Unbelievable...Even for them!

[Parts Unknown]

ROFL. No wonder your so bitter, hateful,

No no, it's p-a-t-h-o-l-o-g-y, not o-b-g-y-n.

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[JaggerPlate]

No no, it's p-a-t-h-o-l-o-g-y, not o-b-g-y-n.

HAHAHAHA ... that was actually really funny. That + Ash avatar + Andy Bernard quote under your name ... we really should be friends, but alas.

 

[Atom bum]

A response to what??? My role in the republicans loosing money for the past four years???

You also missed it in the other thread when parts was comparing Republicans to stroke victims. Classy, appropriate, and funny ... again, it works both ways.

I didn't mean to get personal I'm just having a bad week. I really have nothing against you having your own POV. It's just easy to take things out of hand when in an anonymous setting.
It does work both ways.

 

[JaggerPlate]

It's just easy to take things out of hand when in an anonymous setting.

Haha you're preaching to the choir man. Plus, you were fine. No worries.

 

[Dr Oops]

Just going to drop a little raw info and try to keep opinion out of it (Im generally only slightly left of center, so it wont be too hard).

The facts are this. America spends MUCH more per person on healthcare than any nation in europe and north and south america. Its neither good nor bad (i'll get to that) its just a fact at the moment.

When WHO takes stats they are not skewed. Believe me on this one. They are raw data and the information isnt counted differently. I actually heard that argument put forward once on ABC (I would love to say fox, but not everything can fit the stereotype) and political nuts, doctor and statisticians went NUTS on ABC's forums because it was so untrue (and yes i saw cited examples in their arguments). We really do rank as among the lowest of all the 'westernized' societies in many of our health determinants.

As a statistic, which represents an average of all american healthcare, our current system does bad. BUT this is because we have a system of two sides. It turns out if you compare those with private health insurance (esp if its above some threshold of pay, but i forget what it is) we have one of the strongest healthcare systems. But this doesnt change the cost or the fact that you only get that by removing those on gov't healthcare and/or without healthcare.

Gov't healthcare (medicare medicaid) patients alone show higher results than our 'average'. Its not competitive with most of europe, but it isnt as deficient as the stats tossed around make us look either.

It is the uninsured who have such terrible outcomes time and time again in our system (again, as a statistic. im sure everyone has an anecdote about some homeless person who received miracle care on the penny of every other taxpayer and is now the ast manager at the local starbucks and rents an apartment). We have such a large uninsured population who 1) do not go to seek care until it is dire and 2) when they do seek care are given the absolute minimum since pay per procedure drives the whole machine.

What we *NEED* to fix is the uninsured. The important question is how do we do that? Argue amongst yourselves about if its a right or not, but you can do a google search right now and find out that actuaries pretty much all agree that it is cheaper to give someone bottom of the line healthcare for free or at low price and have them use it than to have an uninsured person never use healthcare until it requires massive treatments they cant afford and get passed onto the tax payers. In short, uninsured people cost us more than insuring them. Thats pretty much agreed fact on both sides, but i find that both sides (and i'll be honest reps more than dems, but both) ignore that fact when it contradicts the point they are trying to make.

Now is the proposed system right? I have plenty of opinions and I, like everyone else, think i'm qualified to spout on and on about them. but this doesnt seem like a good forum to do so to me. Just wanted everyone to keep in mind that we ARE the most expensive system, and we ARE among the lowest performing 'modern' systems. But its not across the board, its because we are massively deficit in 1 category of our citizenry, quite good at another category and amazing at the third. And that deficient third brings us all down statistically.

plus... they cost everyone money. We need to do something. Feel free to argue amongst yourselves as to what you can do about them and how it will cost or save money til you're blue in the face. Thats the right argument to focus on first. Dont lose the forest for the trees, as the saying goes.

EDIT: wow. if you read all of this, im impressed with your dedication. I started typing and never knew it was gonna be this long. my bad guys.

"WHO’s assessment system was based on five indicators: overall level of population health; health inequalities (or disparities) within the population; overall level of health system responsiveness (a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system acts); distribution of responsiveness within the population (how well people of varying economic status find that they are served by the health system); and the distribution of the health system’s financial burden within the population (who pays the costs)."

those are the criteria for the WHO rankings. While access to healthcare is a problem, its not give a proper rating of the quality of healthcare provided. The associated costs while important, should not be considered in the actual quality criteria. Also patient satisfaction is a horrible marker for whether people are gettin appriopriate care. So out of all those he most pertinent data used is health of the population. Now I'm sure the uninsured not seekin care adds to his number; however I think the fact that 2 out of 3 adults are obese/overweight and 1 of out 4 kids is overweight plays a muh greater role in our poor health ratings. No amount of free healthcare is going to stop people from eating big macs.

