Quote from: P4man on November 02, 2011, 11:11:40 PM

Quote from: MoonShadow on November 02, 2011, 10:35:30 PM

No contest there, the question then is why is it so inefficient? I may be too close to see the big picture, but from where I stand it's because of government regulations into the medical industries, not despite them.

Im sure thats what the insurance and pharmaceutical companies want you to believe. Yet somehow European and other nations have government controlled health insurance yet are 3x as efficient. So, follow the money. Who pockets all that money? Maybe your doctors make a better income than ours, but thats not going to explain it. So who wins? If not you the taxpayer, if not the government, if most likely not or not in a meaningful way the medical professionals. AFAICS, that leaves insurance and pharma companies. Let check that theory and google on it:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/prof-f19.shtml

$12.2 billion in profits for the 5 biggest US insurers. Not bad. That buys you a few senators no doubt. And if you give everyone the same insurance, whats the point of these companies, what value do they add? None, they just make your life hard trying their damnest not to have to pay or get sick customers.

Then the other suspect; big pharma:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry

Top 20 companies, $110 billion net profits. Granted, globally, but there you have it nonetheless.
Mind you, big pharma is an actual industry that does provide very obvious added value, its not like Im oppososed to them being commercial and making profits, but those kinds of number tell you you are paying WAY too much.
And they are paying way too much to your politicians.

Again, not contest. But so what? They are amoral corporations seeking profits. They still have to 'innovate' continuously in order to do so. Pharma patents die in the US after 15 years, after which the company loses it's profit advantage to generics manufacturers. They cost too much, yes. But they have produced the largest volume of advancements in the history of the world in pursuit of that gob of cash. Your own society has benefitted unmeasurablely from the inefficiency of the American medical system.

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The "worse quality" meme is provablely false. The vast majority of medical advancements over the past 50 years or so came from American doctors and scientists working for companies with a profit motive, whether the doctors themselves were motivated by money or not. There is literally nothing that you can get medically that I don't have access to, even if you can get it cheaper. Your high quality care is a direct result of our highly inefficient system.

What a nonsensical argument. Are you measuring the quality of your health care by "invented in the US" advertisements of pharma industry on tv or what? Gimme a break.

I challenge you to remove every medical advancement that your own nation pays for, but that was created by a for-profit corporation in the United States, and then try to judge how high the quality of your care is then. You are more dependent upon the US than you care to acknowledge.

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We do way better than Cuba, too; on average.

Actually, you dont on a lot of important metrics, like child mortality:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/05/us-lagging-behind-much-of-europe-cuba-chile-and-united-arab-emirates-in-child-mortality.html
Despite comparing the worlds richest country to one of the poorest third wold countries thats under half a century embargo.

And Cuba isn't known for skewing the stats for PR reasons, either; right? You choose to trust the CUban government that they are better than the US on this? IS that credible? Chile is more trustworthy, but how many babies are born without records in either nation? IF a baby is born in Chile in the slum andit dies, is it recorded? I doubt it, but it sure will be here.

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You're happy with it because you're ignorant of what the costs are, and I'm not talking about monetary costs. Pray you never have to find out.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596

Always useful to check the source. From the about page:
The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, established in 1983. Our goal is to develop and promote private, free-market alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial
private sector.

That sounds like an objective source.Lets see what medical scientists have to say on that:

You quote articles that depend upon government stats from Cuba, but complain that the link that I provide has been produced by a gropup with an obvious bias? Really? Why am I even talking to you? Because they admit to bias, they are falsifying the stats, is that what you believe?

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http://www.otohns.net/default.asp?id=8832

Looks like you dont live any longer than europeans (in fact, your life expectancy is substantially shorter) you just know sooner you will die. I guess thats something.

I didn't make the claim that Americans live longer. There are many other factors that contribute to that, including cultural and racial influences. Is the gun crime that kills young black men in Chicago a sign of a dysfunctional health care system?

"The primary cause of the disparities between racial and geographic groups is early death from chronic disease and injuries, an analysis of data from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics showed."

http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/0002418/42/

And then there is the dramatic range in life expecancies between racially identified sub-cultures...

"Asian-American women living in Bergen County, NJ, enjoy the greatest life expectancy in the US, at 91 years. American Indians in South Dakota have the worst, at 58 years"

And then, what about locale? The states with the highest life expecancy also happen to be those with the greatest population concentrations, implying that proximity to urban medical centers plays a significant role in life expecancy as well. Europe is much more densely populated than the US, is it not?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_life_expectancy