American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
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American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
1–10 of 116 posts
Re: American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
#2So how does the US improve its healthcare system?
More interestingly, can the US political system ever enable an evidence-based debate around it?
From the other side of the pond, it feels like debates end up being emotional rather than scientific.
(I’m a Brit and love the NHS with a passion but would not claim that it’s without flaw. Neither would I claim that we necessarily have more reasoned debates about issues here...)
Re: American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
#3So how does the US improve its healthcare system? More interestingly, can the US political system ever enable an evidence-based debate around it? From the other side of the pond, it feels like debates end up being emotional rather than scientific. (I’m a Brit and love the NHS with a passion but would not claim that it’s without flaw. Neither would I claim that we necessarily have more reasoned debates about issues he…
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Re: American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
#4one of the meta challenges with socialized medicine is that there is virtually no innovation due to price controls (please no anecdotes). The US essentially funds medical innovation for the entire rest of the world. If the US goes socialized you will see almost a complete halt to medical innovation over time.
Here are 3 (not evidence based) reasons why medical care costs more in the US:
1) more administration (too many rules/regulations) 2) higher costs for the base goods (people get paid more, pharma, medical devices, etc) due to lack of price controls 3) people get more care, potentially even when it isnt going to help
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/why-does-health-care-cos...
Re: American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
#5As a Brit using the NHS I can only add that I trust, and expect, every government to make the NHS worse whilst they talk of how marvellous it is.
I would really like it given to an independent cross-party body, or the civil service, to try distance it from politics and The Treasury. I'd like to see legislation to heavily penalise drug companies seeking 20,000% price increases and the like.
Both sides fiddle with it, trivially and constantly. They will even fiddle when they have won a second term or reorganised ministers - because what they themselves thought 4 years ago must have been stupid and should be immediately changed, or something.
Much of the waste is from badly thought through political fiddling, remnants of previous fiddling, and public-private partnerships stupidly chosen during a time of lowest borrowing in British history.
Neither side is honest about it however.
Re: American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
#6So how does the US improve its healthcare system? More interestingly, can the US political system ever enable an evidence-based debate around it? From the other side of the pond, it feels like debates end up being emotional rather than scientific. (I’m a Brit and love the NHS with a passion but would not claim that it’s without flaw. Neither would I claim that we necessarily have more reasoned debates about issues he…
I personally get the sense that it's quite easy for the NHS to look good when you compare it to America. When you compare to other western countries the results don't always seem so great and there are definately situations where as an outsider I think things are clearly pretty bad (like NHS IT system procurement).
I don't hold out much hope for reasoned debate to help things though - who can form a reasonable opinion about ~6% of GDP directly managed by the Department for Health? I certainly can't.
Re: American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
#7As a Brit using the NHS I can only add that I trust, and expect, every government to make the NHS worse whilst they talk of how marvellous it is. I would really like it given to an independent cross-party body, or the civil service, to try distance it from politics and The Treasury. I'd like to see legislation to heavily penalise drug companies seeking 20,000% price increases and the like. Both sides fiddle with it,…
Imagine how well an NHS organised as it was in 1948 would function in today's world. Although there is no doubt that it could be better managed setting it in aspic will kill it surer than a nail in the back of the head. The NHS will face massive challenges in the next 30 years from demographic pressure on demand and staff, technology change and citizen behaviour and expectation. Radical "fiddling" is going to be needed to keep it alive. This is 100's bn pounds - it's the core of UK politics and it should be - we are a democracy.
Re: American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
#8one of the meta challenges with socialized medicine is that there is virtually no innovation due to price controls (please no anecdotes). The US essentially funds medical innovation for the entire rest of the world. If the US goes socialized you will see almost a complete halt to medical innovation over time. Here are 3 (not evidence based) reasons why medical care costs more in the US: 1) more administration (too ma…
Do you not consider the billions of dollars which the U.S. government puts into basic medical research socialized innovation? It was only last year that the U.S. government spending dropped below 50% of the total following years of federal cuts:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/data-check-us-governm...
Your starting assumption that price controls are incompatible with innovation is a political belief, not a fact. There's no reason why that precludes funding bounties for improvements / cost reductions (e.g. why Japan's MRIs are so much cheaper than the U.S.), using different funding models for R&D than manufacturing, etc. Individual systems could choose not to fund research but that's a choice rather than a universal truth.
Re: American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
#9As a Brit using the NHS I can only add that I trust, and expect, every government to make the NHS worse whilst they talk of how marvellous it is. I would really like it given to an independent cross-party body, or the civil service, to try distance it from politics and The Treasury. I'd like to see legislation to heavily penalise drug companies seeking 20,000% price increases and the like. Both sides fiddle with it,…
Imagine how well an NHS organised as it was in 1948 would function in today's world. Although there is no doubt that it could be better managed setting it in aspic will kill it surer than a nail in the back of the head. The NHS will face massive challenges in the next 30 years from demographic pressure on demand and staff, technology change and citizen behaviour and expectation. Radical "fiddling" is going to be need…
Who's suggesting it be set in aspic? That would be idiotic.
I'd trust an independent body, with cross-party oversight, rather more to make changes, and choices, most suited to the service and populace than most politicians. There might even be some opportunity to think long term rather than just having the next election in mind.
Re: American using Britain’s NHS (2015)
#10one of the meta challenges with socialized medicine is that there is virtually no innovation due to price controls (please no anecdotes). The US essentially funds medical innovation for the entire rest of the world. If the US goes socialized you will see almost a complete halt to medical innovation over time. Here are 3 (not evidence based) reasons why medical care costs more in the US: 1) more administration (too ma…
> one of the meta challenges with socialized medicine is that there is virtually no innovation due to price controls
This is a strong claim presented with no evidence. It is clear that the US is, by far, the global leader in this area. But to say there is no other innovation at all is going a bit far.
Indeed, it is easy to see that communist China is the world's second in this area, whether you go by papers published, clinical trials, or whatnot.
Even the libertarian Cato Institute doesn't go so far as to say that no one but the US innovates.
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/bending-pr...