Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 68 posts

Re: The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

#11

Post by TomMarius »

En_gr_Student wrote: post #10
claydavisss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? In the US, if you can pay, you get better care than anywhere in the world. The question is, can you pay?

In the US, if you can pay, you pay more for the same or poorer care. You don't get the best anymore. It is shown elsewhere, not in this article. Obamacare killed the US as a medical mega-power. Economics 101: if you force the same prices for a much larger demand, then either the product sells out, or the service is watered down.

It still costs less than my European healthcare tax, and the standard is still higher. It's cheap only for people with the lowest income.

Re: The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

#12

Post by seanmcdirmid »

En_gr_Student wrote: post #10
claydavisss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? In the US, if you can pay, you get better care than anywhere in the world. The question is, can you pay?

In the US, if you can pay, you pay more for the same or poorer care. You don't get the best anymore. It is shown elsewhere, not in this article. Obamacare killed the US as a medical mega-power. Economics 101: if you force the same prices for a much larger demand, then either the product sells out, or the service is watered down.

Obamacare didn’t put in price controls for health services, Medicare did.

Re: The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

#13

Post by billsmithaustin »

Fernicia wrote: post #4

The methodology here is not good. All they're doing is comparing average health care cost vs life expectancy. They don't measure standard of care, accessibility of treatment, etc. This is especially important when looking at end-of-life care, which I speculate affects these both of these metrics the most. A hospice with private rooms, friendly staff, and social engagement will score lower than a hospital that keeps s…

If I were considering running for President in 2020, and I owned a large media company, I might publish articles like this, too.

That aside, you can't tie all of life expectancy to health care. For example, diet, life style, genetics, and environment are all factors too.

Re: The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

#14

Post by triviatise »

life expectancy is a bad measure of healthcare effectiveness

1) infant mortality heavily impacts life expectancy. The us has a few subpopulations that have very high infant mortality regardless of socioeconomic status.

2) The us has a high teen murder rate

3) The US has very high levels of obesity

4) There is a tremendous genetic component to life expectancy. Some sub populations (asians) have very high life expectancy, their home countries reflect that. Little dogs for example can live 20 years, where large breeds die at 15.

If you pull out 1 and 2, we are up there with other euro nations.

Better measures are things like life expectancy after

The sad thing is that the people who are experts in this know these things, but still push the narrative that it is our medical system.

Re: The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

#15

Post by ssambros »

Frondo wrote: post #8
frockington wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as dissapointment the Affordable Care Act was, at least someone tried something. If only we could learn from those mistakes and make incremental changes. Politicians are to obsessed with either tearing it all down or healthcare for all for "free", no middle ground

Not free and no one's saying that. Free at point of service, like the NHS or the Canadian health care system, yes, but obviously everyone knows we'd pay for it with taxes. We could just do it, cover everyone, for less than we're paying now, by rejiggering the system under a "medicare for all" banner. There aren't any other serious options on the table. (replace and repeal, or whatever, is not a serious option.)

Medicare currently pays less than what it costs to provide for a lot of services. And providers are either declining medicare alltogether or recouping the missing funds from the other patients. Where would all those other patients come from if medicare will be "for all"?

Re: The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

#16

Post by frockington »

Frondo wrote: post #8
frockington wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as dissapointment the Affordable Care Act was, at least someone tried something. If only we could learn from those mistakes and make incremental changes. Politicians are to obsessed with either tearing it all down or healthcare for all for "free", no middle ground

Not free and no one's saying that. Free at point of service, like the NHS or the Canadian health care system, yes, but obviously everyone knows we'd pay for it with taxes. We could just do it, cover everyone, for less than we're paying now, by rejiggering the system under a "medicare for all" banner. There aren't any other serious options on the table. (replace and repeal, or whatever, is not a serious option.)

As a taxpayer I would be in favor of a more equitable system where everyone has a line item brought to their attention. There may be a use case for UBI here, everyone gets a stipend or a tax cut that they can use to either get healthcare or not. I'm getting tired of all of the taxes and how easy it is to paint tax payers as evil rich people who need to give more with their hard earned money

Re: The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

#17

Post by caf »

Fernicia wrote: post #4

The methodology here is not good. All they're doing is comparing average health care cost vs life expectancy. They don't measure standard of care, accessibility of treatment, etc. This is especially important when looking at end-of-life care, which I speculate affects these both of these metrics the most. A hospice with private rooms, friendly staff, and social engagement will score lower than a hospital that keeps s…

You would have to keep a heck of a lot of people in comas for a heck of a long time to be able to move the needle on life expectancy by several years.

Re: The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

#18

Post by cuboidGoat »

Fernicia wrote: post #4

The methodology here is not good. All they're doing is comparing average health care cost vs life expectancy. They don't measure standard of care, accessibility of treatment, etc. This is especially important when looking at end-of-life care, which I speculate affects these both of these metrics the most. A hospice with private rooms, friendly staff, and social engagement will score lower than a hospital that keeps s…

Could you indicate which health care systems you think are skewing the results in this manner? As it would seem to require keeping large numbers of the very elderly alive in comas while also not providing widespread elderly care, which seems an unlikely policy to pursue.

Re: The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

#19

Post by frockington »

ahoy wrote: post #9
frockington wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as dissapointment the Affordable Care Act was, at least someone tried something. If only we could learn from those mistakes and make incremental changes. Politicians are to obsessed with either tearing it all down or healthcare for all for "free", no middle ground

The ACA was the middle ground and it's still bad.

I agree with you, I'm saying we should learn from the mistakes and iterate on the current instead of fighting for extremes that will never work or be passed

Re: The Economies With the Most and Least Efficient Health Care

#20

Post by maxxxxx »

ssambros wrote: post #15
Frondo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not free and no one's saying that. Free at point of service, like the NHS or the Canadian health care system, yes, but obviously everyone knows we'd pay for it with taxes. We could just do it, cover everyone, for less than we're paying now, by rejiggering the system under a "medicare for all" banner. There aren't any other serious options on the table. (replace and repeal, or whatever, is not a serious option.)

Medicare currently pays less than what it costs to provide for a lot of services. And providers are either declining medicare alltogether or recouping the missing funds from the other patients. Where would all those other patients come from if medicare will be "for all"?

"Medicare currently pays less than what it costs to provide for a lot of services"

Is that even true? Personally I have my doubts.

Post reply on HN