Why Obama was disbarred.

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 2:15 pm

Skipjack wrote:
I can't see how there can be no improvements to a system that hands out 10% of total turn over in liabilities and kills about 1 in 300 people who are admitted to hospitals. (That's the number I have been told that die in UK hospitals for reasons not related to the reasons they went into the hospital with.)
Well, the question is how many would have died if they had not been to the hospital?

That is not at all the question. The question is whether private provision of health care could survive that same level of incompetence leading to unnecessary deaths and liability payments.

If otherwise, then it'd be a bit like saying 1 in 300 miners get killed during their careers, but there is no point in improving safety because that's the industry and how many would have survived without a job?

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 3:42 pm

I am not 100% sure, but I think remember 17% of the GDP in the US is spent on health care.
Austria spends roughly 10% of the GDP on healthcare.
In adusted USD, Austrian are paying an average of 3500 USD a year on healtcare, US americans are paying 6400 USD and Canadiasn (I dont have the British statistics here for that) paid 3326 USD.
These are OECD statistics.
The quality of the healthcare in Austria is the 9th best in the world, according to the WHO.
So not all to shabby, I would say. It could be a bit cheaper, I think if there was not that much abuse, but in terms of the quality of the medical treatment itself, there is nothing bad to say about Austria.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:44 pm

After reading up some more on the topic, I found a rather good example for a country that recently introduced a public healthcare system and had excellent results from that:
Iceland
They recently introduced a new healthcare system and now rank 3rd in European comparison. This is quite remarkable for such a small country.

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:57 pm

Skipjack wrote: They recently introduced a new healthcare system and now rank 3rd in European comparison. This is quite remarkable for such a small country.

One of the factors I suggested above for why the NHS is bad is because of its behemoth size. So I suggest likelihood of success for a country introducing a national health system shall be inversely proportional to its size. If that is so, then Iceland lays down few useful lessons-learned for the US.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:12 pm

This is not really so, because Germany is still very high on the list (though behind Austria, which dropped a few places in the last two years from 1st in 2007 to 4th in 2009).
Best of 2009 (in Europe) are (in descending order) Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Sweden.

Also according to Wikipedia, the administrative overhead of the US health insurance providers is larger compared to what they actually pay out than that of countries with public healthcare.

It is also worth noticing that the UK is using the Beveridge system, while Austria and the nations doing better in comparison, are using the Bismarck system.
This may be a clue as to why the UK sucks.

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:18 pm

Skipjack wrote: Best of 2009 (in Europe) are (in descending order) Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Sweden.

..which merely reinforces my belief that success of an NHS would be a function of size and managerial skill!

Skipjack wrote:It is also worth noticing that the UK is using the Beveridge system, while Austria and the nations doing better in comparison, are using the Bismarck system.

What does this mean, in practice?

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 7:59 pm

which merely reinforces my belief that success of an NHS would be a function of size and managerial skill!

Yeah, because France and Germany are so small, or something?

What does this mean, in practice?

Bismarck healthcare systems: Systems based on social insurance, where there is a multitude of insurance organisations, Krankenkassen etc, who are organisationally independent of healthcare providers.

Beveridge systems: Systems where financing and provision are handled within one organisational system, i.e. financing bodies and providers are wholly or partially within one organisation, such as the NHS of the UK, counties of Nordic states etc.

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 8:14 pm

Skipjack wrote:
which merely reinforces my belief that success of an NHS would be a function of size and managerial skill!
Yeah, because France and Germany are so small, or something?

...because they manage social services delivery better....

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 9:07 pm

...because they manage social services delivery better....

That may be, but that is not necessarily because of their size.
Also, as you can see in the example of Germany, private and public healthcare providers can coexist quite well.

But it does not matter what I say and what examples I bring, the propanda will always prevail. My guess with some of the guys here that they are almost religiously believing what they are saying. I mean the death panels thing and the "insurance companies will die" and "everything is going to be so horrible".
Face it guys (from the US): What you have now is not working! You pay twice as much as some EU countries and the cost is only going up. It is going up faster than your inflation rate. If it keeps going like that then having health care will be limited to a few rich people. "But of course it is not right", you say. I dont believe that it is a right either, but I think that it is something that people should have despite it not being a right.

But, lets assume that you keep things they are. What will happen then?
Well the costs will go up and up. Fewer and fewer people will have healthcare. They will have to save money on that first then. Things that are not emergency treatments will not get done. That means less routine checks for pregnat women. That means less vaccinations.
Less vaccinations will mean that herd immunity will ultimately be non existant (as it requires a certain amount of the population to be vaccinated).
That will mean that you will have epidemics.
And even if you are a completely selfish bastard that does not care if all those unvaccinated people die because they are poor, you should care about that. Why? Because not all rich people can be vaccinated. Your kids are usually not vaccinated until they are 6 months old. They depend on herd immunity. Some people just have bad luck and the vaccination does not work (it is a small percentage and usually they are covered by herd immunity then so that is acceptabe). Some people also have a damaged or suppressed immune system (e.g. after a transplant) and now matter how rich they are, the illness will find them.
So yeah, there is at least one reason why it is desireable to keep your people healthy and at a certain health standard.
Of course having people die left and right is bad for the economy too. You trained your factory worker and he has aquired some experience. You loose him to some prevantable illness, you will have to train somebody else. That costs money. But then you have everything in China now anyway, no?
Whatever...

