[OT-ish] It's Spring, when a young man's thoughts turn to

education.

It *is* inconsistent with healthcare costs being 2.25% of your earned income. That's just one tax-source of your funding; the actual costs are a bunch higher.

That's important! We're having that conversation in the USA, and people musn't expect a pricetag of 2.25% of earnings. It's at least 5 or 6x that.

Our government _already_ spends ~8% of our GDP on healthcare. For about what the UK spends for their universal care, our gov. manages to cover about a third of the population.

care

Thanks for the link. That article is surprisingly chauvinistic.

Alas, the reasoning is so full of wrong assumptions, false comparisons, and errors of logic that I can't take it as representative of what we really want to know.

Microanalyzing it would just bore everyone.

Suffice it to say that most of the US's costs--and deaths--are lifestyle--not healthcare--related, and an ounce of prevention's worth a pound of the cure, whatever your system.

Cheers, James Arthur

care

A report from the WHO, now several years old, ranked US overall health care 29th in the world, just behind Costa Rica.

Jerry

Oh that's just silly. There's so much of that wrt this topic.

Cheers, James Arthur

My uncle is a doctor who has, as well, worked within WHO for a few decades now. Most of his years have been abroad, though he spends a lot of time with his children who live here in the US (near me.) He has a broad picture to work from and agrees roughly with the WHO ranking (perhaps having participated in its methodology, one may expect as much.)

Jon

care

I'm an USAer considering moving to Canada just for the healthcare. Its a long time from 50 to 65 to wait for medicare while no one will no longer hire you. I could retire in Canada.

What are the laws regarding foreigners and healthcare in Canada?

Kaiser HMO in California has a waiting time just to see a doctor.

Kaiser HMO in California has a waiting time just to see a doctor.

care

You need PR or other immigration status, which may or may not be difficult. There's a big drop-off in points depending on your exact age under the skilled worker category... full 10 points at age 49 and zero at 54.

An advanced degree, age of

... snip ...

It is dead simple. If you don't like it, simply PLONK the thread. Then you will never see anything further. This is not like the foolish arguments or sales pitches that keep appearing.

Oh my. The years seem to just be slipping away.

Pretty stupid to live in California, then, huh?

care

Bye.

Why would Canuckistan want someone who is unemployable? They might just as well take Slowman.

That's exactly what I said when I recently had to photocopy my birth certificate. So much has changed, and in little way for the better... I guess modern certificates say "FIRST NAME" not "CHRISTIAN NAME", and I'm quite sure Hamburg is no longer in WEST-GERMANY.

I was in school for another 20 months afterwards.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I'm sure Australia has already warned them not to let him in.

How does one quantify such a multidimensional thing with a single number?

To answer this I just scanned the WHO report. It's an advocacy piece for socialized medicine. For example, chapter two, "Advancing and Sustaining Universal Coverage."

Their ranking system weighs four components, three of which relate to how completely socialized your system is: Universality, Fairness (must be paid for by the rich), and Equality (the rich must not be able to purchase better care).

Their fourth factor, Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy, is a nearly useless gauge of healthcare quality.

(For example, when murder and suicide are excluded, the United States has the longest life expectancy of any western nation. If you were to assume (wrongly, like WHO) that care determines lifespan, then the USA should rate the best.)

Their rankings prize equality, not quality. The plane needn't fly, just as long as first class isn't too much nicer than coach.

Cheers, James Arthur

I agree. Any summary like this grossly eliminates all kinds of useful knowledge, distilling it into a single thing. I just remember him talking to me about it and saying that, with very broad brush strokes, the number poses worries when the US falls that far down the list.

Not having been involved in any of this, I suppose it is kind of like measuring stock market performance by looking at the DJIA or the S&P500.

The use of the term 'socialized' is your own, I gather.

