Sober@#!@! look at how single-payer healthcare systems are actually fairing

[Herbivore 905]

The liberal attraction to making government the sole source of health-care insurance has not abated even as the deficiencies inObamaCare, a halfway move toward the single-payer model, have become increasingly evident. The question is whether growing signs of single-payer trouble overseas will be enough to discourage this country's flirtation with socialized medicine.

Opening paragraph written in biased tone with phrases such as liberal attraction, calling Obamacare a halfway move, and this country's flirtation with socialized medicine makes the claim that there are growing signs of trouble overseas with other single payer systems. Lets see what those troubles are.

The Obama administration showed its hand long ago with the nomination of Tom Daschle, an advocate for Britain's socialized National Health Service, as secretary of Health and Human Services in 2009. (Mr. Daschle withdrew amid criticism for nonpayment of taxes.) The White House installed another outspoken NHS fan, Donald Berwick, as an interim appointee (2010-11) to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

To start out Obummer tapped these 2 idiots, who were fans of UK's NHS, which Dr Atlas has already stated is showing signs of trouble, as Director for HHS. Those signs of trouble in the NHS coming up, most directly. Not sure what the point is here.

This summer, the Commonwealth Fund—a private foundation focused on health care that is a favorite of progressive policy types—issued a report ranking the NHS as the best medical system among those in 11 of the world's most advanced nations, including Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. Coming in last: U.S. health care.

Ok, not sure exactly where you are going with this. Is it the Commenwealth Fund, the progressive scum that they are, are making a false claim that the US is last on this list, and therefore in need of Obamacare. Because otherwise, it looks like NHS is doing well, and Daschle or Berwick being fans is justified.

Yet the Commonwealth rankings are contradicted by objective data about access and medical-care quality in peer-reviewed academic journals. For instance, Americans diagnosed with heart disease receive treatment with medications significantly more frequently than patients in Western Europe, according to Kenneth Thorpe in Health Affairs in 2007. In Lancet Oncology in that same year, Arduino Verdecchia published data demonstrating that American cancer patients have survival rates for all major cancers better than those in Western Europe and far better than in the U.K.

So here he tries to contradict the Commonwealth rankings. First claim, US gives more medication than WE. This statement alone does not show anything other than the treatment given in the US uses more medications. Second, this guy said this. These are 2 very weak points.

Similar examples concerning the deadliest and most significant diseases abound in medical journals. One may ask why the Commonwealth Fund's health-care rankings published in June don't reflect that reality. The answer lies in the report's methodology, which relied heavily on subjective surveys about "perceptions and experiences of patients and physicians."

There's more, believe me. No, lets try to discredit the Commonwealth fund, progressive liars that they are, some more. Maybe there just stupid.

Yet even as the single-payer system remains the ideal for many on the left, it's worth examining how Britain's NHS, established in 1948, is faring. The answer: badly. NHS England—a government body that receives about £100 billion a year from the Department of Health to run England's health-care system—reported this month that its hospital waiting lists soared to their highest point since 2006, with 3.2 million patients waiting for treatment after diagnosis. NHS England figures for July 2013 show that 508,555 people in London alone were waiting for operations or other treatments—the highest total for at least five years.

Lets examine how the NHS system is fairing...screw that, I'll tell you..its bad. There are no comparisons with other countries in this paragraph, it just says at the time of this report they have some higher numbers than they had previously. What are the numbers behind the soared to their highest point claim?

Even cancer patients have to wait: According to a June report by NHS England, more than 15% of patients referred by their general practitioner for "urgent" treatment after being diagnosed with suspected cancer waited more than 62 days—two full months—to begin their first definitive treatment.

This is another telling half the story piece of evidence. Is this uncommon comparatively to other countries? Of the suspected, how many actually have cancer? What kinds of cancer? What is meant by definitive treatment? Had they in those 62 days, met with a specialist, where they verified they have cancer and then set up a treatment plan?

