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I had a health crisis in France

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Re: I had a health crisis in France

#261

Post by erl »

collyw wrote: post #259
erl wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure that this is true. Many countries in northern Europe such as Iceland, Sweden, and Norway eat quite healthy. Using body mass index as a (arguably quite bad) proxy for a healthy diet we find [0] that many of the southern countries such as Spain, Greece and Portugal are more overweight than many countries farther north. [0] http://apps.who.int/bmi/index.jsp

Sure, thats why I said generally. The UK and Germany don't have especially healthy diets in my opinion and have a lot more people than the Scandanavian countries that you mentioned.

Agreed. However, Germany is typically not regarded as a part of Northern Europe. Although that can be argued since there is no formal definition if Northern Europe.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#262

Post by witty_username »

omginternets wrote: post #229
witty_username wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But someone has to pay for the health care, so they're losing some freedom (money in this case). That person gives up freedom also on the pricing of your healthcare. Note: that person may be you, depending on taxation

You're equating money with freedom where the question is philosophical: can you be 'free' in any meaningful way if your life is burdened by a lack of education, the financial ruin of having been seriously ill, or the handicap of having been poorly treated for a disease? So yes, that's precisely the trade-off. We accept to lose a little bit of money in exchange for the ability to flourish.

But you can buy health insurance instead of public healthcare.

But you lose the freedom to decide.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#263

Post by contras1970 »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #187
cel1ne wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that the costs of getting healthy are taken care of. Here in austria free, yearly "health checkups" are offered to you by every doctor. Meaning, when you go there because of a cold, he will tell you that you ought to do a checkup every year, which include blood tests, psychological screening for alcoholism and other individualized tests like prostate cancer for men. It's just convenient to use the syste…

It's just convenient to use the system. I even had multiple MRIs and dozens of XRays after minor sport injuries just to be sure. I'm not sure where to draw the line, though. How do you determine when "just in case" costs too much? Remember, all Austrians paid for your mris and X-rays. I don't doubt it was worth it this specific case, but aren't the incentives wrong?

I don't doubt it was worth it this specific case, but aren't the incentives wrong?

No. If you see bad outcomes from wrong incentives, come forth.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#264

Post by kccqzy »

smcl wrote: post #4
CarolineW wrote: post #2

But that's socialism, and the USA will never tolerate socialism.

Who knows, if someone pitches this to Donald Trump and calls it "TrumpCare" he may be vain enough to push it all the way :)

It always makes me think, perhaps due to the ignorance of Trump, he will be more receptive towards progressive lobbying too. Most of us know so little about Trump's actual policies that maybe anything is possible after all.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#265

Post by witty_username »

cpncrunch wrote: post #250
witty_username wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But someone has to pay for the health care, so they're losing some freedom (money in this case). That person gives up freedom also on the pricing of your healthcare. Note: that person may be you, depending on taxation

People in France pay less than half what people in the USA pay for healthcare, and they also get much better quality of healthcare as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... How are you "free" when you're being scammed by your insurance companies and hospitals into paying more than twice what you should be for your inferior healthcare?

If insurance companies and hospitals are scamming people, then why aren't people investing in those companies? Or why aren't people starting a insurance company or hospital?

If there's really a scam, people could make good money from it.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#266

Post by trmsw »

fvdessen wrote: post #50

A healthcare system that I like quite a lot is the Belgian one, which is a nice mix between free market and socialised medicine. In Belgium the government sets standard rates for different kind of medicines and treatments. You pay 8% of your income towards a state health fund that refunds all your health-related spending up to the standard rate. You are free to choose where, when, and what treatment you get. You pay…

I agree. The general standard is good (my wife's experience of giving birth here was much better than my sisters'in the UK) and if you have the money you can choose to pay more for comfort or convenience.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#267

Post by stannol »

phd514 wrote: post #138
Retric wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has 75% higher infant mortality than France which has a real impact on life expectancy.

The US healthcare system has lots of problems, but the quality of its infant care isn't really one of them. Infant mortality rates are calculated very differently in different countries which accounts for much of the US's "poor" rating. The biggest factor is that the US considers all births, regardless of how premature they are, towards its mortality rate and is aggressive in its treatment of pre-term births. Many ot…

I'm pretty sure the people at the WHO are very aware of these facts. If you look at their numbers the US is still significantly worse off than almost all European nations.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#268

Post by cpncrunch »

witty_username wrote: post #265
cpncrunch wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in France pay less than half what people in the USA pay for healthcare, and they also get much better quality of healthcare as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... How are you "free" when you're being scammed by your insurance companies and hospitals into paying more than twice what you should be for your inferior healthcare?

If insurance companies and hospitals are scamming people, then why aren't people investing in those companies? Or why aren't people starting a insurance company or hospital? If there's really a scam, people could make good money from it.

Actually, inefficiency would probably be a better term than "scam". Here is an article that goes into some of the reasons:

http://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/why-is-healthcare-so-e...

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#269

Post by WaltPurvis »

maxerickson wrote: post #146
ThomPete wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary issue with the system before Obama was two-fold. 1) Too many young people didn't insure themselves meaning that the relatively low cost of having them as insured couldn't be used to balance out the higher cost needed for later on in life. This was putting the primary burden of the cost on the older generations. By forcing everyone to pay the idea was that you could even out the cost. 2) Pre-existing condi…

1) Too many young people didn't insure themselves meaning that the relatively low cost of having them as insured couldn't be used to balance out the higher cost needed for later on in life. This was putting the primary burden of the cost on the older generations. This shouldn't be a significant problem. In an actuarial sense, the burden of the cost should largely be born by the party with the risk. If you aren't doin…

> The real problem with cost in the US healthcare system is that the majority of people have a third party payer that will cover almost anything, so they don't care whether prices are remotely fair or not.

Why then are healthcare costs significantly lower in countries where everybody has "a third party payer that will cover almost anything" (i.e., the national health system)? People in these systems also "don't care whether prices are remotely fair or not"--in many cases people don't even know what the prices might be, because they aren't charged--and yet these countries spend much less than the US for health care. Why is that?

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#270

Post by SamReidHughes »

baby wrote: post #256
phd514 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US healthcare system has lots of problems, but the quality of its infant care isn't really one of them. Infant mortality rates are calculated very differently in different countries which accounts for much of the US's "poor" rating. The biggest factor is that the US considers all births, regardless of how premature they are, towards its mortality rate and is aggressive in its treatment of pre-term births. Many ot…

Another number then, look at rate of mortality in pregnant women. It's higher in the US as well. From http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.MMRT?view=map * 0.014% of dying during a pregnancy in the US * 0.008% of dying during a pregnancy in France

Those aren't the total chances of dying during a pregnancy, they're the chances of dying from pregnancy-related causes. You can take that 0.006% gap, and then add another 0.004% for 9 months of traffic fatalities.

It'd be interesting to see the numbers after accounting for obesity.

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