U.S. Healthcare System Among the Developed World's Least Effective and Efficient

Universal Healthcare is Superior

The US presidential and mid-term elections evoked considerable controversy about the reforms of the American healthcare, while British visitors were struck by the frequent mention of the apparent failings of the NHS.

This led us to ask the question how cost effective and productively efficient is the US
healthcare system, compared with the other Western countries and the UK in particular?

(hint: Americans spend 50% more of our GDP than the Brits do on their health care, for worse results)

Conclusion: In cost-effective terms, i.e. economic input versus clinical output, the USA healthcare system was one of the least cost-effective in reducing mortality rates whereas the UK was one of the most cost effective over the period.

 

A lot of it is ideological. I'm reminded of a group of Muslims in the 14th century in the region now known as Vietnam. They tended to marry their first cousins. This became a symbol of ethnic identity for them, even as (as eventually happens with all endogamous populations) it had its deleterious effects on genetics. You can see something similar happening today with "fundamentalist" (i.e., polygamist) Mormons, due to the tendency of such groups to be endogamous.

In America, this comes in the form of how America was fighting communism. (This was, of course, Oceania having always been at war with Eurasia; during World War II, the Soviet Union was our ally. Good luck finding a kid who knows that today!) As such, declare anything communist, and you'll have an army of right-wingers working in your favor.

 

I could write a treatise here.

I don't have time right now.

There are a lot of problems, both with the way things are, and a universal system.

I think basic government insurance for preventative might be the best way to go, but health care is such a corrupted market right now, mostly due to the government and insurance companies, that a monolithic, one-size fits all solution won't necessarily be better.

More later.

Peace,

V-03

 

Typing with my thumbs, so this'll be short. No system of healthcare is perfect; universal health care is the least imperfect,

 

As Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government ever, except all the others."

Today's powerful people, big business types, actually trust capitalism more than democracy; the late Milton Friedman even made capitalism, rather than democracy, iconic of freedom. (To the point of declaring China more free than America in the wake of Tiananmen Square.) And it's easy to see why; democracies are unreliable. Capitalism, if you're already rich, you'll probably make more money constantly.

Of course, to say that freedom is slavery is a very "strong" statement, if you know what I mean.

The most obvious problem with for-profit healthcare is what is called "herd immunity". Herd immunity means simply that an unvaccinated individual in a vaccinated society is less likely to get sick than the other way around. And it's not just vaccination: If everyone around you doesn't shower, you're more likely to get sick, for instance.

 

That leads into another item. If yo have universal healthcare, I would imagine that you`re a little more likely to go to a doctor, since you don't have to worry about paying for it directly and you don't have to worry about insurance rates increasing. A year and a half ago, I got chicken pox. I worked while sick on a Saturday and a Sunday, not feeling well but not feeling sick enough to stay home. On the Monday, I called in sick. On the Tuesday, not improving, I went to the hospital first thing in the morning. The pox themselves actually started to show while I was in the hospital. It was bad enough that it was chicken pox on a 27 year old man. If I had to rely on insurance, I probably wouldn't have gone then on the Tuesday. If it had been something worse, or if I had been hit badly enough that I needed to stay in the hospital, I would have been SOL.

Universal health care helps ensure that people who need medical help don't take chances, that they actually go to see a doctor if they need one.

 

Our system is far from perfect and the waiting times are still too long,. It's not the universal healthcare that is the issue, it's now the funds are allocated and the organisation of it all. Attempts are ongoing now to reorganise the NHS so that it runs more efficiently, hopefully they will work.

France is regarded as having the best healthcare system, so whatever the US does should be modelled on that.

I know the US healthcare system is expensive, but didn't Obama just come up with a new system that is better?

 

The biggest changes don't come into effect until 2014, and it's not completely finished until 2019. Basically it reforms insurance policies, so they can't deny insurance for people with pre-existing conditions, and the creation of insurance "exchanges" so people have some more choice in which private insurance plan to choose, in exchange for an individual mandate that everyone must get health insurance or else you have to pay a fee for being uninsured.

 

Also, it extends coverage for people's kids on their parent's plans until they're 26 (iirc, if they're still living with their parents; not totally sure.)

 

The problem the NHS generally has here is affording enough drugs to treat everyone who needs them (not so much an issue in private systems since patients pay for what they need) which results in long waiting lists or people being refused treatment. Also waiting times for minor things is too long, my mother waited 2 hours just to get a blood test at the hospital recently and that is not something that should take a long time. It's worse if you have a problem and have to go to A&E, often you just sit around for hours waiting to be seen.

Efficiency is the main thing the NHS needs to improve, how to go about doing that with the money is has is the key (especially when it is facing cuts and lacking staff).

 

I'm not trying to be nit-picky, and I know it sounds like common sense - but do you think you could link me to any studies which positively correlate health and regular bathing? I know washing your hands helps, sure, but I don't know about whole body bathing.

I'm 100% serious. Maybe we're too paranoid.

 

I'd have to find the right search terms, but there is some stuff out there (I'm ten minutes from leaving for lunch, so I'm not terribly inclined to start a search). Aside from hand-washing and epidemiology, mostly the concern is avoidance of things like skin sores. Beyond that, regular bathing is essentially cosmetic and an issue of social mores. The "herd immunity" is more of a protection issue from communicable diseases like polio, mumps, rubella, etc.

EDIT:

I just looked at the quoted text again, and the issue is a bit more complex. In high-population density areas, the likelihood of an illness occurring because of poor personal hygiene of others is objectively higher. Consider, for instance, the epidemiology of MRSA, VRSA, VRE, and C.Diff in hospitals. Hand-washing can get most of the germs on one's digits, but cannot get the stuff on arms, legs, clothing, etc., which then come into contact with other surfaces. In cities, we're seeing the same kind of infectious agents being spread (i.e., what were once hospital-acquired infections are now being seen in the community). Hands aren't the only vectors for disease transmission, so keeping clean is better all around.

 

The House of Commons votes in favour of PM Cameron's controversial new health reforms. One interesting idea is of course not allowing a free market for medicines, wouldn't that make everything much cheaper?

The bill is still havily criticised by various organisations, the House of Lords may yet reject it.

 

I'd suggest that staying clean/bathing is a compulsion most animals have-birds preen their feathers, cockroaches wash themselves after contact with human skin oils, the apes and monkeys groom each other, lions and elephants and lots of other animals dust bathe to keep the myriad insects at bay, raccoons wash their food whenever they eat near a water source, etc. etc. Water is a pretty efficient cleaner (it drowns the ticks or whatever was bothering our hairy ancestors 35,000 years ago) so it's probably just carried over; plus of course social animals are going to find a disgusting-smelling member of the group to be a potential disease carrier.