US ranks worst, France best for focus on preventable deaths (racism, invasion)

[fishmonger]

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

Chalk up what you wish. The fact remains that government employees both rig the system to their benefit (French doctors / August vacations) and resist substantive change to their sweet deal and carpet-bomb any criticism (our pal saganista / the bloated federal bureacracy).

Without contesting the probably contestable validity of this statement, would it therefore make sense that the public could best be served by switching to a national health insurance system but not making doctors "government employees," as in the case in many countries with universal health insurance.

You referred to events of 1994-95. I referred to events of 2003, which was one of the years incuded in the study. Make up your own mind which is applicable...

The events are comparable, however, in the sense that (and my point was that) the 94-95 incident cast some doubt on your "it couldn't happen here in America" argument.

What they are "considered" is irrelevant. How their functions are structured is what is at issue. Please stay on topic.

Is every doctor who doesn't refuse service to Medicare or Medicaid patients a "public employee" then? Do they all have 2-month spring vacations?

Irrelevant to the discussion.

Not irrelevant to the point you tried to make

Yes, I congratulate your team on covering each others' mistakes quite well. Unfortunately, you collecitvely continue to ignore the points I made concerning hazardous occupations, under-identification and under-reporting, and the propensity for this group to delay care until medical events reach a critical stage.

There's no need to ignore them... rather it makes more sense to combine them with the "small minority" status of illegal immigrants, in addition to their tendency to be younger and healthier + increased likelihood of dying from unknown causes (meaning that you can't pick one from the list), which would suggest an overall neutral effect on the results, or a very small negative or positive effect with no legitimate reason to believe that it would significantly skew the rankings, or to claim that they're "the culprit" when other factors (no universal healthcare, more profit-motive involvement than almost all the other developed countries, with treatment often being more profitable than cure or prevention) Maybe without all the illegal immigrants we'd be in 10th place instead, or 13th. That shouldn't make you feel better.

I think what people think is less relevant than whether or not they are alive and enjoying a good level of health

And judging by both yardsticks appears to produce similar results

[Yeledaf]

Originally Posted by fishmonger

Without contesting the probably contestable validity of this statement, would it therefore make sense that the public could best be served by switching to a national health insurance system but not making doctors "government employees," as in the case in many countries with universal health insurance.

That's a different, and broader, topic.

The events are comparable, however, in the sense that (and my point was that) the 94-95 incident cast some doubt on your "it couldn't happen here in America" argument.

It may cast some doubts; it does not, however, materially affect the blatant flaws in the study in question, and remains part of the other conversation which you would prefer to have, but which is not the subject of this thread.

y doctor who doesn't refuse service to Medicare or Medicaid patients a "public employee" then?

By what possible yardstick would that be true? And how does it affect the flawed comparison of the US and French public health system which constitutes the OP?

no need to ignore them... rather it makes more sense to combine them with the "small minority" status of illegal immigrants, in addition to their tendency to be younger and healthier + increased likelihood of dying from unknown causes (meaning that you can't pick one from the list), which would suggest an overall neutral effect on the results, or a very small negative or positive effect with no legitimate reason to believe that it would significantly skew the rankings. Maybe without all the illegal immigrants we'd be in 10th place instead, or 13th. That shouldn't make you feel better.

Pure speculation on your part, underlining the veracity of my point: that any use of illegal immigrants in a study of this kind is by definition haphazard and lends itself to speculative conclusions. The "10th or13th place" remark is a remarkably accurate paraphrasing of one of saganista's early efforts in this thread. I know you don't plagiarize, so you must be gratified to be so well attuned to each others' methodology.

And judging by both yardsticks appears to produce similar results

Meaning that their anecdotal ratings are of questionable value? Agreed.

[fishmonger]

By what possible yardstick would that be true? And how does it affect the flawed comparison of the US and French public health system which constitutes the OP?

Because it wasn't a comparison of the US and France, but rather a comparison of US and other healthcare systems in the developed world, most of which having some type of universal national insurance but many not treating doctors as government employees, despite the fact that they accept money from the government as payment for services provided to patients, as do providers for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Pure speculation on your part, underlining the veracity of my point: that any use of illegal immigrants in a study of this kind is by definition haphazard and lends itself to speculative conclusions. The "10th or13th place" remark is a remarkably accurate paraphrasing of one of saganista's early efforts in this thread. I know you don't plagiarize, so you must be gratified to be so well attuned to each others' methodology.

