Who wants a dose of socialized medicine?
After years of hearing the media and the politicians bash the state of US healthcare, I was pleasantly surprised to run across some real facts. The media doesn’t tout our fantastic advancements, our longevity, our world class care. Neither do the politicians…Hillary even MADE UP stories during her failed presidential bid to highlight how bad it is…remember this?
From the NYTimes:
Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.
But, as usual in politics, the facts were few and far between with plenty of embellishment:
But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.
The lies aside, what she was trying to do is use FEAR to motivate people to vote for her. Just like Bush used fear to motivate a war in Iraq, just like Obama uses fear to take over every bank in site.
What troubles me the most is how easily the facts are ignored. On the Mark Levin radio show last night, he read 10 facts about our healthcare system in the US, and how it compares to Socialized medicine in other countries…Canada, UK, Norway, Germany….the panaceas of how the left says it should be…
Please take the time to read these facts, they will surprise you I’m sure. I bet you’ve never heard such stuff mentioned on a platform, or nightly news show. To brag about the state of our union would undermine their cause to control every facet of our life…
Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.[1] Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.[2] Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.
Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.[3] Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.[4] Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate and colon cancer:
* Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
* Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a pap smear, compared to less than 90 percent of Canadians.
* More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a PSA test, compared to less than 1 in 6 Canadians (16 percent).
* Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with less than 1 in 20 Canadians (5 percent).Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent). Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”[5]
Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long – sometimes more than a year – to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer.[6] All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada.[7] In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.[8]
Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”[9]
Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared to only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).[10]
Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K. Maligned as a waste by economists and policymakers naïve to actual medical practice, an overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identified computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade.[11] [See the table.] The United States has 34 CT scanners per million Americans, compared to 12 in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has nearly 27 MRI machines per million compared to about 6 per million in Canada and Britain.[12]
Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.[13] The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single developed country.[14] Since the mid-1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to American residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined.[15] In only five of the past 34 years did a scientist living in America not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.[16] [See the table.]
Conclusion. Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.
So, who’s up for a healthy dose of socialized medicine now?
This article was originally posted by Jason Blanchard on Not In My Green House.
14 Responses to “Who wants a dose of socialized medicine?”
I thoroughly enjoyed this article. It is a breath of fresh air to get some real facts out there, without the political spin that both parties use. I think that simple, straight-forward talk like this really hits home with people. I believe that the only candidate Republicans can tap that will have a shot at unseating Obama will be one who relays facts in these simple terms. No more political spin-doctors, just someone who can say look. How can you refute this?
If any readers are interested in more facts on healthcare in the US, check out Sean Hannity’s book ‘Let Freedom Ring.’ It has a good long chapter on healtchare in America.
I was also pleasantly surprised to read this article and hear the argument that isn’t ever made.
Hillary Clinton’s little story is pretty funny and not at all surprising. But I think when we here the politicians tell tales like this, we generally believe it and then start thinking about how high our insurance bills are, prescriptions cost, and we start thinking about how nice it would be to not have to deal with any of that. What if we could just go to the doctor’s office and be seen when we have flu symptoms, be seen and get a prescription without receiving a bill.
But unless you ignore reality, you know doctors and pharma companies aren’t working for free, so the payment has to come from somewhere. Undoubtedly our healthcare costs are expensive and the laws related to it are ridiculous and cause a lot of unneeded suffering in this country, but the answer is not to hand it over to the government.
Consider Congressman Ron Paul’s recent article on this. He’s a 30-year OB-GYN (of course he did go to dook).
Read here: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=97
Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSNfkrOHHg4&feature=player_embedded
oh yeah, and I don’t know if I agree with you that
“the only candidate Republicans can tap that will have a shot at unseating Obama will be one who relays facts in these simple terms.”
But I sure hope you’re right!
Here are a few facts for you to contemplate:
The cost of healthcare in the US has risen from about 8% of GDP in the 80’s to 17% today. CBO predicts it to rise to the mid-20’s w/o fundamental change. When people talk about deficits in the out years it’s healthcare spending driving them.