In response the British government has enlisted private care for help, including most recently through the Health and Social Care Act 2012. In May last year, the Nuffield Trust, an independent research and policy institute, along with the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the U.K.'s leading independent microeconomic research institute, issued a report on NHS-funded private care. The report showed that over the past decade the NHS, desperate to reduce its ever-expanding rolls, has increasingly sent patients to private care. The share of NHS-funded hip and knee replacements by private doctors increased to 19% in 2011-12, from a negligible amount in 2003-04.

So the NHS is evolving with its growing population and healthcare needs. Sounds good.

In 2006-07, according to the report, the NHS spent £5.6 billion on private care outside its system. This increased by 55% to £8.7 billion in 2011-12, including a 76% rise in spending on nonprimary care, going to £8.3 billion from £4.7 billion, despite significant reductions in spending on private care attributed to the financial crisis.

Nothing to see here.

Britons who can afford to avoid the NHS are eager to do so. Even with a slight decrease due to the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, about six million British citizens buy private health insurance and about 250,000 choose to pay for private treatment out-of-pocket each year—though NHS insurance costs $3,500 annually for every British man, woman and child.

Some people with a lot of money buy more stuff. Got it.

The socialized-medicine model is struggling elsewhere in Europe as well. Even in Sweden, often heralded as the paradigm of a successful welfare state, months-long wait times for treatment routinely available in the U.S. have been widely documented.

Claim not backed with anything, but could be true. Documented where?

To fix the problem, the Swedish government has aggressively introduced private-market forces into health care to improve access, quality and choices. Municipal governments have increased spending on private-care contracts by 50% in the past decade, according to Näringslivets Ekonomifakta, part of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, a Swedish employers' association.

How did they do this aggressively? If you have private market forces in healthcare, that means that your socialized healthcare is a failure?

Swedish primary-care clinics and nursing facilities are increasingly run by the private sector or receive substantial public funding. Widespread private competition has also been introduced into pharmacies to tear down the previous government monopoly over all prescription and non-prescription drugs. Though Swedish economist Per Bylund calculates that the average Swedish family already pays nearly $20,000 annually in taxes toward health care, about 12% of working adults bought private insurance in 2013, a number that has increased by 67% in five years, according to the trade organization Insurance Sweden. Almost 600,000 Swedes now use private insurance, though they are "guaranteed" public health care.

$20,000 per family. How is that number being compared to the US? Is it $20,000 krona, cause that is $2,941 USD right now. Average monthly salary is about $21,000 krona per month($42000 for a couple). 5 years ago, 9% of the population bought private health insurance, now its 12%. Its gone up 3% pts, but that looks small, lets go with its gone up 67%. "gauranteed" - ha, ham handed at best.

The recent Veterans Affairs scandal, following the disastrous ObamaCare rollout, was a red flag about problems of nationalized health. Now concrete evidence is coming in from other countries that have tried it for decades. The reality is that the key goals for health-care reform—reducing spending, expanding access to affordable coverage, preserving personal choice and portability of coverage, promoting competition in insurance markets, and maintaining excellence in medicine—do not require government to directly provide insurance or health care.

The recent Veterans Affairs scandal could not have been a flag about possible problems with nationalized healthcare, it became known after the ACA. The VA has had its problems for years, but that wouldn't make Obummer look bad. The writer has not presented concrete evidence of really anything. Where is Obamacare going? This guy doesn't know.

Dr. Atlas is a physician and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

[naomi 343]

^I don't understand why his bias tone was being pointed out. He's openly bias.

 

As far as Sweeden 'aggressively' introducing private-market forces, you don't have to look far to find reports on it and 'aggressive' is a fair enough word to use. To discuss what failure is, what original intentions and beliefs were helps. Is the ideology good or should it be tweaked? I agree on the note that where you get to eventually isn't failure in of itself (failure would be the system crashing). For the purposes of opposing a policy- in this case what he believes is the ultimate desired policy of the ACA's most dogmatic supporters, talking about the ideology in it, like minimizing private-market forces, and the need that it was reworked somewhere else eventually is absolutely reasonable.

 

Re: the USD to krona tax burden comparison, this is an official Swedish site (their government offices are part of the project) talking about the high taxes in comparison to other countries. Their point is that Swedes are happy paying the taxes. That can of course be suspected for bias (although I also imagine there's a significant amount of Swedes that's true for) but the point is not 'hey, high taxes!' it's 'what are you getting in return.' Satisfaction has been increasing with the increase of private market forces.

