An honest question for health reform opponents: Where has it ever worked? (wages, health care system)

[Sci Fi Fan]

With sincerity, whenever I think about this topic, I really try to put myself in the shoes of those who support privatized health care. It just never works for me. Aside from the philosophical “government should stay out of my life!” argument (that is rarely espoused without immense hypocrisy; unless if you’re a libertarian, using this argument is the height of self contradiction), a look at the actual empirical data makes defending privatized health care a ludicrous proposition.

Oh those ranked highest in the World Health Organization’s health care quality list, all of the top thirty have some form of universal health care. In comparison, the US ranks a pitiful 38th, and yet has the highest health care expenditure per capita, a pathetic showing for the wealthiest, second most populous nation in human history.

I’m still looking for a decently ranked nation without a universal health care system, but can find none, aside from some third world garbage dumps that didn’t even receive a rating.

If you think that the WHO/UN are biased liberal propagandists, just look at the infant mortality rates published in the CIA world factbook. Universal health care providers top the list.

This is an honest question: where, exactly, has privatized health care ever worked? Where is the empirical evidence?



Off topic, I could ask the same things about homeschooling, unrestricted gun ownership and lazzez faire. No modern, post-industrial society in history has ever succeeded without public education. Almost all of the least violent nations in the world have strict forms of gun control (I was once a pro-gun advocate…until I actually did research). The whole of modern history shows the horrendous outcomes of a purely capitalistic economy. It’s as though all these conservative theories presume the nonexistence of the rest of the world and all historical data.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

With sincerity, whenever I think about this topic, I really try to put myself in the shoes of those who support privatized health care. It just never works for me.

You got that right....seeing the point of view of others never worked for you.

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

Aside from the philosophical “government should stay out of my life!” argument (that is rarely espoused without immense hypocrisy; unless if you’re a libertarian, using this argument is the height of self contradiction),....

Uh, I have repeatedly explained in detail exactly how your health care system came to be FUBAR.

I have repeatedly explained in nauseating detail why your health care system is FUBAR.

I have also repetitively stated the no-nonsense-common-sense solutions you can implement...for free...to make health care accessible and affordable to all.

It's most unfortunate it's beyond your comprehension.

And for the record....not one person has been able to refute any of the evidence I have presented.

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

....a look at the actual empirical data makes defending privatized health care a ludicrous proposition.

You failed or refused to review actual empirical data.

Ready to ride the Fail Boat?

Yes, you are......

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

Oh those ranked highest in the World Health Organization’s health care quality list, all of the top thirty have some form of universal health care. In comparison, the US ranks a pitiful 38th,....

Fail.




Well.....you can add a new word to your vocabulary.....metrics.....as in health care metrics.

Had you bothered to look at the actual empirical data -- as you put it -- you would know that countries collect their health care statistics ways that are neither uniform nor universal, giving rise to apparent discrepancies.

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

and yet has the highest health care expenditure per capita, a pathetic showing for the wealthiest, second most populous nation in human history.

Fail.

Um, here's some, uh, you know, "empirical data":

Expenditure of selected health care functions by providers of health care, per inhabitant [hlth_sha1h]

Last update 25.10.11
Extracted on 06.01.13
Source of Data Eurostat
UNIT Euro per inhabitant
ICHA_HC Health care expenditure
ICHA_HP All providers of health care

Romania.......310.39
South Korea....... 837.74
Slovakia....... 1,060.60
Denmark....... 4,643.97
Switzerland....... 5,215.64
Norway....... 5,343.49
Luxembourg....... 5,438.46
United States....... 5,684.68

Problem?

That is from Eurostat --- a database operated by the European Commission of the European Union.

Ready to fail again?

Fail.

UNIT Euro per inhabitant
ICHA_HF General government

Romania....... 241.10
South Korea....... 473.18
Slovakia....... 690.87
United States....... 2,657.86
Switzerland .......3,114.60
Denmark .......3,775.17
Luxembourg .......4,105.86
Norway .......4,195.13

That is how much the governments of those countries spend on each person.

Ready to fail again?

Fail.


