UK (including Stephen Hawkings) to the US, QUIT DEFLAMING OUT HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

[Old Rocks]

Here is the most interesting part I thought about the article!

Then followed a fact sheet comparing selected statistics such as health spending per capita, infant mortality, life expectancy, and more. Each one showed England outperforming its trans-Atlantic counterpart.

The British government offers health care for free at the point of need, a service pioneered by Labour in 1948. In the six decades since, its promise of universal medical care, from cradle to grave, is taken for granted by Britons to such an extent that politicians -- even fiscal conservatives -- are loath to attack it.

Where might we find this fact sheet? I'd be interested in reading it.

I don't see anything in the above article(other than 1sentence by Hawking), that is anything more than some anonymous employee of NHS defending their employer, and some opinion of an unknown author. Is there any more than that to it? and why the anonymity?

Here is a site where you can get considerably more information on the health care systems of Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Taiwan;

FRONTLINE: sick around the world | PBS

 

[Old Rocks]

The UK is coming out on the attack. They are stating the healthcare industry lobby representing a billion dollar industry that know Obama's plan will mean its death, is maliciously and recklessly defaming them.

Read the part about Steve Hawkings, who lives in London and supports the UK system. I think pundits have used great scare tactics in this debate to get falsehoods about socialized medicine out there.

Note: Did anyone think that maybe people have come to America for treatment because that doctor is the best in the field on it. I know people all over the world go to another socialized medicine country in Israel.

I know people all over the US flock to the doctors in LA, Chicago and NY! Why would that be? Because of certain doctors and not to flea a poor healthcare system, methink!


U.K. Hits Back at U.S. Health Reform 'Untruths' - Political News - FOXNews.com

Perhaps when Hawking said, "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he meant he would not be in a wheelchair today if it were not for the NHS. Maybe his meaning was that if he had had private insurance coverage in the US he might be walking around and talking today, perhaps even running marathons and singing opera. Maybe he was really wondering, "Why on Earth would the Americans consider trading in their very high quality health care system for one that put some one like me in a wheelchair?"

The problem is it is not high quality healthcare for everyone.

And here in the US there are millions for whom any care would be an improvement. Nobody goes bankrupt because of medical bills in the other Democratic nations that have good health care systems. It is only here in the states that you lose everything because of a major medical emergency. And over 50% of those going bankrupt for medical bills have insurance.

Besides that, if their health care, on the average, is so bad, why do they have longer life spans, and a far better infant mortality rate?

 

[Old Rocks]

Perhaps when Hawking said, "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he meant he would not be in a wheelchair today if it were not for the NHS. Maybe his meaning was that if he had had private insurance coverage in the US he might be walking around and talking today, perhaps even running marathons and singing opera. Maybe he was really wondering, "Why on Earth would the Americans consider trading in their very high quality health care system for one that put some one like me in a wheelchair?"

The problem is it is not high quality healthcare for everyone.

That's an important problem. Another important problem is the rising cost of health care, and another is the portability of health insurance, and there are others that are important, too, but this list of important problems does not constitute a health care crisis that requires hastily contrived bills to be passed out of committee before the summer recess so that they can be signed into law before the 2010 campaign season begins. The polls show that most Americans want to solve at least some of these problems, but they also show that most Americans do not support the solutions Obama is pushing or that are embodied in HR 3200. Advocates of this bill argue that if you don't support the bill you don't support change, but that is simply not true.

Oh, get off it. You simply do not want President Obama credited with finally bringing the US into the 21st Century on the health care issue. And if a few tens of thousands of our citizens have to die in order for him not to get the credit, you don't care.

 

[Old Rocks]

Perhaps when Hawking said, "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he meant he would not be in a wheelchair today if it were not for the NHS. Maybe his meaning was that if he had had private insurance coverage in the US he might be walking around and talking today, perhaps even running marathons and singing opera. Maybe he was really wondering, "Why on Earth would the Americans consider trading in their very high quality health care system for one that put some one like me in a wheelchair?"