I don't know what you're talking about with the second sentence-- I'm probably not going to read back over the whole thread to find out. If it's all pure speculation then why are you so determined to speculate in the direction of "they cause this and that and every problem in the US healthcare industry that has been measured by biased studies that don't take them into account..." isn't that mere speculation?

Meaning that their anecdotal ratings are of questionable value? Agreed.

What do you mean by "anecdotal ratings?"

[Yeledaf]

Originally Posted by saganista

Look into the Lancet/Hopkins study on Iraq's Summer of 2003...

Exposed as a fraud and a lie. Funded by Soros.

More slowballs, please.

[Yeledaf]

Originally Posted by fishmonger

Because it wasn't a comparison of the US and France, but rather a comparison of US and other healthcare systems in the developed world, most of which having some type of universal national insurance but many not treating doctors as government employees, despite the fact that they accept money from the government as payment for services provided to patients, as do providers for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Well, that's nice. I'm glad you're up on that topic.

I don't know what you're talking about with the second sentence-- I'm probably not going to read back over the whole thread to find out. If it's all pure speculation then why are you so determined to speculate in the direction of "they cause this and that and every problem in the US healthcare industry that has been measured by biased studies that don't take them into account..." why isn't that mere speculation?

I'm talking about how you, bly4, and saggy seem to echo each other throughout this thread. Almost as if you're taking turns. I didn't say that any "they" caused "this and that and every problem." I did point out that unspecified and undefined populations would tend to skew any research. Don't you agree?

What do you mean by "anecdotal ratings?"

I mean this (from a post of yours several pages back):

"...the fact that we have among the lowest satisfaction rates in the developed world for our system"...

You know. "The Survey Says": In the bathroom with the plumber!

[fishmonger]

I'm talking about how you, bly4, and saggy seem to echo each other throughout this thread. Almost as if you're taking turns.

We're all the same person.

I didn't say that any "they" caused "this and that and every problem." I did point out that unspecified and undefined populations would tend to skew any research. Don't you agree?

There was another thread a while back where you attempted to discredit another comparative study (one on income mobility) by using the "it's all the illegals" argument as well. The only way to know they would skew the research would be to know that the population was a skew-worthy one (as would be the case with an influx of polio-stricken refugees), which has not been shown as the different factors involving illegal immigrants and health appear to cancel each other out, suggesting a small or neutral effect.

I mean this (from a post of yours several pages back):

"...the fact that we have among the lowest satisfaction rates in the developed world for our system"...

You know. "The Survey Says": In the bathroom with the plumber!

If that's all you're talking about then your sentence that I responded to that generated this response makes no sense.

[Yeledaf]

Originally Posted by fishmonger

We're all the same person.

That's funny. You don't look alike.

There was another thread a while back where you attempted to discredit another comparative study (one on income mobility) by using the "it's all the illegals" argument as well. The only way to know they would skew the research would be to know that the population was a skew-worthy one (as would be the case with an influx of polio-stricken refugees), which has not been shown as the different factors involving illegal immigrants and health appear to cancel each other out, suggesting a small or neutral effect.

It's so unlike me to say it's "all" everything. I think you may have me confused with your favorite poker opponent -- the one from the blind school. As far as getting skewed is concerned: make sure to use a condom. No, seriously -- don't the facts that we neither know how many illegals are here, and what their actual public health profile is like, tend to cast some doubt on any research which purports to accurately describe the actual population of the United States?

If that's all you're talking about then your sentence that I responded to that generated this response makes no sense.

Oh, okay. Someone must have just intuited that "satisfaction" stuff that you referred to for the hell of it. All's fair in love, war, and America-bashing...

[fishmonger]

It's so unlike me to say it's "all" everything. I think you may have me confused with your favorite poker opponent -- the one from the blind school. As far as getting skewed is concerned: make sure to use a condom. No, seriously -- don't the facts that we neither know how many illegals are here, and what their actual public health profile is like, tend to cast some doubt on any research which purports to accurately describe the actual population of the United States?

Not when it's unlikely that the group makes up more than 5% of the whole population.

[saganista]

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

I would accept that fact if it were indeed factual.

No, you wouldn't. Facts are not the essential drivers in your world. Like most right-wingers, you feel free to ignore them whenever expedient from a partisan standpoint. Your purpose in this thread is not to examine fact at all, but rather to defend the dignity of The Flag and Lady Liberty against the insult of crude America-bashers who would suggest that France...France, mind you...outperforms the US by a considerable and persistent margin in terms of preventing amenable deaths. The facts be damned. Surrender is not an option. Sacred honor is at stake here.

