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To: Little Joe who wrote (89329)	10/27/2008 8:25:37 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

I like the Australian health system which covers everyone under Medicare and also provides private health insurance for those who prefer to pay a premium. Under this system, the private insurance firms provide payments to supplement the CentreLink medicare payments. As a result, insurance of roughly $1,000 per year provides perks like private office visits, coverage for not strictly medically-necessary care, coverage for treatments not covered by CentreLink . . . and generally the first class treatment. Having used them all, my experience of Australian medical care is comparable to better than having a Blue Cross PPO type of policy in America. Care with private health insurance in Australia is better than the most generous employer provided plan I have ever had. What makes Australian medicare better than Canada and far better than the UK? Obviously the level of funding. The option of a private health insurance supplement provides a comparison standard which makes it difficult for the medicare-only system to lag too far behind. An alternate system is Switzerland which requires mandatory private health coverage with jail sentences for failing to pay your premiums. The premiums are subsidized in certain situations, but the insurance is still mandatory. .

To: Little Joe who wrote (89329)	10/27/2008 10:56:57 PM
From: axial	Respond to of 116555

First, relying on one study (among many) to form an opinion is unreliable. By cherry-picking, you introduce an immediate bias, and prejudice the discussion from the get-go. That suggests you have an agenda. If you want to explore the question in depth (including a large number of studies coming to different conclusions) we can go there. If it's just a setup designed to attack a concept with which you will never agree, forget it. --- My personal experience with the system in Canada has been very satisfactory. At present, demographic trends (aging population, aging and retiring doctors, nurses and technicians, insufficient funding for med schools) have created stresses. Technological advances accompany demographics: fifty years ago, you didn't have waiting lists for triple-bypass surgery, new hips, and knees: such surgery didn't exist, and the population was relatively young, anyway. There are also macro factors at work: for instance, Canada has short-shifted many public programs to pay down debt, and different political parties have different spending priorities. Public health in some provinces is better than in others. This trend follows a post-war trajectory similar in many developed countries; it applies equally to infrastructure (decaying and insufficiently-funded), education (no longer what it once was), public funding for R&D (degraded, and now largely funded by corporations), and is partly a function of privatization and deregulation. They, in turn, were at least partly motivated by cost concerns, largely because we are no longer as prosperous as we were in the 50's and 60's: by the late 70's, after the shock of the oil embargoes and stagflation, everybody was looking for alternatives. Publicly-funded health plans exist in many jurisdictions: none of them is perfect, all of them are stressed by current demographic trends, and have a cost. Many offer "augmented" service for those who can pay extra. Many users, by virtue of unhealthy lifestyles, impose unwarranted demands on the system. On the other hand, many who are disadvantaged (through no fault of their own) can at least expect to be treated. We know for a fact that both publicly-funded and private health care have inefficiencies and excesses. There are many societal questions that don't have a rational, provable answer. Neither side of a given debate has an irrefutable argument that "they" are right, and everyone else is wrong (e.g. abortion, homosexual marriage, and so on). In many cases, nations jump past irresolvable debates to the next question: what do they want? Are people in such nations willing to share their wealth, to the extent that every person can obtain some minimum standard of health care? This is perhaps a more helpful approach than a never-ending argument about whether publicly-funded health care is "right" or "wrong". It's not really a conceptual leap; after all, federal funding already extends to many other aspects of life, ostensibly "private" but actually government-subsidized. Can the United States afford what other nations are doing? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps it's a matter of which things Americans are willing to share: priorities. --- If the electorate votes for publicly-funded health care, the next question might be: Can the United States' plan be better-designed, more efficient, and ultimately more cost-effective than other plans? JMO, Jim