 

The part of this that was least significant to me was the statistical points, because like he's reacting to himself, there's ways to bat for either team using the stats. Your red responses there, without analyzing them myself, I'm inclined to be good with.

[hoytdwow 202]

I don't understand why his bias tone was being pointed out. He's openly bias.

 

That's why it's not a "sober" look

[Herbivore 905]

That's why it's not a "sober" look

 

thank you

[naomi 343]

That's why it's not a "sober" look

 

People can be opinionated and have a sober message at the same time though. The most sobering messages usually come from stalwart positions. (That has more relevance in noble situations though). When I chose to use the word 'sober' it wasn't motivated out of 'sober because it wakes these idiots up' it was motivated out of 'let's look at if we want to go there.'

[TimmySmith 2,782]

That's why it's not a "sober" look

I guess I can't present a sober look 1930's Germany because I hate Hitler.

[Googballz 39]

They certainly spent a lot of time tearing apart the thread title. Good job fellas. Kudos.

 

 

The facts laid out in the article are another story..........

[Herbivore 905]

Christ reading comprehension is low around here.

 

 

The facts laid out in the article are another story..........

 

You are welcome to dissect my comments above.

[hoytdwow 202]

A sober look to me means objective. That's why it's sobering. Because it's free from ideological tells.

[Googballz 39]

Christ reading comprehension is low around here.

 

 

The facts laid out in the article are another story..........

 

You are welcome to dissect my comments above.

 

I stopped after your first sentence.........ya know, the one where you went right into crying about bias.

 

Here it is:

 

 

Opening paragraph written in biased tone

[Reality 2,710]

A sober look to me would imply a serious or sensible look at the subject at hand. You guys are hung up on his bias but, that doesn't mean his look at the subject isn't serious. I guess it could also imply non-biased but, that isn't a prerequisite.

 

Semantics... Always a solid argument angle..

[naomi 343]

A sober look to me means objective. That's why it's sobering. Because it's free from ideological tells.

 

That's fair. You can be opinionated and objective at the same time though. The problem isn't the tone for you and Herb, it's the substance.

 

eta: And I'm not saying in a "because you can't reckon with the actual substance" way. Herb spelled out why he took issue with it.

[drobeski 3,061]

A sober look to me means objective. That's why it's sobering. Because it's free from ideological tells.

unlike this reply

[cbfalcon 824]

 

That's fair. You can be opinionated and objective at the same time though.

.

Meh.

 

You can start off as objective and then come to a very strong opinion.

 

But when you enter into it with a strong opinion, and make no effort to see the other side of the issue, that's essentially the direct opposite of being objective.

[hoytdwow 202]

unlike this reply

wow, so unpredictable from the least objective poster on the bored

[naomi 343]

Meh.

 

You can start off as objective and then come to a very strong opinion.

 

But when you enter into it with a strong opinion, and make no effort to see the other side of the issue, that's essentially the direct opposite of being objective.

 

Meh you

 

It's possible to be objective and opinionated. Yes. If you want to talk about what this writer is...do that.

 

These are words you're reading right now.

 

Meh

 

If you did something else that had an effect on what's showing up, like entered an emoticon, they wouldn't all be words.

[IGotWorms 3,315]

[Herbivore 905]

I stopped after your first sentence.........ya know, the one where you went right into crying about bias.

 

Here it is:

 

 

Opening paragraph written in biased tone

 

You read it all, and you have nothing to say...chump.

[Googballz 39]

 

You read it all, and you have nothing to say...chump.

I wouldn't waste my time reading all of that hack drivel if you paid me.

[Frank M 181]

I wouldn't waste my time reading all of that hack drivel if you paid me.

 

That's what any thinking person (read-not you) thought about the article the OP posted.

 

Apparently Goog and his cronies can't even comprehend the meaning of the word objective. Sad.

 

What's worse is seeing naomi devolve into a partisan hack. She's never been one to put much thought into anything beyond what the bible said,anyways, but this new side makes her even less palatable.

[Reality 2,710]

 

Excellent.