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

On the contrary: the attention I have received from other posters demostrates not that I lack credibility...

It may or may not be true that you lack credibility, but by far the majority of critical posts in this thread has undermined (quite seriously) the credibility of not you, but your serially foundering arguments. You have chosen to take up a battle against overwhleming odds and are losing it in a rather lop-sided manner. Perhaps in retrospect, this should simply be taken as having been an example of poor decision-making on your part...

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

...but that they -- and you -- are unable to refute the perfectly legitimate criticisms which I have directed toward the study cited in the OP.

The C-D cleaning crew cannot have been happy over the rubble of crumbled <yeledaf> claims that has been left strewn about this thread.

[saganista]

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

Chalk up what you wish. The fact remains that government employees both rig the system to their benefit (French doctors / August vacations) and resist substantive change to their sweet deal and carpet-bomb any criticism (our pal saganista / the bloated federal bureacracy).

Have we examined the arrangements under which the vacation schedules of French doctors are/were supposedly determined? Perhaps I missed that. Perhaps evidence of selfish 'system rigging' by French doctors was introduced at that time. There is certainly none presented above. I would have wondered in any such discussion whether French demand for medical services in August regularly plunges as potential patients themselves flock to the beaches during that month. Certainly Washington DC experiences ghost-town effects in August, despite the now near universal availability of air conditioning. It would not be surprising to see the same elsewhere.

Otherwise, you might (with any degree of impartiality) have noted that valid criticisms have a marked tendency to fall into the Not Carpet-bombed category. It is typically only the contorted slop that is thrown up by some as if it were valid criticism that receives such treatment.

As for the bloated federal bureaucracy cliche, it is quite true that padding has been added these past seven years, quite in contrast to the streamlining that came about under the Reinvent Government initiatives of the prior administration.

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

<shrug> You referred to events of 1994-95. I referred to events of 2003, which was one of the years incuded in the study. Make up your own mind which is applicable...

There is no mind making-up to be done. The study is of morbidity rates as those relate to amenable deaths. You hadn't bothered to read the study well enough to understand its purpose or definitions, and hence thought you could make some partisan hay with your overblown heatwave wailings. This despite the fact that worse, though thankfully more localized, outcomes have been observed in the very well air-conditioned US itself. There is nothing in the heatwave chapter of this thread which has any bearing at all on the OP survey methods or outcomes. These still show the US ranking 19th out of 19, just as they did at the start.

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

What they are "considered" is irrelevant. How their functions are structured is what is at issue. Please stay on topic.

It may not, as you suggest, be an integral part of the current topic, but the stuctures of governmental involvement in health care are quite important to the debate over improving health care access and outcomes in the US. The right-wing is ever quick to assume broad-scale nationalization of everything remotely related to medical care when many other models are possible. These folks appear not just unwilling to participate in the debate honestly, but unwilling to conduct the debate at all.

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

Yes, I congratulate your team on covering each others' mistakes quite well. Unfortunately, you collecitvely continue to ignore the points I made concerning hazardous occupations, under-identification and under-reporting, and the propensity for this group to delay care until medical events reach a critical stage.

The points are rather desperate attempts at the emergency manufacture of silk purses out of sows' ears. Which hazardous occupations typically engaged in by the illegal immigrant community are highly correlated with amenable deaths? Are busboys somehow more susceptible to leukemia? Are landscapers any particular victims of appendicitis? Has an epidemic of Hodgkins Disease broken out amongst agricultural or perhaps meat-packing workers? Is the relationship between undocumented workers and the medical communtiy any different from that of documented workers or of plain old citizens who labor in the same socio-economic strata? Is the US in any case to be excused from responsibility for the effects of its having relegated one person in six to a situation of sharply diminished access to health care? These numbers go far, far beyond even the most overblown estimates of the illegal immigrant population. You have a lot more explaining to do than can be accomplished via the predictable red-herring of illegal immigration.

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

I think what people think is less relevant than whether or not they are alive and enjoying a good level of health -- especially among Americans, many of whom make it their life's work to complain anytime they are asked about anything, and who are constantly bombarded by media incitements to consider their health care system both less than optimal and the work of evil forces motivated solely by greed.

Unfortunately, what the subject and the majority of related reports and studies have shown is that fewer Americans are alive and enjoying a good level of health than ought be, and that these are fewer as well than in what is in the instant case eighteen out of eighteen other developed countries studied. These disgraceful results, accumulated now as they are over many years, ought to be a call to action. To some instead they are a call only to propaganda. In one ever more desperate wave after another...