Health care
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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.
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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."
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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
Marc Clifton wrote: 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. Having spent time doing just this in a freelance project, I would have to agree. Most medical billing systems operate at about the 95-98% percentile adoption of insurance billing rules. And those rules change so fast, if you make 98% as we did, it will be at 95% or below within months. You would have to spend all your time keeping it up to date to keep the 98% rate. We eventually sold the project to a company we had been competing with, it was just too much to keep up with in part-time. Marc Clifton wrote: The problem is, health care isn't really privatized. It has to comply with reams and reams of local, state, and federal regulations. The true problem is that everyone tries to sell anything, government or private as a "one-step-everybody-wins-solves-all-problems" solution. There are no fast and easy answers, on any side. An "efficient" system would require cooperation, and honesty of all individuals, corporations, medical facilities, and government agencies. Last I checked, cooperation is minimal, and discouraged. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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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
Marc Clifton wrote: 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. Yes and no, my girlfriend is an Actuarian, which is the name of the dudes that takes care of calculating the insurance billing. here in Denmark, there is a University degree called Cand. Act. which is a Math degree with insurance math on the top. And they are given classes in programming, because the formulas aren't suited for pen and paper, and it's quite hard to find programmers that are ready for the kind of math involved. They have to change the programs quite often, because the entire structure of the whole thing changes all the time. The culture changes, the food we're eating changes, new diseases hits us, and actually, the math that is used for calculation evolves too. She's often invited to conferences discussing new math methods for insurance calculations. The last one I bothered ask about, was about how to transform the numbers from various statistics into Klein space, I think she mentioned a Klein Bottle, but at that time, I was staring glazed eyed into the air, trying to comprehend what the hell she was talking about :-) "After all it's just text at the end of the day. - Colin Davies "For example, when a VB programmer comes to my house, they may say 'does your pool need cleaning, sir ?' " - Christian Graus
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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
How could you? You don't even know any other country? ;)
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aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
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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.
Felix Gartsman wrote: 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. Felix Gartsman wrote: Due you consider the effect of high taxes on unemployment? We got a near 60% tax here in denmark, but our unemployment rates a not much higher than the US rates. Also, when the tax were historically high in the early 90's, the unemployment rates hit an all-time low. Pray tell how you think this can be if those two issues are so intimately linked? :-) I agree that there can be a long time issue when you combine tax rates and salaries to global competition. But if the US is about to compete on salaries with eg. India, then you're welcome, but I doubt that many other US american voters are interested in becoming lab rats in such a social experiment... Felix Gartsman wrote: 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. That's not what's happening here, and remember, we've never had private medicine in neither my or my parents life time. Private hospitals are starting up here, but they are also getting clients from the public hospitals when queues are build up, and they are actually most often manned by doctors on overtime from the public hospitals :-) I have no problem with rich people buying better service, as long as they pay their due to the common cause. And it's not as if they've wasted their tax money anyway, because the doctors treating them on the private clinics has got their education for free, and people actually get paid by the state when taking an education. "After all it's just text at the end of the day. - Colin Davies "For example, when a VB programmer comes to my house, they may say 'does your pool need cleaning, sir ?' " - Christian Graus
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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."
Stan Shannon wrote: 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? Amazingly, the unemployed actually gets money for buying eg. food and housing :-) This means that we don't have to eg. rent busses to carry loads of homeless people out of our towns, when we want to show off our wealth by hosting a big event like eg. the Olympics :-D "After all it's just text at the end of the day. - Colin Davies "For example, when a VB programmer comes to my house, they may say 'does your pool need cleaning, sir ?' " - Christian Graus
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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?!
I've heard that the Swedish health care system is quite good, and even not as expensive as the Danish. But I guess Jörgen could clear that up. "After all it's just text at the end of the day. - Colin Davies "For example, when a VB programmer comes to my house, they may say 'does your pool need cleaning, sir ?' " - Christian Graus
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Stan Shannon wrote: 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? Amazingly, the unemployed actually gets money for buying eg. food and housing :-) This means that we don't have to eg. rent busses to carry loads of homeless people out of our towns, when we want to show off our wealth by hosting a big event like eg. the Olympics :-D "After all it's just text at the end of the day. - Colin Davies "For example, when a VB programmer comes to my house, they may say 'does your pool need cleaning, sir ?' " - Christian Graus
Is government supplied health care limited to the unemployed? "The Yahoos refused to be tamed."
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Is government supplied health care limited to the unemployed? "The Yahoos refused to be tamed."
Nope, but the system is closely related here. Rich, middle class, unemployed, everybody has access to the same fundamentals in health care, education and retirement funding. Actually there are many reasons for considering a government supplied health care system. Think about how some 'parents' would refuse to pay $??? a year for a continous health check on their kids. Also, people are more likely to let the doctor check them, and severe conditions are thus more likely treated before they become fatal. "After all it's just text at the end of the day. - Colin Davies "For example, when a VB programmer comes to my house, they may say 'does your pool need cleaning, sir ?' " - Christian Graus