UNIT Euro per inhabitant
ICHA_HF Private household out-of-pocket expenditure

Romania .......63.95
Slovakia .......268.80
South Korea .......271.69
Denmark....... 611.68
Luxembourg .......680.76
United States....... 697.13
Norway .......805.54
Switzerland....... 1,590.18

No, I didn’t stutter…..those are out-of-pocket expenses.

Database

Source: EuroStat - The European Commission of the European Union.


Uh, out of curiosity, how did you manage to miss all that "empirical data?"

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

I’m still looking for a decently ranked nation without a universal health care system, but can find none, aside from some third world garbage dumps that didn’t even receive a rating.

Fail.

Look no further...



So.....inquiring readers would like to know how you missed this "empirical data?"

The Myth of Americans' Poor Life Expectancy - Forbes

For those of you who have issues with Forbes not being left-wing enough, I give you the original study....


Cancer survival in five continents: a worldwide population-based study (CONCORD) : The Lancet Oncology

The Lancet Oncology, Volume 9, Issue 8, Pages 730 - 756, August 2008
<Previous Article|Next Article>
doi:10.1016/S1470-2045(08)70179-7Cite or Link Using DOI

This article can be found in the following collections: Global Health; Oncology (Cancer epidemiology & prevention & control)
Published Online: 17 July 2008

Cancer survival in five continents: a worldwide population-based study (CONCORD)

Background

Cancer survival varies widely between countries. The CONCORD study provides survival estimates for 1·9 million adults (aged 15—99 years) diagnosed with a first, primary, invasive cancer of the breast (women), colon, rectum, or prostate during 1990—94 and followed up to 1999, by use of individual tumour records from 101 population-based cancer registries in 31 countries on five continents. This is, to our knowledge, the first worldwide analysis of cancer survival, with standard quality-control procedures and identical analytic methods for all datasets.


Yes, that's Lancet --- Britain's version of the prestigious American JAMA.

With respect to intellectual integrity and honesty...

Funding: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, GA, USA), Department of Health (London, UK), Cancer Research UK (London, UK).

...that's who funded the CONCORD Study.

Are you going to move the goal-posts and claim that the United States Centers for Disease Control are somehow biased?

Uh, Britain has a national health care system.....if you had one of the above illnesses, your chance of survival is higher in the US than in Britain.

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

If you think that the WHO/UN are biased liberal propagandists, just look at the infant mortality rates published in the CIA world factbook. Universal health care providers top the list.

Fail.

One of the things noted by MacDorman and Matthews....

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_02.pdf

....is that if the US adopted the Swedish Metric for births, then the US infant mortality rate would decline 33%.

You lose.

And...yes....CDC is the US Centers for Disease Control. That would be the "health care metrics" I mentioned earlier.

In the United States, a new-born suffering serious health problems will be scarfed up and put through all manner of tests and doctors will spend $500,000 trying to save the life of an infant that was for the most part dead on arrival.

In European countries, they simply place the dying infant --- without spending any money -- into the arms of the mother and then leave the room.

On top of that, the Euro-States will count that as a peri-natal death...so it does not negative impact their infant mortality rates, while in the US it will be counted as post-natal death, thus negatively impacting infant mortality.

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

This is an honest question: where, exactly, has privatized health care ever worked? Where is the empirical evidence?

Your lack of win is impressively disturbing.

Had you done the research you claimed to have done, then you would know that in the modern era, no privatized health care system has existed.

Even in the United States, on that day in 1933 when the American Hospital Association formed a committee that started placing limits and restrictions on the pre-paid hospitalization plans for its member hospitals, that was interference in the Free Market....and thus the US has not had privatized health care since that day.

In 1939, this very same committee of the American Hospital Association started grouping member hospitals together and dictating the prices and levels of service for pre-paid hospitalization plans...

....taking away your freedom of choice....

...and then stifled competition and attempted to drive non-member hospitals out of business in order to gain a monopoly on health care in the US.

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

(I was once a pro-gun advocate…until I actually did research). The whole of modern history shows the horrendous outcomes of a purely capitalistic economy. It’s as though all these conservative theories presume the nonexistence of the rest of the world and all historical data.

I can see why your a Sci-Fi fan....you live in a fantasy world....where you claim to have done research, when in fact you made no attempt to do research.

