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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KyrosL who wrote (214592)	1/25/2007 11:13:02 AM
From: neolib	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

People in advanced countries with national health care systems are getting excellent health service. Sure, you may have to wait a few months for some procedures, but population health statistics in those countries are far better than those in the US, and that is the only objective measure of health service. BS. Service is well known to suck big time in most socialized systems. If you could place US care and access side by side (not cost mind you!) with British care and access (access here means for those covered in both cases, not the uncovered in the USA) which one do you honestly think the consumers would line up behind? The answer to that is very telling. Equally true is that our system delivers poorer value, if the metric is equality of access. Just don't confuse the two issues. They are not the same. You can easily provide average better healthcare for a nation than we do, but it comes with the choice to deny advanced and timely care, especially when you deem things to look terminal. That is the crux of the issue in the USA. Good private insurance lets you get the best care, but it costs, because there is no mechanism to combat cost when what you want is the best, AND your method of payment is the indirect link of paying premiums vs. direct engagement with the provider. Instead, we are on this treadmill where average physician costs are computed, insurance companies then negotiate some average of those costs for what they will pay, compute their risk & overhead & profit factors, and adjust their premium. The consumer screams about the higher premium, but pays anyway, then we it comes time to get service, what the heck, I've paid my premium, let the freaking insurance company get stiffed now, I want the best. If you can't understand this paragraph, you don't understand what is wrong with the medical care system. Could you comment on why you think such a system will EVER provide good cost effective care?