It's interesting you should bring up the French system. WHO rates it #1 in the world, but are they right?
Both groups use questionable data to come to their conclusions.
WHO:
The problem here is that the rating system, rates how "socialized" the medical industry is. WHO openly stated that it's important that all people receive equal care, and this is a factor in how it rates. Well of course under any non-socialized system where people pay for service, care isn't going to be equal, and nor should it.
This automatically favors systems like the French system. In a normal system the newest best, more expensive medications would be available to anyone who could pay. However in France, those medications are simply not available, since the government won't pay for it (to control cost). Thus it is equal care. Everyone is equally stuck with older less effective medications. WHO would rate this higher than our system.
Another large problem in France, is people being hooked on medications. Since medications are free, people take pills even when they don't need them. Some take pills to remedy side effects of other pills they have taken, none of which they need. People are actually making themselves sick on unnecessary medications. WHO wouldn't look at that information, rather just that everyone has equal access to drugs.
That said, I can promise you, WHO would not rate France as #1 if they did the rating over. Why? Cause it's not equal anymore. They don't have universal coverage, and they have co-pays now. So poor people no longer have equal coverage to those who can pay.
With the other group, the problem is that they do not consider cultural differences. There are many problems socially in America, that effect simple statistical information, that are not the fault of the health care industry. For example, it's a known fact that the vast majority of Americans eat poorly. We have a fast food mentality. We smoke, we drink, and we do drugs.
Tell me, if a mother on crack and drinking alcohol gives birth at a hospital and the babe dies from complications due to those things... is that the health care systems fault, or the mothers fault? But from a simple infant mortality statistic, you wouldn't see that.
If a person weights 400 lbs and smokes 2 packs a day, and dies from any number of things, is that the health care systems fault, or the person? Again, that would not show up on a statistic.
For example, in my extended family, a former husband (he divorced) died just a month ago. He was an alcoholic. The doctor flat out said, if you don't quit drinking, you'll die. He refused to quit drinking, and he died. Now is that the health care systems fault, or his fault? He was being treated, and he was in the hospital, in theory they should have saved him ... but he had to much alcohol in his blood and it killed him. I could say the revolting details of what alcohol does to you, but here's the point. It wasn't our hospitals or health care systems fault in any of those situations. Yet if you simply looked at statistics, they all had treatable things, so that would look bad.
I posted on another thread about how Canada's infant mortality rate is better than ours. Yet, every year hundreds of mothers and babies that need neo-natal care are sent to our hospitals, and we save their lives. Mothers are literally told, your child will die. Then they come to the US and their lives are saved. Our system is making their system look better, because we're saving the infants that would otherwise be a statistic in Canada.
Of course, the #1 health care system doesn't come cheap. France's is one of the most expensive in the world, according to the same study.
Wow! That's almost half as much as the US spends. Is it so expensive because of it being socialized medicine?
Well, no...
Two things. First, when I think of cheap, I compare how much it's costing ME. If I have to choose between insurance premiums, or 50% of my income, insurance premiums are far cheaper than 50% of my income.
Second, which is more important.. top quality care, or the almighty dollar? I would say top quality care. You keep skipping over the fact that the services rendered in France are not up to our level of care. Remember, 1/3rd of the latest greatest most effective, least side effects, newest drugs... are simply not available in France. Remember in 2003 a heat wave that hit Europe, killed thousands of people, but amazingly it killed people in hospitals. Can you imagine if a heat wave hit the US and people in hospitals died? There would be outrage nation wide, but in France, this was unavoidable, because the health care system simply doesn't pay enough for hospitals to afford AC. Can you even imagine a hospital in the US not having AC and people dying in hospital beds from heat stroke? Yet that happened in France.
So which is more important to you, reducing our health car costs, or providing top quality care where people don't die of heat stroke in hospital beds? You answer that, then tell me how much you want to copy the system WHO rated #1.
The bottom line is that, unless we change our system, we're going to price ourselves out of the ability to provide health care for any but the wealthiest, or perhaps the best insured.
The only way to do that is to reduce care. Health care costs money. That's not going to change. The only way to pay less, is to get less. Hospitals are expensive to run. If you reduce how much they are paid, something has to give. In Canada, in order to reduce cost, the government established a quota on how many people can receive an MRI each day. People now wait up to a year to get an MRI. At the same time, the hospital will allow people to bring in their pet dog or cat to get an MRI after hours... for a fee.
Remember the key to beating cancer is early detection, yet if you wait a year for an MRI, that could be the difference between surviving it, or dying. Ironically I read another report that surveyed patients, and discovered a very high percentage (I don't remember the exact number off hand, but it was higher than 3/4) reported getting much worse while waiting 6 month to a year for diagnostic tests and scans like an MRI. But of course WHO would say as long as everyone had equal access... and statistically, as long as they don't die while waiting...
We have the most expensive health care in the world, by far. We don't have the best health care by any objective measure.
I disagree. I've seen lots of evidence that we have one of the best most advanced health care systems in the world. Granted that will change very quickly if we adopt socialism.
The only argument against universal care seems to be that it is "socialized medicine" and therefore bad, because it is socialism and socialism is always bad. This kind of circular reasoning will have to be addressed and shown to be what it is, or we will continue to pay too much for a mediocre system.
Well, I don't see people flying to India to get health care like that do in Canada and the UK. I don't see people dying in hospital beds because hospitals can't afford AC like France. I don't see mothers being told their babies will die because there's no room for them. I don't see people swimming to Cuba to get great health care. So I don't know where you get this idea our system is the 'mediocre' one.
Further, I still look at the cost to me, and I don't see another other system being 'cheaper'.
Not that we don't have good doctors and nurses, of course, it's the insurance system that needs to be reformed.
I agree. That's about the only statement you've made I agree with.
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