The fact that you made reference to a "purely capitalistic economy" is proof that you do not understand Economics.....because anyone with a degree in Economics (like me) knows that Capitalism is a property theory and has nothing to do with Economic Systems.

Yes, Virginia...I hate to burst your fantasy bubble, but you can run Socialist Property Theory with the Free Market Economic System.

And you can run Communist Property Theory with the Free Market Economic System.

Likewise, you can have Capitalist Property Theory, but operate a Soviet-style Command Economic System, where the government, or another group; an oligarchy --- like the American Hospital Association, can have monopolistic control and set the prices of goods and services, as well as dictate wages and production quotas and everything else.

Empirically....

Mircea

[andrea3821]

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

With sincerity, whenever I think about this topic, I really try to put myself in the shoes of those who support privatized health care. It just never works for me. Aside from the philosophical “government should stay out of my life!” argument (that is rarely espoused without immense hypocrisy; unless if you’re a libertarian, using this argument is the height of self contradiction), a look at the actual empirical data makes defending privatized health care a ludicrous proposition.

Oh those ranked highest in the World Health Organization’s health care quality list, all of the top thirty have some form of universal health care. In comparison, the US ranks a pitiful 38th, and yet has the highest health care expenditure per capita, a pathetic showing for the wealthiest, second most populous nation in human history.

I’m still looking for a decently ranked nation without a universal health care system, but can find none, aside from some third world garbage dumps that didn’t even receive a rating.

If you think that the WHO/UN are biased liberal propagandists, just look at the infant mortality rates published in the CIA world factbook. Universal health care providers top the list.

This is an honest question: where, exactly, has privatized health care ever worked? Where is the empirical evidence?



Off topic, I could ask the same things about homeschooling, unrestricted gun ownership and lazzez faire. No modern, post-industrial society in history has ever succeeded without public education. Almost all of the least violent nations in the world have strict forms of gun control (I was once a pro-gun advocate…until I actually did research). The whole of modern history shows the horrendous outcomes of a purely capitalistic economy. It’s as though all these conservative theories presume the nonexistence of the rest of the world and all historical data.

The reason is b/c there is too much gov't intrusion into practically every aspect of America. You cannot judge capitalism accurately in this country b/c there is really no true free market capitalism here. It's crony capitalism. THAT is the entire problem and why it is currently not working. More gov't intrusion is not the answer.

As to homeschooling...there is a place for public education. Just not for my kids. lol While I feel it will be best for our family, I realize it's not for everyone, and the poor people who use school like a daycare while they go to work and don't encourage learning in the home, those people would NEVER succeed as home educators. The kids at least get some form of education during their "daycare" hours, even if they don't even pick up a textbook or pleasure book when they get home.

[mwruckman]

Originally Posted by Sci Fi Fan

With sincerity, whenever I think about this topic, I really try to put myself in the shoes of those who support privatized health care. It just never works for me. Aside from the philosophical “government should stay out of my life!” argument (that is rarely espoused without immense hypocrisy; unless if you’re a libertarian, using this argument is the height of self contradiction), a look at the actual empirical data makes defending privatized health care a ludicrous proposition.

Oh those ranked highest in the World Health Organization’s health care quality list, all of the top thirty have some form of universal health care. In comparison, the US ranks a pitiful 38th, and yet has the highest health care expenditure per capita, a pathetic showing for the wealthiest, second most populous nation in human history.

I’m still looking for a decently ranked nation without a universal health care system, but can find none, aside from some third world garbage dumps that didn’t even receive a rating.

If you think that the WHO/UN are biased liberal propagandists, just look at the infant mortality rates published in the CIA world factbook. Universal health care providers top the list.

This is an honest question: where, exactly, has privatized health care ever worked? Where is the empirical evidence?



Off topic, I could ask the same things about homeschooling, unrestricted gun ownership and lazzez faire. No modern, post-industrial society in history has ever succeeded without public education. Almost all of the least violent nations in the world have strict forms of gun control (I was once a pro-gun advocate…until I actually did research). The whole of modern history shows the horrendous outcomes of a purely capitalistic economy. It’s as though all these conservative theories presume the nonexistence of the rest of the world and all historical data.

If you want an answer try virtually every other nation in the G-20 including China and the Russian Federation.