Do ER visits account for all, or even half of, hospital visits?
No idea, but one would suspect that ER visits are the ones that you really don't want a wait for, yes?
Perhaps not but it takes longer than it would here under our current system.
It does...because more people can do it.
Fine let's work with the premise that everyone gets to see a doctor. One, they aren't going to get to see a doctor as soon as they would under our system. Economic principles assure that
They may if pay is increased, or other incentives for people to become Doctors are introduced.
Two, how does everyone getting to see a doctor correlate to quality of care? it doesn't.
It correlates to average quality of care.
Say 10 people need to see a doctor otherwise they will die. 5 can't afford it, so they die. Now say 10 people need to see a doctor but there is a wait. So 3 of them die. I would claim that the second scenario has a higher quality of care, because the system kills less people.
Thirdly you miss understand then what quality care means. Quality of care has nothing to do with who or who doesn't have access to it. You can only measure quality of care if someone is actually cared for
I disagree.
Responsiveness: (which in my humble opinion is measure of quality) the U.S. is listed first.
It is. The US isn't the worst at every single indicator, but overall it falls rather short of the mark.
Of particular interest is the detailed table. As you note the U.S. is also first in per capita helath care expenditure. Which is also something to work on, but I think one should explore many other options before resorting to government.
The US does not just spend the most per capita...it far,far, far exceeds the country that spends the 2nd most per capita. I believe its Switzerland now and they pay about 70% of what Americans pay, per capita.
the above is link to map of countries with universal healthcare (in blue) again the higher the nubmer the better as far as per capita spending on health care:
I think for the purpose of this discussion we should limit it to first world countries. The US/Canada, Europe, and Australia. Once you start getting into other countries such as Brazil or Africa suddenly you have to start dealing with issues like what infrastructure they have, how much of that money is actually doing anything, and other very complicated political facts about the regions that I doubt either of us is competent enough to get into.
Based on the countries you cited however in previous posts and in light of the fact that this is out of 191 countries Australia at 17 and the UK at 26 and France at 4 are not exacltey shining beacons of affordable health care.
Not compared to the rest of the world, which is very poor, but compared to other first world nations, they are doing alright. Especially compared to America which pays vastly more than any of those countries do.
As a point of fact then the of the 10 cheapest countries per capita, none of them use a universal health care system. To be perfectly honest that's a little mis leadng as well because they are almost all 3rd world african countries.
Yes, its cheap because its really substandard.
Our second worst score is in overall level of health, 72 out of 191 countires. This is most likely again a direct result of our level of freedom. If your going to be for freedom you need to allow people to make bad choices as well.
I highly doubt it. Do you think people in Australia or NZ or Canada don't have the freedom to not exercise, smoke, drunk, eat terribly? I mean what freedoms do we have that they don't, which would contribute to our poor health? I would almost claim the opposite considering they have significantly (depending on the US state) less harsh rules for many drugs.
The report also does not endorse state run health care. the most it says is that it is in a countries best interest to provide insurance to as many people as poossible, nor does it suggest that government is the best way to accomplish taht goal.
Correct, it does not claim that. That claim is mine.
Also of note is that the rank is partially based on effective use of resources. how well are the resources the country has utilized. This obviously will move the U.S. down the ranks as well. It is fair to say that the U.S. probably has the most resources available to it of any country in terms of technology and quality of physicians. So we are going to have a more difficult time than other countries effectively using all of those resources. The other misleading thing is that even though are resources are relatively under utilized which reduced our score, the lvl at which they are utilized is still greater than that of almost any country
Despite our greater technology, I don't think we use what we have very well considering a lot of people can't pay for the great technology that we have.
realatively speeking comapared to 191 other countries they are ranked 6th in per capita. so realitvely speeking no they don't pay that much less then us.
They pay approximately half of what we do per capita. So yes, they pay a LOT less than us.
A public service announcement is a little different than a doctor visit.
The point is that it is much more efficient to get people in to see the doctor sooner rather than later. Hence the psa's about going to see your doctor sooner rather than later.
I have a better idea, challenge yourself a little and see if you can figure one out instead running to the government.
I have and it don't work. And I'm not "running to the government", I am saying that the government will run the most efficient and least costly form of healthcare in this country. Hell, they already do.
according to the the table from your link that is false. they rank behind us in repsonsiveness as wlll as attainment of goals.
They aren't better in every single indicator, just much better overall.
As I hope your beginning to see your link has a lot more factors then just cost. Many of which the U.S. surpasses almost everyone else in.
No. One of which the US surpasses almost everyone else in. Unless you want to include the African countries, which yes, compared to them we are doing wonderfully.
Responsiveness is the only one that the US got in the top ten for. Overall, which is a combination of all 5 marks, we scored 37th.
In terms of cost per capita, yes. In terms of respivness in our system, according to your link no one is better than the U.S. And the U.S. is right near top in almost every category. ACCORDING TO YOUR OWN LINK THIS ASSERTION IS PATENTLY FALSE.
Near the top in almost every category? It is at the top at one, and only one, category. That is responsiveness, and that is the only one that it is in the top 10 for.
