cannot, before you judge whether the money spent on health care is cost effective. :omg: X|:sigh:
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Probably not :) Anyway, is he lying? Doesn't the US spend more on health care than any other industrialized country (14% of GDP IIRC) for worse results as for life expectancy[^] or infant mortality [^]?
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I would concur that currently the US probably, in many ways, has the worse of all possible worlds when it comes to health care. Both the private and the public sectors are feeding off of the inefficiency of the other. Be that as it may, I simply do not wish to be dependent in any way upon the government for my health care. I am a free man and should be empowered to address my health concerns as I best see fit in a free market economy. I do not believe that health care is a "right". It is simply a business like any other. The US is, first and foremost, an experiment in capitalism. As a society we should always strive to solve our problems in a capitalistic fashion, and reject the temptations of European collectivism out of hand. "The Yahoos refused to be tamed."
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Dan Bennett wrote: But are those not the life expectancy and infant mortality rates for the population as a whole. Surely you would have to break it down into those that can afford good healthcare and those who cannot, before you judge whether the money spent on health care is cost effective. :omg: X|:sigh:
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:confused:
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:confused:
I meant that if you are right (and you may be), I find that totally disgusting. I was raised in the belief that "Men are born and remain free and equal in right". Accepting inequality as something normal is in opposition to my beliefs. Nothing personal.
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I meant that if you are right (and you may be), I find that totally disgusting. I was raised in the belief that "Men are born and remain free and equal in right". Accepting inequality as something normal is in opposition to my beliefs. Nothing personal.
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K(arl) wrote: I was raised in the belief that "Men are born and remain free and equal in right". So you believe that the government should be empowered to insure equality of results in all things and not just equalty of opportunity? "The Yahoos refused to be tamed."
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I would concur that currently the US probably, in many ways, has the worse of all possible worlds when it comes to health care. Both the private and the public sectors are feeding off of the inefficiency of the other. Be that as it may, I simply do not wish to be dependent in any way upon the government for my health care. I am a free man and should be empowered to address my health concerns as I best see fit in a free market economy. I do not believe that health care is a "right". It is simply a business like any other. The US is, first and foremost, an experiment in capitalism. As a society we should always strive to solve our problems in a capitalistic fashion, and reject the temptations of European collectivism out of hand. "The Yahoos refused to be tamed."
Although I agree with most of your post, I disagree with: Stan Shannon wrote: As a society we should always strive to solve our problems in a capitalistic fashion, and reject the temptations of European collectivism out of hand. We should not reject any possible solutions 'out of hand'. Instead we should examine all approaches, taking the best of each and craft a better solution. The tension between 'for profit' insurers (who serve the intereststs of employers who pay the bills, not the insured) and 'for profit' providers (who are forced to serve the interests of their shareholders before those of their clients) has resulted in a system that is fair to none, inefficient, and generally unsatisfactory. The situation worsens each year, and the drain on the medicare program will soon dwarf any problems that Social Security will have. This seems to be a case wher 'private sector' bueaucracy (the health insurance industry) is worse than govenrnment bueaucracy, something I have a hard time comprehending, but nonetheless the case. Anger is the most impotent of passions. It effects nothing it goes about, and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed. Carl Sandburg
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I meant that if you are right (and you may be), I find that totally disgusting. I was raised in the belief that "Men are born and remain free and equal in right". Accepting inequality as something normal is in opposition to my beliefs. Nothing personal.
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K(arl) wrote: Nothing personal :) I should also point out that my post was in not expressing approval/disapproval - simply that the statistics this 'raw' should not be used to draw conclusions. In the UK we have 'free' (i.e. paid for through a large proportion of our taxes) health care system. There are not too many people who regard it as efficient or value for money. Does any country have a good healthcare system?!
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K(arl) wrote: I was raised in the belief that "Men are born and remain free and equal in right". So you believe that the government should be empowered to insure equality of results in all things and not just equalty of opportunity? "The Yahoos refused to be tamed."
K(arl) wrote: Men are born and remain free and equal in right The right to live is the first right of the citizen, hence access to health care should be granted to all. Don't worry for your goods, I also think that "Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, nobody may be deprived of it, except when public necessity, legally established, clearly requires it, and on condition a just compensation be paid in advance."
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Felix Gartsman wrote: Private health services suffers from over-complexity (http://www.techcentralstation.com/040705B.html\[^\]), but you can restructure bussineses Private health services are more expensive, less socially efficient. Why would they need to restructurate, being driven by the profit, private companies have no interest in being for all. Felix Gartsman wrote: You cannot find money from nowhere to finance public systems. So you are advocating to have health care related to the money you can spend on it? Health for the wealthy ones only? If this solution might be accepted in the US, such social injustice would lead to a revolution there (at least I hope so :-D ).
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K(arl) wrote: Private health services are more expensive, less socially efficient Because you get better service. From algorithmic perspective, centralized management is better than distributed only if it has massive computation advantage (rough, but mostly valid generalization). The government has no such advantage because it cannot afford it unless the taxes sky-rocket. How you define social effeciency? Due you consider the effect of high taxes on unemployment? K(arl) wrote: Why would they need to restructurate, being driven by the profit, private companies have no interest in being for all. Smart regulation, dynamic taxation, etc. Government can influence bussiness behaviour. K(arl) wrote: So you are advocating to have health care related to the money you can spend on it? Health for the wealthy ones only? It exactly what will happen. How long can a system live in deficit without lowering quality of service? When it does, the rich will turn to private medicine feeling stupid for paying high taxes and getting lousy service. Good doctors will leave the public system. Life is unfair, but being rich helps a lot.
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K(arl) wrote: Men are born and remain free and equal in right The right to live is the first right of the citizen, hence access to health care should be granted to all. Don't worry for your goods, I also think that "Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, nobody may be deprived of it, except when public necessity, legally established, clearly requires it, and on condition a just compensation be paid in advance."
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K(arl) wrote: The right to live is the first right of the citizen, hence access to health care should be granted to all Buy why just health care? Isn't food more important to life than a visit to the doctor? So why shouldn't the government supply me with groceries? "The Yahoos refused to be tamed."