A quick look at several foreign health care systems

[MsGuy]

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It never hurts to take a look at how others manage their health care systems. This Q & A style article focuses on Switzerland, whose system resembles the U.S. system in some respects. Included are links to similar articles on Canada, Japan and France. One of the things that I've been surprised to learn this year was that so many countries with universal health care have private sector medical delivery systems; not everyone operates the pubicly owned systems found in Sweden & England. I guess that I've heard universal insurance coverage characterized as "socialized medicine" for so many years, I assumed it was true.

Q & A on Switz health care

[MsGuy]

Lookin posted the following link in reply to my post above on the other site. It's taken from the Frontline tv program.

Another (& shorter) look

[Guest StuCotts]

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I guess that I've heard universal insurance coverage characterized as "socialized medicine" for so many years, I assumed it was true.

Don't feel bad. You at least educated yourself. The citizens screaming at he top of their lungs about Obama and his evil plan to turn the nation socialist have in fact no real idea of what socialism is, and they never will, given that their information on the subject comes from the right-wing media, which exist only to empower idiocy and bigotry.

[msclelovr]

I agree with StuCotts.

I live in the UK and use the National Health Service. But I also have a private physician, simply for greater choice. Just under 10% of the UK population has private medical insurance, but the percentage hasn't varied for many years.

FWIW my elderly mother was ill at the weekend while we were in the countryside. The response from the NHS was rapid: 2 paramedics arrived in their vehicle quickly and less than 10 minutes later, the ambulance with 2 other technicians arrived. She had various tests before she was allowed home. All at no cost to me or her.

[Guest Conway]

Don't feel bad. You at least educated yourself. The citizens screaming at he top of their lungs about Obama and his evil plan to turn the nation socialist have in fact no real idea of what socialism is, and they never will, given that their information on the subject comes from the right-wing media, which exist only to empower idiocy and bigotry.

Sound bites have been used on both sides of this issue in an effort to convince, or in some cases, inflame. A few that come to mind:

1. Death Panels: Not True

2. Illegal Aliens (both the conservative and the liberal sound bite): Not True

3. We Can Put This Plan in Place Without Taxing The Middle Class: Not True

I was almost ready to agree with you and give my support until I read your last sentence which somehow blames the always evil right wing media and an idiotic and bigoted public for their failure to comprehend. I found the discourse here, in the last week, among people with varying ideas to be both informed and respectful of others opinions up until the point that I read your statement.

The truth is that there is a grass roots anger among real people who are well educated about the subject and have real concerns about various aspects of a health care reform bill as it has been discussed.

For every positive story that we hear about socialized medicine in Europe or Canada, we hear horror stories about each, too. The fact is that the truth regarrding quality lies somewhere in the middle of those horror stories.

To understand it, perhaps you should consider coming out of that protective bubble of yours bound on the West by the Hudson River, the East by the East River, the South by Battery Park and the North by 23rd Street. These real people would be as interested in sharing their opinions with you as you would be in sharing yours with them.

You're as closed to the contrarian ideas of others as you make the people you criticize out to be.

[caeron]

That there are two sides to this and that the truth lies between them is a bit of a tautology.

The implication is that the truth is halfway between these points, which I have seen no evidence to support.

There are plenty of horror stories about American healthcare. There are plenty of horror stories about health period.

That these stories about socialized medicine are used as 'proof' that this form of healthcare kills people is asinine.

US infant mortality, as I think I mentioned on another thread, is currently the equivalent of poland and slovakia. We aren't near to having the best health care in the world, just the most expensive.

Quality, as any business person knows, is driven by standards that are rigorously adhered to and rigorously reviewed. Our free market health care isn't capable of acting in this fashion and the quality of health care delivered in this country suffers as a result.

