Of course everyone would prefer if everything were better all the time, but complaints about the US system and clearly not on the same plane as those about UK’s.
It was sad when we had to use personal connections to get grandma a meal and room after 12 hours in the corridor.
No insurance or national coverage, just low overhead and high skill.
We are #37 according to the world health organization and we cost twice as much.
I'm sure people in France complain, but they have way less of a reason to.
Some reasons for the cost savings: universal, portable medical record, insurance companies have to remit with three business days, reference pricing, one system not medicare, VA, private. Private insurance companies don't make tons of money they are so well regulated...
Old source but still painfully relevant. I have seen these stats elsewhere as well: https://www.npr.org/2008/07/11/92419273/health-care-lessons-...
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)33326-3
Our system has plenty of problems but let's make sure that any reforms don't ruin the best parts.
> We are #37 according to the world health organization and we cost twice as much.
Note that ranks alone are not sufficient to evaluate this comparison. If the top 40 countries for Healthcare outcomes all had near-equivalent mortality rates, e.g., it wouldn't necessarily be a problem to be #37.
That said, they don't have equivalent mortality rates, so the ranks do happen to discriminate quite a bit.
Yes, we complain about our medical system, especially as several provinces are pushing to privatize the system.
But, after the belly-aching, we all agree that at least our system in not an exploitative gong show like the US system.
Doctor visits are still hundreds of dollars out of pocket.
I'll take 1 out of 3 instead of 0 out of 3.
Source: MIL is a former nurse, former-VA claims processor. She found both the level of coverage, and the rules she had to follow to deny it, and the hoops her patients had to jump through to get treatment were utterly insane.
Everyone here likes starting wars. We're very good at starting wars. Starting wars, and support-the-troops pins are cheap. We really don't like paying for the cost of war, though. That's expensive.
Well, most of Europe' social welfare systems were wiped out by the end of 1945 and were then rebooted with forethought and precedent of what not to do. The US is an archaic hodgepodge of systems over a 100 years old and were created with no precedent to model from.
People defend this system because their lives and livelihood are tied to it. It is dumb, but without a thing like a world war to wipe the slate clean it is what we have to work with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_health_care_reform_...
Or if that wiki is wrong, feel free to correct it.
In other words, I don't think it's the age that's the problem. It's that most European countries don't mind as much having their national government run things while the US tends to push more federalistic/distributed systems.
In fact, I doubt most people in 1942 would have even thought about the federal government's ability to regulate healthcare. Wickard v. Filburn was decided in November, which is the case that really opened the interstate commerce clause. Heart of Atlanta Motel v. US wouldn't happen until 1964, only then finally allowing federal laws to prevent restaurants from discriminating racially. If the federal government can't even set standards for restaurants it's rather hard to argue they have the ability to regulate hospitals and healthcare that happens inside a state. Medicare wouldn't get founded until 1965, it's not a bit coincidence this happened after SC decisions widening the interstate commerce clause.
The powers of the federal government looked extremely different in 1942 than they do today.
The healthcare industry (it should not be an "industry") in the US is all about extracting maximum profit for the benefit of middlemen.
In a rational system, the only people who should be involved in health care are the patients and the providers (doctors, nurses, technicians, etc) who actually provide health care. Nobody else should be involved, let alone skimming profits from the care.
In the US both the providers and the patients are just an afterthought, the whole system is set up to extract maximum profit to the hospital and clinic administrators and, most and worst of all, to the insurance industry. The latter of course contributes nothing at all in therms of actual health care, it's pure profiteering.
The solutions are quite simple, but they don't maximize the share price and CxO bonuses at insurance companies so it's not possible to implement them in the US.
While I agree with the sentiment, hospitals require management to run well. They certainly don't need the amount of overhead they have, but it can't just be doctors, nurses and patients. Maybe in very small hospitals you could actually have doctors manage schedules and things like that, but once you reach a few dozen people you'll want to have someone coordinating availability and to deal with scheduling at the very least.
It's easy to say that only patients and providers should be involved with healthcare. But what do you propose to do with patients who need expensive treatments and can't afford to pay? Some level of cost and risk sharing is always going to be necessary, and that's where the complexities and politics come in.
That further regulation could be a good thing, but it would have to be substantially different from the way things are currently regulated.
"After treatment for an acute illness, hospitals often discharge homeless patients, who wind up back in shelters or even back into their sidewalk tents and makeshift lean-tos, in what health practitioners in Phoenix ruefully call “treat-and-street.” ... A pinball effect takes hold, said health-care providers, shelter operators and advocates. Homeless people bounce from homeless shelter to hospital, then to a nursing home for a short-term recuperation stay. Once that short-term stay ends, nursing homes must decide if the person is infirm enough to qualify for long-term care. If the answer is no, they must leave the nursing home, starting the cycle over again."
The defenders of the system are entirely medical workers and owners.
The various medical lobbies/cartels are incredibly strong.
No, that's not correct. Doctors and nurses largely despise the US system. They are incredibly overworked and streched too thin to provide great care (and most of them are in it at least partially because they enjoy caring for people).
The US system only benefits the middlemen who provide no healtcare value: insurance companies and hospita/clinic adminitrators.
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders?cy...