That is severely fuckin' stupid.


Here's the deal: the op-ed that started all this tried to use the Dr. Hawking to argue against public healthcare. It was a dumb move for obvious reasons. Investor’s Business Daily tried to run a "correction" of sorts by leaving out this sentence...




...and saying...

Editor’s Note: This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the UK.

...as if somehow that makes it all okay.

Problem is, the Hawking example was the lynchpin of this idiotic editorial in the first place. With the author's dumbass mistake and Hawking himself defending the British system (and yes, toomuchtime, that is what he's doing...deal with it), IBD should just quietly walk away from the piece, if not disawow it altogether. Instead they issue a half-assed "correction".

What is severely stupid is responding seriously to my post that anyone who isn't dull witted and humorless would understand was intended as a joke. What part of your brain has to be defective for you to take the reference to Hawking running marathons and singing opera seriously? Clearly,it would be too much to ask even our first rate health care system to help you with your problems.

Well, your post was so much in line with other posts that I thought you were serious. That is the level of debate that opposition to the present bill has established. Just check out Political Chics posts.

And I do owe you an apology for the neg rep.

 

[Old Rocks]

Here is the most interesting part I thought about the article!

Then followed a fact sheet comparing selected statistics such as health spending per capita, infant mortality, life expectancy, and more. Each one showed England outperforming its trans-Atlantic counterpart.

The British government offers health care for free at the point of need, a service pioneered by Labour in 1948. In the six decades since, its promise of universal medical care, from cradle to grave, is taken for granted by Britons to such an extent that politicians -- even fiscal conservatives -- are loath to attack it.

Could you show me where in the article where it stated the correlation between nationalized healthcare and infant mortality rate, life expectancy, and more?
You posted it, and I'm asking for it.

US ranks last among other industrialized nations on preventa... (omparisons showing the U.S. lagging in h...)


omparisons showing the U.S. lagging in health outcomes. The fact that other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less, indicates that policy, goals, and efforts to improve health systems make a difference.

In 199798 the U.S. ranked 15th out of 19 countries on the mortality amenable to health care measure. However, by 200203 the U.S. fell to last place, with 109 deaths amenable to health care for every 100,000 people. In contrast, mortality rates per 100,000 people in the leading countries were: France (64), Japan (71), and Australia (71). The other countries included in the study were Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Study authors state that the measure of deaths amenable to health care is a valuable indicator of health system performance because it is sensitive to improved care, including public health initiatives. It considers a range of conditions from which it is reasonable to expect death to be averted even after the condition develops. This includes causes such as appendicitis and hypertension, where the medical nature of the intervention is apparent; it also includes illnesses that can be detected early with effective screenings such as cervical or colon cancer, and tuberculosis which, while acquisition is largely driven by socio-economic conditions, is not fatal when treated in a timely manner.

 

[Old Rocks]

U.S. health care system ranks last compared with five other nations on measures of quality, access, efficiency | Unusual into


The U.S. health care approach ranks last compared with five other nations on measures of quality, access, proficiency, equity, and outcomes, in the third edition of a Commonwealth Fund report analyzing international health policy surveys.


While the U.S. did well on some preventive care measures, the nation ranked at the bottom on measures of safe care and coordinated care.



Another new Commonwealth Fund report comparing health spending data in industrialized nations published today reveals that despite spending more than twice as much per capita on health care as other nations ($6,102 vs. $2,571 for the median of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] countries in 2004) the U.S. spends far less on health information technology, just 43 cents per capita, compared with about $192 per capita in the U.K.



“The United States stands out as the only nation in these studies that does not ensure access to health care through universal coverage and promotion of a ‘medical home’ for patients,” said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis. “Our failure to ensure health insurance for all and encourage stable, long-term ties between physicians and patients shows in our poor performance on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and health outcomes. In light of the significant resources we devote to health care in this country, we should expect the best, highest performing health system.”