| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fred Stone" |
| Date: |
29 Aug 2007 02:11:21 PM |
| Object: |
Another Bogus Report On America's Health Care System |
Another Bogus Report Card for U.S. Medical Care
By John Stossel
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/another_bogus_report_c
ard_for.html
In May, the Commonwealth Fund issued its latest comparison of the U.S.
medical system with five other wealthy nations' systems: Australia,
Canada, Germany, New Zealand and Great Britain.
Predictably, the study begins: "Despite having the most costly health
system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms."
I was immediately suspicious, considering the loaded study by the World
Health Organization seven years ago. (I wrote about it last week.)
My suspicion was justified. It turns out the new study is almost as
biased as the WHO's. The authors write, "The U.S. is the only country in
the study without universal health insurance coverage, partly accounting
for its poor performance on access, equity, and health outcomes."
I see. America "underperforms" because we don't have enough government
intervention.
But while the U.S. lost points for not having national health insurance,
the authors added, "[I]f insured, patients in the U.S. have rapid access
to specialized health care services."
That's an understatement. Insured Americans have almost immediate access
to cutting-edge procedures performed by some of the best-trained
doctors. It's why our outcomes for such diseases as prostate and breast
cancer are markedly better than in Canada's and Britain's socialized
systems. The Commonwealth Fund doesn't mention that.
The United States is the center of medical innovation for the world.
When internists ranked the world's top 10 medical innovations, eight
were developed thanks to American innovations. The Commonwealth Fund
ignores all that and focuses almost exclusively on the problems of our
uninsured population.
As I've noted previously, the problem of the 45 million uninsured is
exaggerated. The statistics represent a snapshot, and many uninsured
people are reinsured in less than a year. The same people are not
uninsured year in and year out.
The Commonwealth Fund study divides "quality" into right (effective)
care, safe care, coordinated care and patient-centered care. The U.S.
placed fifth or sixth in the last three.
But where did the U.S. place in "right care"?
First.
"Right care" is the most important criterion because it includes things
like how often women have mammograms and whether diabetics get proper
treatment.
The Commonwealth Fund ranked the U.S. last in "equity": "Americans with
below-average incomes were much more likely than their counterparts in
other countries to report not visiting a physician when sick, not
getting a recommended test, treatment or follow-up care ... because of
costs."
But how much of that is due to the government's increasing the cost of
care and insurance through mandates, a tax code that encourages reliance
on expensive insurance and bureaucratic red tape?
The Commonwealth Fund's study has other problems. It was based on
telephone interviews with patients and doctors. So it grades nations on
people's perceptions without controlling for their expectations. Yet
patients who live in a country with long waits for medical care and
bureaucratic inefficiency may have low expectations.
More ridiculous is the arbitrary way the Commonwealth Fund assigns
weight to each of its measures. The proportion of patients who say they
got infected at a hospital counts about the same in the "quality"
measure as the proportion of doctors who use automated computer systems
to remind them to tell patients their test results. Those things aren't
equal in my book.
The study's authors also consider having high administrative costs and
spending the largest share of GDP on health care worse than having the
highest share of patients who wait four months or more for surgery. This
seems designed to make the U.S. look bad.
Finally, the study penalizes nations for having large numbers of
patients who spent more than $1,000 on medical care out of pocket, as if
third-party payment is somehow superior.
Michael Cannon, the Cato Institute's director of health policy studies,
summed up what's wrong with the study: "The report does nothing more
than reveal which nation does the worst job of satisfying the subjective
preferences of the people who conducted this study."
Fans of the Canadian system should note that Canada ranked fifth out of
six and did worse than the U.S. in many ways.
Are you listening, Michael Moore?
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
"To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it.” -
George Orwell
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| User: "Bill Dukenfield" |
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| Title: Re: Another Bogus Report On America's Health Care System |
29 Aug 2007 04:21:19 PM |
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Fred Stone wrote:
Another Bogus Report Card for U.S. Medical Care
By John Stossel
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/another_bogus_report_c
ard_for.html
The authors write, "The U.S. is the only country in
the study without universal health insurance coverage, partly accounting
for its poor performance on access, equity, and health outcomes."
The lack of universal health insurance is one reason for the poor
performance of the US in retaining manufacturing jobs. US manufacturers
are competing with manufacturers in countries that do provide universal
health insurance.
JAM
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| User: "Fred Stone" |
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| Title: Re: Another Bogus Report On America's Health Care System |
30 Aug 2007 06:21:01 AM |
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Bill Dukenfield <BillDukenfield@nospam.net> wrote in
news:46D5E34F.3D67C46E@nospam.net:
Fred Stone wrote:
Another Bogus Report Card for U.S. Medical Care
By John Stossel
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/another_bogus_report
_c ard_for.html
The authors write, "The U.S. is the only country in
the study without universal health insurance coverage, partly
accounting for its poor performance on access, equity, and health
outcomes."
