'we dont have a spending problem'

[Lagboltz]

If y0u look carefully - and the statistics don't show it - the US is great medical care for complex diseases. In the cases where the fancy, high tech equipment is needed, every hospital has them all. However, for a broken leg, this equipment is not needed. Still the hospital's cost of keeping everything up to date is passed on to all the patience. Every hospital has the latest and greatest equipment and other high tech stuff.

In other countries, only a few hospitals are well equipped. And still not up to US standards. But for a broken leg, all you need is an X-ray machine. These lesser equipped hospitals have quality care, but not costly equipment.

So here's the concept: different grade hospitals for different illnesses (and different budgets). We also need "no fault" medical malpractice. That would lower costs tremendously to get the lawyers out of the operating room. Lots of good ideas if we looked at other countries - but not the single payer, State run health care program like Europe and Canada. That kind of medical program quickly takes on the inevitable "government bureacracy" inefficiency - with lazy, rude workers, and long wait time.

Advanced medical technology is a boon and bane. The downside is hospitals that buy the equipment need to recover costs. There is a higher chance that they will promote use of the equipment for areas where there is a marginal use in diagnosis. I had a CAT scan done where I found out later that it was unnecessary because a better and cheaper way was used in conjunction with it. --- a lot of expense with little justification.

Changing medical malpractice laws will go a long way in lowering costs. When you are almost on the operating table hospitals want you sign a form agreeing to binding arbitration. It seems that would be a lot easier to put in place obligatory binding arbitration rather than no-fault because it is already being used.

 

[dogtowner]

The properties WHO used to analyze health care involve counting the number of specific health care incidents. That is most likely unbiased across nations. But I would grant that their final "score" published in.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
where US scored low is based on subjective criteria of what WHO thinks is important. One could easily imagine bias there, but the less biased data that went into that ranking was poor enough for the US that it's hard to imagine the ranking improving much, even if done by the Heritage Foundation.

last I heard France was seeing its outcomes erode. seems they are taking the US diet to heart and with the predictable results. data can certainly. be objective but there can be many other factors that make comparisons not really apples and apples. infant mortality is a good example as the defonitions vary by country. some places can categorize death of a five day old baby as stillborn.

the devil is always in the details.

 

[GenSeneca]

...then it would become Socialized Medicine - the scary word.

That is a scary word... To people like me who value freedom.

 

[Gipper]

The Heritage Foundation and the World Health Foundations addressed different aspects of health care. The HF had some myopic cherry picked points, and not the full gamut as WHO.

If you want to call WHO a statist organization, be my guest. Statism is just a label for you to plaster on things you don't like.

Statism is a label placed on organizations who promote the state. WHO certainly does. It is too bad you lefties can't see that.

When W pushed the ridiculously statist Patriot Act, many lefties went nuts and I was with them, but now with a socialist in the WH, he apparently can do anything he likes without a peep from you guys.

 

[Lagboltz]

Statism is a label placed on organizations who promote the state. WHO certainly does. It is too bad you lefties can't see that.

When W pushed the ridiculously statist Patriot Act, many lefties went nuts and I was with them, but now with a socialist in the WH, he apparently can do anything he likes without a peep from you guys.

That shouldn't be hard to understand. Both left and right sides use "statist" or constitutional arguments only to their advantage. Both sides practice hypocrisy when it's convenient. Both sides are simply choosy when they decide to huff about an issue. It's simply called politics.

 

[Hobo1]

Advanced medical technology is a boon and bane. The downside is hospitals that buy the equipment need to recover costs. There is a higher chance that they will promote use of the equipment for areas where there is a marginal use in diagnosis. I had a CAT scan done where I found out later that it was unnecessary because a better and cheaper way was used in conjunction with it. --- a lot of expense with little justification.

Changing medical malpractice laws will go a long way in lowering costs. When you are almost on the operating table hospitals want you sign a form agreeing to binding arbitration. It seems that would be a lot easier to put in place obligatory binding arbitration rather than no-fault because it is already being used.

I keep on having the thought: what happens when we can cure every disease and people will live to be very old with a very old body. Where do we stop? Technology in medical care keeps on advancing just like it is advancing in computer devices and cars that drive themselves. Because doctors must be "reasonably skillful and careful" (as seen through the eyes of a jury) to avoid committing malpractice, every doctor will take a few extra precautions. The "just to be sure" CAT scan that you had probably cost an extra $1000.

My point is this: before the invention of the CAT scan, medical care was cheaper. Multiply that by other new medical devices, such as MRI, etc. and naturally the price is going to be higher.

Why can't we as a nation accept a medical system where a malpractice lawyer is not looking over every doctor's shoulder? Or accept a doctor's learned opinion, rather than using an expensive machine to double check the diagnosis? Every time someone mentions those kind of ideas, other people yell "death panel".

It's not a death panel it is managing our medical system so it is cost efficient, and reasonable. Doctors are humans and humans are fallible. Why must everyone who gets sick go through a battery of tests "just to be sure", and walk out of the hospital with a $10,000 bill to pay? I will gladly take a risk if it's going to cost me thousands of dollars - just to be sure. We all are going to die sometime.

 

[Lagboltz]

^^^^
I agree, and there is not much I can add. Our sense of humanity tells us to do all we can to cure diseases and prolong life in individuals. But in doing so we are going to destroy our financial resources and overpopulation is going to destroy humanity.