When we treat health care as a business, it will operate as a business. A business' objective is to extract the maximum possible money from its customers. It will upsell them things they don't need. It will imply that the base product is inferior. Does any of this sound familiar? How many people today buy premium vodka because some advertising has persuaded them that it is better? Now make it about your own health, and see how much health care businesses can extract from people.

It is a pity that the debate at a national level isn't fact based and honest. The democrats are lying about the cost. The republicans are hewing to an ideological line ignoring the facts.

[BiBottomBoy]

The thing is you can find a horror story about anything to make it look bad, because fuck ups happen.

Taking the very few and far between horror stories that sometimes happen in the UK and Europe and using them to describe national health care systems would be like finding one story about a male escort who gave some dude AIDS and using his story to imply that all male escorts are disease ridden reckless assholes.

[Guest StuCotts]

I agree with StuCotts.

I live in the UK and use the National Health Service. But I also have a private physician, simply for greater choice. Just under 10% of the UK population has private medical insurance, but the percentage hasn't varied for many years.

FWIW my elderly mother was ill at the weekend while we were in the countryside. The response from the NHS was rapid: 2 paramedics arrived in their vehicle quickly and less than 10 minutes later, the ambulance with 2 other technicians arrived. She had various tests before she was allowed home. All at no cost to me or her.

I'm sure your story is more typical of how the NHS works than any slander that has been spread about it by the right in the US.

Unfortunately, a lot of the blame for the negative opinions and outright lies can be laid directly at the door of Daniel Hannan, the Tory MEP who spent months here being interviewed by every right-winger with access to a microphone and camera and vilifying the NHS. David Cameron finally woke up much too late to what was happening and shut Hannan up. By then the harm was done. I saw little enough to admire in Cameron before this. I see less now.

P.S. I don't intend this as the beginning of a discussion of politics in the UK. There's more than enough in the politics here at home to keep one's mind occupied.

[BiBottomBoy]

I'm an illegal immigrant in france and how it works for me is that I pay 20 euros for any doctor visit no matter what they do during that visit. I also take xanax twice a day. My xanax prescription costs me about 6 euros a month.

If I was a legal immigrant I'd get the 20 euros for the doctor visit refunded to me by the government as well as the cost of the xanax.

As it stands, however, I'm still getting a pretty decent bargain and great medical care.

[Guest Conway]

I thought this was the most relative of the various health care threads to post this in.

It is an opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal written by GW Bush's former HHS Secretary making the argument that the current crop of health care proposals are so poorly defined that they have the potential to be abused in practice to the point that they become nothing more than wealth re-distribution.

I found it very well written and thought provoking.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574434933462691154.html

[BiBottomBoy]

The wall street journal is the fox news of newspapers.

[JKane]

The wall street journal is the fox news of newspapers.

But of course! They're both owned by Rupert Murdock!

[BiBottomBoy]

Yes. I'm dubious of anything the Wall Street Journal writes.

[Guest Conway]

Well, the WSJ is a business newspaper, so one may expect it to have a somewhat anti-socialist slant.

The whole purpose of posting the op ed was to see if it could actually generate a further discussion of some legitimate concerns that people have with the current health care proposals that we are considering. The op ed piece puts forth some valid and logical points in my opinion.

I really thought that the members of this forum were intelligent enough to engage in thoughtful discussion versus slapping some simpleton labels on the source of the op ed piece.

Obviously, I was wrong about that.

[BiBottomBoy]

To be honest, Conwoy, I couldn't read the story. When I click on it I get a message that tells me that in my "region" only paid subscribers can read the article.

This happens sometimes when I try to access American media from France. Somewhere along the line my IP Address blocks me from certain things.

[caeron]

I read the WSJ daily. It's opinion section for at least the last ~10 years or so has been pretty traditional social conservative. Which is too bad, because I think they'd have a much more useful perspective if their perspective was business fiscal conservative.

I think everyone should be required to have coverage which addresses the point they raise.

[BiBottomBoy]

Yes. If we can require everyone to have auto insurance, we can require everyone to have body insurance.