The lack of universal health insurance is one reason for the poor
performance of the US in retaining manufacturing jobs. US
manufacturers are competing with manufacturers in countries that do
provide universal health insurance.
That is pure smoke screen, Bill. US industrial unions demand benefits
(not just health benefits) that FAR exceed anything that is provided by
those other countries, and they think they can con the taxpayers into
coughing up the dough to subsidize their outrageous greed.
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
"To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it.” -
George Orwell
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| User: "Sasha" |
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| Title: Re: Another Bogus Report On America's Health Care System |
29 Aug 2007 03:37:09 PM |
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On Aug 29, 3:11 pm, Fred Stone <fston...@earthling.com> wrote:
Another Bogus Report Card for U.S. Medical Care
By John Stossel
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/another_bogus_report_c
ard_for.html
Another unbiased opinion from the ultra neo-conservative experts at
realclearpolitics.
Quote a real source or shut the ***** up, Fred.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Another Bogus Report On America's Health Care System |
08 Sep 2007 09:02:10 AM |
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On Aug 29, 5:11 pm, Fred Stone <fston...@earthling.com> wrote:
Another Bogus Report Card for U.S. Medical Care
By John Stossel
"Right care" is the most important criterion because it includes things
like how often women have mammograms and whether diabetics get proper
treatment.
There's an assumption here, backed up vociferously by radiologists and
GE, that mammograms are good for you. But how many large studies have
shown that frequency of mammographic examination correlates directly
with the only measure that really matters, life expectancy? Americans
get a lot of medical tests and treatments - unfortunately many of
these don't help us live longer.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Another Bogus Report On America's Health Care System |
08 Sep 2007 06:06:48 PM |
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On Sat, 08 Sep 2007 07:02:10 -0700, "barkerplace@hotmail.com"
<barkerplace@hotmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 29, 5:11 pm, Fred Stone <fston...@earthling.com> wrote:
Another Bogus Report Card for U.S. Medical Care
By John Stossel
"Right care" is the most important criterion because it includes things
like how often women have mammograms and whether diabetics get proper
treatment.
There's an assumption here, backed up vociferously by radiologists and
GE, that mammograms are good for you. But how many large studies have
shown that frequency of mammographic examination correlates directly
with the only measure that really matters, life expectancy? Americans
get a lot of medical tests and treatments - unfortunately many of
these don't help us live longer.
They help insurance companies (the ones that write malpractice
policies) live longer.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Another Bogus Report On America's Health Care System |
08 Sep 2007 12:34:19 AM |
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On Aug 29, 5:11 pm, Fred Stone <fston...@earthling.com> wrote:
Another Bogus Report Card for U.S. Medical Care
ByJohnStossel
Are you listening,MichaelMoore?
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
"To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it." -
George Orwell
I just saw that unctuous phoney Stossel interviewing Moore on TV. He
quizzed him on the massive error that Cubans live longer than
Americans when it turns out that Cubans ONLY live 77.1 years and
Yankees imperialistas make it all the way to 78. Yeah, massive mistake
that - a big surprise. Obviously, we all thought a bankrupt
totalitarian statelet under siege for 50 years would beat Uncle Sam by
at least a decade.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Another Bogus Report On America's Health Care System |
08 Sep 2007 06:38:38 AM |
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On Sep 8, 3:34 am, "barkerpl...@hotmail.com" <barkerpl...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
On Aug 29, 5:11 pm, Fred Stone <fston...@earthling.com> wrote:
Another Bogus Report Card for U.S. Medical Care
ByJohnStossel
Are you listening,MichaelMoore?
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
"To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it." -
George Orwell
I just saw that unctuous phoneyStosselinterviewingMooreon TV. He
quizzed him on the massive error that Cubans live longer than
Americans when it turns out that Cubans ONLY live 77.1 years and
Yankees imperialistas make it all the way to 78. Yeah, massive mistake
that - a big surprise. Obviously, we all thought a bankrupt
totalitarian statelet under siege for 50 years would beat Uncle Sam by
at least a decade.
And then the jackass interjects with something about private care
always being more efficient (to which Moore replied "John, you're so
13'th century"). Not when the average buyer has 1% of the product
knowledge the seller has, and one chance to get it right. When the
neighbourhood cardiologist on wife No. 3 suggests a 5000 dollar
procedure, are you going to argue? Can you afford to? The chaotic
world of multiple payer produces a thousand little piles of slides for
pathologists to look at - figuring out whom to bill in thi strange
realm is almost harder than making the dx.
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