Regarding universal health care itself, I'm all for it. So don't argue with me about this. My personal physician is all for it, as well. In fact, so are ALL of my doctors -- which includes a neurosurgeon, a neurologist, my dentist of 35 years, and a variety of others (I have two disabled children, one with grand mal seizures, and I am currently working on developing a residence/retreat for dental care for disabilities, so I have a lot of regular contact that is much broader than most people have.. and.... well, you get the idea. They ALL want universal health care in the US and they want it sooner than later. I'm trying hard to recall any medical professional in my sphere who doesn't want it. I'll have to keep asking. So far, my recollection can't come up with one.

I can't speak for all this. I'm sure all you've done is gloss quickly over it. I know he (my uncle) spent something on the order of 20 years and more dealing with health care issues around the world, and in the US (he had both a private practice here as well as a business selling products to dentists, which is how he became a multi- millionaire, I suppose.) He's pretty sharp, has more than a lifetime of experience across a very wide range of circumstances, so I'll just leave it there.

All I can tell you is that I have a lot of respect for him and his opinions in this area and he has more knowledge here, due to a long period of time worrying about such things, than most doctors only in private practice.

I suspect, but don't know, that if you were to spend a few months digging into the methodology leading to the design of the ranking system itself, as well as into the practice used in applying it later on, you'd find it fairly robust and as well-designed as can be. The goals leading towards the design may certainly be biased in your opinion, but I suspect that they are probably as good as any that could be used. I'm guessing that they were something along the lines of the principles of human rights, generally. But I don't know.

I think we (the US) deserves some criticism and needs to work harder to achieve health care for more than the few. I remember talking with another doctor, some years ago. He had lived in New York City for quite some time, earlier in his life. He said, "New York is a great place to live, if you are wealthy." Health care in the US is the best to be had, "if you are wealthy." I work with people who are poor because they are significantly developmentally disabled -- these are people in group homes, foster homes, and the like. They don't have access to attorneys, for example, because no attorney would wreck their own lives by dedicating themselves to a group of people without money. Try finding one who knows the ADA and its modification, lately, and will work for an individual. I have. They don't exist. They work for the State or else they work for the tiny groups that are paid for by federal funds (in Oregon, this is Disability Rights Oregon or DRO) who cannot afford to spend any time on anything that doesn't affect a lot of people -- namely, class actions. Similarly, dentists don't want the business. The State systems pay too little, when they pay; and patients are very often "no shows," even then. There are perhaps a tiny handful who dare to hang out their shield for this kind of business and they are overwhelmed.

I'll make this personal, James. My daughter had a grand mal seizure a short while back. She broke her front teeth out, down to the gum line. I took her in to see her dentist (there are a very few, by the way, in our area of 1.5 million people willing to specialize in people like my daughter who requires general anesthesia for work) who looked her over and told me it would be 10 months before he could get her in to the hospital setting where they could work on her. 10 months in an emergency situation!! I said, "Perhaps I should find another dentist?" And before he could speak, his assistant chirped in and said, "If you find another who can do this faster, let US know. We don't know anyone in the area, ourselves, who can get in quicker. So that would help us, too." He nodded, affirmatively. I called around for a few months, found no difference, at all.

For those who are the least in this society, the US society, it is NOT the best place to be.

The doctors know this, James.

This is what started my own mission to set up a place for this kind of thing. I'm working with several groups now, from a teaching hospital to groups specializing in providing indigent health care around the world, to providing care here in the US where it is sadly missing. Many people in DD, you can't even see their teeth. That's the level of care they get, today. There are classes, regularly, on a subject called the "Fatal Four" which talks about the 4 primary affectable causes of death in the DD community. Choking is one of those 4 and the primary reason is due to completely removing their teeth at an early age, because of the lack of care.

This is the US, James, for those who aren't at the pinnacle in it.

I've no doubt that the US ranking is painted with a broad brush, but there is truth in it, too.

Jon

Before you misunderstand this, James, I meant more than 20 years purely on this subject of global health care issues. He's been a doctor for more than 50 years. It's just that his work as a consultant with WHO started a few decades back. Don't imagine he only has 20 years total professional experience.

Jon