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Politics : A US National Health Care System?
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To: Road Walker who wrote (11404)11/17/2009 10:10:28 AM
From: Lane3  Read Replies (1) of 42652
 
And 95% of US cancer patients don't get to go to MD Anderson or the Cleveland Clinic... so they are not getting the "best health care in the world".

Of course not. Only the top few percent of the world's population get the world's best health care regardless of where they live. The next few percent, somewhat less, etc. Whether or not that top few percent of individuals getting the world's best health care are in the US or not is irrelevant.

Seems to me that you guys are just framing this differently. You seem to want to demonstrate that because some number of folks in the US don't get world class care that the US can't have the world's best health care. That doesn't make sense. Some number of folks in any country, even the country you would pick for having the world's best health care, aren't getting the world's best health care. Duh!

So comparing countries has to be about something other than the most or least fortunate individual or about individuals at all. It has to be about the group as a whole. You could pick the median person to represent the entire group or you could use the average. You could pick some critical mass out of the group and toss out the stragglers at the end of the curve and then use the median or the average. Inode picked the top 95% so he was tossing out the bottom five percent. Perhaps not the best choice of a named critical mass but certainly an adequate one.

But comparing countries based on what either the top few percent or the bottom few percent get in the way of health care just isn't useful. It would be useful if you were arguing the equality spread in various countries but that's not what's on the table.
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