Questions It Would Be Really Great to Hear

[electricland]

the next time the CBC does a story about "fixing" the health care system, I would love it if, instead of the weak-ass questions they asked in today's segment, they would ask the following:

To proponents of more privatization:

• What, in your opinion, is the best health-care system in the world?


• How will private clinics increase access to care without sucking resources out of the public system?


• Do you think it's possible, before resorting to private clinics, to improve access through administrative improvements such as the Alberta Hip and Knee Replacement Project?

To no-privatization-ever people:

• Given that doctor's offices are already private enterprises, why do you object in principle to having other specialized private clinics?

Gotta run. Suggest your questions here!

Comments

[electricland.livejournal.com]

See? Doesn't one get good and interesting answers this way?

I've seen the uninsured-or-underinsured figure in the U.S. as higher than 10%. I forget the details. One problem is that more and more employers are not providing health insurance, as it's so expensive, and a lot of things are not covered or come with high deductibles. And the working poor can't afford coverage, and a lot of jobs simply don't come with health insurance. (The fact that employers don't need to pay for basic health coverage is a major competitive advantage for Canada, as you know.)

Administrative costs are HUGELY higher in the U.S. than here. One advantage of single-payer is it cuts down on admin costs for individual doctors -- no trying to figure out the intricacies of Medicare, Medicaid, and a dozen individual plans. Billing in the U.S. is a full-time job for someone.

I don't think it's the government that pays more, I think it's the system overall (including individuals) that pay more.

I'd love to know more about other systems. People do complain about the NHS, but unfortunately I usually skip those articles in BMJ so I'm not as clear on the issues as I could be.

I too am cautiously pro some private delivery of care. Or at least I'd like to see it tried and assessed. The provinces make a great natural laboratory for these experiments, and I hope that we can learn from them.

The reason I'm for single payer in all cases is that I don't believe there can be a true free market for medical treatments, since tfms(tm) require informed, rational consumers making economically wise decisions for themselves, and I don't think that's really possible when it comes to health care issues.

Amen. And your health shouldn't be something that depends on what you can pay.

[jaanquidam.livejournal.com]

Okay, found something:

The fact is that the mainly private U.S. health care system spends far more than the mainly public health care systems of other advanced countries, but gets worse results. In 2001, we spent $4,887 on health care per capita, compared with $2,792 in Canada and $2,561 in France. Yet the U.S. does worse than either country by any measure of health care success you care to name - life expectancy, infant mortality, whatever. (At its best, U.S. health care is the best in the world. But the ranks of Americans who can't afford the best, and may have no insurance at all, are large and growing.)

What he doesn't say here is that not only do we do much worse at caring for the poor than all industrialized and many non-industrialized countries, but many of our poor fail to get care at all due to copays, premiums, and job instability. Generally speaking, the French system seems the most viable in the long term, whereas the German system, like ours in the US, is likely to collapse sooner or later.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

rats -- can't read it. Stupid Times firewall. But thank you -- if I ever upgrade, I'll check it out! and will look out for other stuff he's written as well.

[jaanquidam.livejournal.com]

Okay, I think I'll just post the whole thing in my LJ. Stay tuned....