In our current system none of the major players has an incentive to do more for less. Manufacturing for example had to learn to make more better for less to survive. Healthcare is the only modern industry I know of where every capital improvement raises cost instead of lowering them.
In 2005 the NY insurance companies made $5B in profit while the state’s hospitals lost $600M.
There are three separate studies out between CBO/Rand/AEI and Dartmouth that show a 25-29% differential in the cost of healthcare w/o a difference in outcomes. IOW’s we simply do more testing and procedures in some places than others. Best practices alone could shave 25% off the cost of healthcare.
This is a broken system that is driving our companies (see GM for ex.) and our government to bankruptcy.
Not sure what side Donald is trying to argue here- though I would agree healthcare needs a rehaul- I am obligated to point out that the rise in healthcare cost is directly related to HMOs. These HMO costs force up the cost for those of us with insurance, and especially for those of us who have employer based insurance- since they can charge extreme amounts the people never see. What we need is not to increase HMOs, or increase government control, but to decrease that. The more everyday Americans have to see the cost, the less the demand, and the lower the costs.
I think what Donald is doing (and correct me if I’m wrong Donald) is just continuing Jason’s argument, bolstering it with some additional facts that should upset us even more.
For example – the fact that NY insurance companies made a $5B profit while state hospitals lost $600M.
When I read that, I wonder how anyone can NOT put at least part of the blame of the high cost of healthcare on insurance companies. My favorite part of your response Donald:
“In our current system none of the major players has an incentive to do more for less. Manufacturing for example had to learn to make more better for less to survive. Healthcare is the only modern industry I know of where every capital improvement raises cost instead of lowering them.”
That says it all imo. Why is it flat screens, DVD players, laptops, and ipods are cheaper and better every year and yet health care never, EVER goes down? I’m willing to bet most of America hasn’t even wondered about that comparison. I don’t think it’s out of stupidity either, but this is never talked about in the mainstream dialogue of our country. All anyone knows is “universal healthcare” = free, private healthcare = paid.
Ryan –
I don’t know as much about HMO’s as I’d like, but I agree with you. Any ideas on how to loosen the grip of HMO’s? Repeal legislation requiring healthcare benefits? Something else?
I for one would love to support the few doctors who do not accept insurance. I’ve heard they’re out there, but I guess my own laziness has kept me from finding them. It seems like a direct contract of payment for services between the doctor and patient (and no one else) would do so much to improve the quality of care AND help week out all the idiots who should have never gone to Med school.
Obama Nation: The Road to Socialism.
If the democrats would do something about the illegals, instead they give them freebies and we will have to foot the bill. No wonder california is going broke. Also, the healthcare plan that congress is looking into this week is another set in stone socialism that Obama’s puppetter is hauling in. First, it was the media outlets (except for Fox News), banks, financial offices, government motors, Californiaais coming up with health care, schools and newspapers. We will be a communist nation before the end of the year. We will be running with the illegal immigrates to the borders.
Here are the points I’m making:
1) Whether you like the current system or not is irrelevant, it’s bankrupting us very quickly. That is not an opinion but a fact.
2) What is the insurance company supposed to do? Assuage risk. They really don’t do that anymore. The law of large numbers and their ability to deny coverage to individuals guarantees them to assuage risk. So they take 14-20% off the top of every healthcare dollar for doing bupkus. They manipulate the system to have a monopolistic advantage based on geography.
3) The system is corrupt b/c it lacks any factor to control cost by any player in the channel of distribution. When best practices alone could reduce cost by 25-29% and it’s ignored how is the system self correcting?
4) When you go to an autoparts store they have a much richer data base system than anyone in healthcare. Every car and every component for every car ever built is stored and accessible by every autoparts store. As you travel the channel of distribution in healthcare no one knows what anyone else is treating you for or what was prescribed.
