RegisterMe wrote: ↑Wed, 10. Feb 21, 17:47
PaperDog wrote: ↑Wed, 10. Feb 21, 16:44
RegisterMe wrote: ↑Wed, 10. Feb 21, 16:15
"Oh yeah, and it's free to the recipient. Of course, it's not actually "free", it's paid for out of general taxation and National Insurance. But we like it that way, and we want it to stay that way. The NHS is far from perfect, and I probably wouldn't argue with you if you said that the best treatment available in the US might be better than the best treatment in the UK. But we don't leave a sizable proportion of our population with inadequate health care coverage(*) and the NHS is certainly cheaper (ie more efficient) on an outcomes basis."
You are trying to sell me free healthcare by promising me that you will give me a liver for free. But conveniently enough, your pamphlets understate or even omit, the "supply" problem for livers... Its a con! If people actually grasped the reality of that situation (and get past the utopian fantasy) , your system would buckle... But they are being fed that "codswallop" you spoke of.
The reason the US has better treatment options (one being timely treatment) is because, under free enterprise, they also are able to assure better doctors. The economic research is there
I'm all for elderly care... (God knows they paid for it throughout their productive lives) , But it ain't viable social support
until two simple problems are addressed and solved:
1) the "Price" of medicine. When did it become okay for medical associations to dictate the price of medicine and medical education such that prices have been raised to ridiculously lofty levels. Tell me, Would you pay 60.00 for an aspirin? Is it right?
2) Private hospitals. I cant even begin to describe the level of horseshit they spew out in the name of "cost". They are partially responsible for driving up the price of medicine. Simply put, ban admin agencies altogether. Allow doctors to practice without the fiscal encumbrance imposed upon them. Studies have shown that if left to a proper competitive environment, the best doctors will adapt to bearable markets. The minute the government or an admin puts its meat grubbing mits on that, it becomes a ****.
Your argument is a little confused:-
1. Both red assassin and I pointed out that the limiting factor in the provision of liver transplants was the number of livers available for transplant. Amazingly enough if there's no liver available for transplant no costs are incurred by the individual or by the healthcare system to transplant a liver.
So the patient dies... but at least he/she will die with the satisfaction of knowing they woulda, coulda shoulda had that free liver. Meanwhile your failing system plows on... and the masses are still drinking the koolaid, being forced to pay into a system, from which its benefits are left to the off chance that a free liver is available. I wonder, do you subscribe to the notion which says that if I am younger than you and there is only one liver available, I get it and you don't...(even though you have paid into the system) ?
2. You state the the US has better treatment options (one being timely treatment). This is at best arguable. Take for example red assassin's point about the percentage of GDP spent on healthcare in the US and the UK respectively, and the "value" of the outcomes. Then there's the average treatment wait times in the two countries, and the availability of that treatment to, in the UK the entire population, in the US largely limited to those who can afford it (or a proxy, the cost of the insurance).
3. Please evidence your claim that US doctors are better.
- We have free markets. Name your resources... Free market competition (even in medicine) is the cornerstone of thriving economies. Don't Believe Me? Why are so many of you highly qualified British doctors coming to the U.S. to practice? Mind you, I'm not saying our system is perfect. But neither is yours, and yet, your people are at the same risk of being shorted a free liver.
- We also have this: Bar -none, superior to any agencies that the UK (or EU, or ASIA) produces. (Even Cuba, which produces exemplary medical education takes it's cue form AMA):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_ ... ssociation
4. You lament the public health care system in the UK and then criticise the private healthcare system in the US because of the cost of medicines. Well, in the UK, with is public healthcare system, prices paid to the pharma industry are agreed centrally and applied nationally. It is true that it's cheaper overall for the individual to by a box of a generic painkiller from the chemist than it is to get it via NHS subscription, but that's largely because of the cost of purchase and the admin associated with administering the subscription. The answer is for the individual to spend 50p on packet of paracetamol in a supermarket rather than get the same packet from the NHS which ends up spending £5 on it. The reverse is true when you're talking about more complicated and / or more dangerous drugs (which aren't available in the supermarket).
This is intensely naïve. I cant speak for the UK but here in the U.S., Our congress sold out to Big Pharma lobbyists to the tune of billions of dollars. That effectively means Big Pharma can name any price it wants, and by virtue of congressional rule, the healthcare system + insurance companies are bowing to their will. This was one of the things that Trump attempted to correct. He banned lobbyists during the first year of his term. He also commissioned a team to addressing the pricing problems. . There is no way you are gonna convince me that your UK regulatory agencies aren't practicing the same corruption. Surely, I needn't spell this out.
5. So public healthcare isn't the answer because "stuff", but private hospitals are the devil because they cost too much? Even when it's proven that public healthcare in the UK provides, across the whole population, better outcomes / $ spent than the private healthcare system in the US?
No proof... its bull. Think about who releases those "proof" reports. (No conflict of interest there...Nothing to see here...move along) . What you don't know about me is that I have inside experience with the Fraud , Waste and Abuse division for our CMS (Center for Medicare Services) agency. As you know CMS is also a socialistic model. I never disputed the merits of a socialistic model. My dispute is with the incompetenciess behind the people who try to manage it. Our CMS WAS working for millions of our elderly, , but for the ensuing Government overreach . The end result is a shit-storm of waste and/or criminal application, which called on FWA division to be created.
6. Lacking any regulation and / or competition the provision of any good will naturally tend towards the maximization of profit, which will be a factor of cost of production on the one hand and the size of the market (essentially price * volume). In healthcare "price * volume" doesn't necessarily equate to the maximum number of people treated. In your description it's not the doctors that have to "adapt to bearable markets", but the patients who can't afford the care.
I have never suggested that we should abolish regulations. But the healthcare problem is the direct result of greed... and I have given to you, what I believe to be two very tacit, real avenues to a solution.