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 7:35 am

Skipjack wrote:I am not 100% sure, but I think remember 17% of the GDP in the US is spent on health care.
Austria spends roughly 10% of the GDP on healthcare.
In adusted USD, Austrian are paying an average of 3500 USD a year on healtcare, US americans are paying 6400 USD and Canadiasn (I dont have the British statistics here for that) paid 3326 USD.
These are OECD statistics.
The quality of the healthcare in Austria is the 9th best in the world, according to the WHO.
So not all to shabby, I would say. It could be a bit cheaper, I think if there was not that much abuse, but in terms of the quality of the medical treatment itself, there is nothing bad to say about Austria.

And around 1900 Americans spent 30% of their income on food. It is now under 10%. Thus the 17% came out of the food budget. With a profit of 3%. (yeah not exactly apples to apples)

As people's incomes rise (and prices fall in some areas) their spending patterns change. Think computers in 1975 vs 2010. (who even had access to a home computer in 1975? Me. Me. Me!)

To make a better comparison the relative incomes of Austrians and Americans must be looked at. i.e. if Americans are economically doing better (say for example $40K PPP per capita GDP vs $30K what is being done with that "extra" $10K?)

In this case looking at % does not tell the story. You might as well look at the % of GDP spent on computers in Cameroon vs the USA. On that basis Americans are vastly overspending.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 7:44 am

And even if you are a completely selfish bastard that does not care if all those unvaccinated people die because they are poor, you should care about that.

The vaccination system in the US is working fairly well. Except for those "well" educated people fighting it who think the risks from vaccination outweigh the risks from disease outbreaks.

http://www.aolhealth.com/2010/09/17/who ... -55-years/

We have programs covering the costs to the poor. Why have a 100% government program when a 10% one will do the job?

You have to remember that America was founded by a gang who had deep suspicions about government. That is still the majority sentiment here.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 7:53 am

I think suspicion of government will rise over time as the States of Europe become less mono-ethnic.

We are already seeing some of that with the rise of Tea Party activity (nothing like the volumes in the US) in Europe.

In fact resistance to the EU is increasing in part because of that.

Germany may have been willing to take on the burden of East Germany because after all they were Germans. But Greeks?

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 7:51 pm

And around 1900 Americans spent 30% of their income on food. It is now under 10%. Thus the 17% came out of the food budget. With a profit of 3%. (yeah not exactly apples to apples)

The same has happened in other parts of the world as well AND they are spending less on their healthcare.
So you are basically giving them an advantage for free.
Keeping your people healthy and well educated is a good thing to do. Maria Theresia here even realized that in the 18th century already. That is why she made schools education mandatory then.

To make a better comparison the relative incomes of Austrians and Americans must be looked at. i.e. if Americans are economically doing better (say for example $40K PPP per capita GDP vs $30K what is being done with that "extra" $10K?)

This comparison is not entirely fair.
The US is a huge country that is largely uninhabited. It had (getting less now) almost all natural resources imaginable, large areas of perfect farm land and no devastation by wars in 150 years.
You have been cherrypicking your immigrants for decades. Besides the illegals and those that actually won the lottery (strangely enough it is mostly married couples with a good education), you only take the best of the best. You have so much free land for industry and residences, that land costs almost nothing.

Austria is a tiny country that is largely uninhabitable and can not even be used for profitable farmland (the alps make a large part of Austria), with no natural resources whatsoever that was devastated by two lost world wars. Land is very expensive here. This makes building residences and new industry/office buildings also expensive. High cost lowers the income and the purchase parity power.
The only thing of value that we have is the dilligence and education of our people. Considering these facts and the fact that we are allowing so many poor and badly educated immigrants to enter our country (because the jews and the left wingers emmediately cry "Hitler" if we dont), we are doing amazingly well (I think).

Except for those "well" educated people fighting it who think the risks from vaccination outweigh the risks from disease outbreaks.

These people are of course badly educated, not well educated. It is unfortunate that they get so much time on national TV. It is amazing to me that so many people value the word of a fracking playboy bunny higher than the words of pretty much any doctor (who is not a crook) in the world. This is a really important topic for me and I am outraged at the stupidity of these people. So yeah, we are on the same page here. These guys are idiots!

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:56 pm

So you are basically giving them an advantage for free.

Unless you are diagnosed with cancer in America. Then your outlook is much better here by a factor of as much as 2X sometimes more.

TDPerk · Post by **TDPerk** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 12:28 pm

skipjack, did you write this without irony:

"(because the jews and the left wingers emmediately cry "Hitler" if we dont)"

???