5) Go to your average hospital and compare the management structure to any manufacturing plant or large service organization. What you’ll find is layer upon layer of management waiting to be eliminated but won’t be b/c there is no compelling pressure to streamline the organization. Same thing applies to any private practice. Why should we not have a single remittance form for insurance? Why does every player in healthcare have a different form to capture data? Do you have any idea how much that costs?
In short your article is pretty lame b/c it doesn’t deal with the problem. It’s not about politics of private vs public. It’s about reform and the current system has to many vested interests to ever be reformed.
Intuitively a single payer system for basic care makes the most sense. Then allow each individual to purchase additional coverage as their budget allows. That will put tremendous pressure on the system itself for reform and bring competition into play that does not currently exist.
How does a “single payer system” (a nice way of saying government monopoly), create competition? I don’t see a logical leap that can be made from the government paying off doctors and surgeons equally as creating competition amongst anyone.
Ryan
How does competition exist today? Can you buy healthcare competitively? If you get a good deal in one state can I purchase that deal in my state?
Most small businesses in NC have one option Blue Cross & Blue Shield. And that’s competition?
What do you think the current insurance companies do for their 15-20% that they scoop off of every health care dollar? They certainly use the laws of large numbers to assuage risk. Essentially they perform the paperwork in the system.
What is their incentive to hold down costs?
For all the squealing about single payer it most closely emulates what we have now but w/o the 15-20% off the top.
Donald,
I did not say that today’s system does represent competitive capitalism and that is my entire point (refer to another post I made regarding HMOs). Essentially BCBS is a single payer system for small businesses and you are complaining about the cost. So now we will have that at a national level? Does that make any sense? No.
The way to make things competitive is have everyone buy their own healthcare. Don’t have it done through employers. The people just assume “oh my money is going to healthcare.” But the employer doesn’t care how much it costs to pay it off. If people were not blindly paying for healthcare through their employer, they would not purchase the products and services at current prices. End of story. Give the people that extra money back into their wages and: 1) consumer spending on other goods will increase 2) demand for these medical services will go down as people realize they aren’t worth whats charged, which will shift the demand curve down, some doctors will leave b/c profits are less, shifting the demand curve down as well, which means an even greater decrease in medical costs.
Ryan
You really don’t understand how healthcare works. For example, HMO’s have failed for the most part. They simply attempt to limit care. That is not the best way to reform healthcare.
As I have posted there are multiple studies done now by CBO & Dartmouth that show a 25-29% differential on healthcare costs due to geography. IOW’s fee for service in some areas is overused w/o any change in outcomes for patients. Best practice reform lowers the cost of healthcare.
The essential problem we have today is that for the purposes of assuaging risk insurance companies really stick it to small business and single purchases of insurance. While making consumers responsible for their health care seems like a good idea incorporating it into our current system would be a disaster. Some individuals would pay very little (the young for example) while older people would be forced out of the system as their utilization rate increases with their premiums.
BC/BS rubs about 20% of every healthcare dollar off into their pockets. Single payer would take a 4th of that or less. Having one form to fill out instead of the maze of forms required today for various providers would save admin costs.
The cost of healthcare is the problem not the utilization of healthcare. The cost isn’t driven by utilization but by a lack of any incentives in the system to lower costs.
With 25-29% available due to best practice utilization and 10-15% available by going to single payer (that would not advertize or market or make a profit) that’s your reform.
Donald,
You really don’t understand how to grasp what someone else is saying. I didn’t say we should use HMOs to reform the current system. I advocated against HMOs.
You can smooth talk as much as you want with “single payer system” costing less. It will not increase competition in any way shape or form. The government will CHOOSE the price, that is what single payer is. A monopoly over the system, in which they get to choose the price. That will not increase competition. Single payer systems have been initiated in other countries and been proven to fail the citizens considerably.
Here’s a chilling little article I found:
“Health Care Bill Will Fund State Vaccine Teams to Conduct ‘Interventions’ in Private Homes” – http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=51115