Also the WHO ratings were done 10 years ago

 

[Parts Unknown]

HAHAHAHA ... that was actually really funny. That + Ash avatar + Andy Bernard quote under your name ... we really should be friends, but alas.

Oh, don't be such a baby. None of this is in any way personal. When it comes to health care, you are absolutely right, I'm very liberal. Compared to the conventional conservative approach, liberalism simply meshes much better with my own personal philosophy about the overarching mission of medical practice (although I often find this philosophy overlapping with that of many churches, which should not surprising given the strong roots that our hospital system has in religious organizations. Jesus was a hippie, and all that).

In everything else, I think you find my opinions difficult to classify.

 

[JaggerPlate]

Oh, don't be such a baby. None of this is in any way personal. When it comes to health care, you are absolutely right, I'm very liberal. Compared to the conventional conservative approach, liberalism simply meshes much better with my own personal philosophy about the overarching mission of medical practice (although I often find this philosophy overlapping with that of many churches, which should not surprising given the strong roots that our hospital system has in religious organizations. Jesus was a hippie, and all that).

In everything else, I think you find my opinions difficult to classify.

Oh Jesus, I was kidding. Everything is fine.

 

[matrica]

Newsweek article on Healthcare:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/234953?GT1=43002

Read comments too.

 

[JaggerPlate]

Newsweek article on Healthcare:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/234953?GT1=43002

Read comments too.

Hmm ... interesting.

 

[cliffhuxtableDO]

Oh, don't be such a baby. None of this is in any way personal. When it comes to health care, you are absolutely right, I'm very liberal. Compared to the conventional conservative approach, liberalism simply meshes much better with my own personal philosophy about the overarching mission of medical practice (although I often find this philosophy overlapping with that of many churches, which should not surprising given the strong roots that our hospital system has in religious organizations. Jesus was a hippie, and all that).

In everything else, I think you find my opinions difficult to classify.

Oh Jesus, I was kidding. Everything is fine.

You guys are either married, brothers, or have been best friends for about a decade.

 

[JaggerPlate]

You guys are either married, brothers, or have been best friends for about a decade.

Engaged

 

[cliffhuxtableDO]

Engaged

 

[DocEspana]

"WHO’s assessment system was based on five indicators: overall level of population health; health inequalities (or disparities) within the population; overall level of health system responsiveness (a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system acts); distribution of responsiveness within the population (how well people of varying economic status find that they are served by the health system); and the distribution of the health system’s financial burden within the population (who pays the costs)."

those are the criteria for the WHO rankings. While access to healthcare is a problem, its not give a proper rating of the quality of healthcare provided. The associated costs while important, should not be considered in the actual quality criteria. Also patient satisfaction is a horrible marker for whether people are gettin appriopriate care. So out of all those he most pertinent data used is health of the population. Now I'm sure the uninsured not seekin care adds to his number; however I think the fact that 2 out of 3 adults are obese/overweight and 1 of out 4 kids is overweight plays a muh greater role in our poor health ratings. No amount of free healthcare is going to stop people from eating big macs.

Also the WHO ratings were done 10 years ago

Just a quick fact check. The uninsured represent 15% of america (2001 count, figure is cited as still accurate as of 2009 by right leaning think tanks, so if its not accurate, its under-representing the %). Obese adults represent 31.2% (2008 count) of the american adult population and obese children have been estimated to be 12-16% of the child population as of mid 2009. The only "count" statistic i can find for children combines overweight and obese (which are two very distinctly different categories based on health impact) and that has it at 32% for both categories combined as of late 2008/early 2009. Your numbers are way off

Now what impact does this have on your argument? That its a 'no duh' argument that proper lifestyle is a major deterrant to many illnesses and disorders, but that your estimates of its impact are off by two fold and your estimates of the impact of the uninsured is, probably, undervalued. Insuring people would up the overall measure of our treatment.

now health disparities INCLUDES uninsured percentage, so youre entire argument was flawed there. Addressing you other argument that overall population health is important. But saying the uninsured anything less than a major impact on the overall health of the populace as seen by WHO is like saying that snow has nothing to do with precipitation totals in New England. Sure rain may be what you think of first and what you initially want measured, but snow makes up a huge proportion of the year long precipitation. Enough to be incredibly significant important.

numerous studies show, not surprisingly, that the lowest socioeconomic classes tend to be the most frequently obese. A JAMA article in 2000 even pointed out that obese tend to be uninsured two or more times frequently than non-obese. So the ideas of diets and uninsured are linked, though i'm leaning towards both being characteristic of low socioeconomic and not that no health insurance makes you fat

i just imagined how happy it would make insurance companies to know that not using them makes you fat.