181–190 of 249 posts
Non-US anaesthesiologist here. I love my job and relish going to work each morning. I spend almost no time on non-clinical paperwork. I work reasonable hours, have some busy on-call shifts but am generally well supported by my department. I earn good money in the state system - enough to raise a family comfortably and have a nice house, but not silly money. I pay no malpractice insurance, but pay $400 annually to a n…
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I wonder if in the future, doctors will become more like bearucracts. You go to the internet, find out what you have. Then you fill out the appropriate form, go to a doctor who stamps the decision with a red mark of approval, granting you access to medication / surgery.
This is exactly how I interact with the medical monopoly. I don't think I have been to the doctor for the last 10 years without knowing my diagnosis and treatment in advance. My job has then been to guide the doctor to the correct diagnosis in a way that keeps their ego intact.
Non-US anaesthesiologist here. I love my job and relish going to work each morning. I spend almost no time on non-clinical paperwork. I work reasonable hours, have some busy on-call shifts but am generally well supported by my department. I earn good money in the state system - enough to raise a family comfortably and have a nice house, but not silly money. I pay no malpractice insurance, but pay $400 annually to a n…
The problem is that the United States isn't a 'country' in the way the UK, or Denmark, or Australia is. The entire population of Denmark is 5.59 million, the size of a single second or third tier city in the US. Australia is 22 million, the size of the NYC metro area. You can socialise and centralise healthcare in countries on such a small scale, but it becomes exponentially more difficult to do in a country like the…
Hold on, if the U.S. is 50 separate governments, each of which have great power (since "the powers of the federal government are extremely limited"), then shouldn't each state be able to pass effective healthcare by itself? Only 2 U.S. states have populations larger than Australia, and none would make it into the top 5 E.U. countries by population.
Talking about solutions that work well in smaller countries is all well and good, but the reality is you need different solutions if you want them to work at scale.
But you just said each state is separate and the federal government has limited power, so why do they need to work at scale larger than anywhere else?
Non-US anaesthesiologist here. I love my job and relish going to work each morning. I spend almost no time on non-clinical paperwork. I work reasonable hours, have some busy on-call shifts but am generally well supported by my department. I earn good money in the state system - enough to raise a family comfortably and have a nice house, but not silly money. I pay no malpractice insurance, but pay $400 annually to a n…
The problem is that the United States isn't a 'country' in the way the UK, or Denmark, or Australia is. The entire population of Denmark is 5.59 million, the size of a single second or third tier city in the US. Australia is 22 million, the size of the NYC metro area. You can socialise and centralise healthcare in countries on such a small scale, but it becomes exponentially more difficult to do in a country like the…
First, as with the EU, the US is divided into fairly independent states who already manage most parts of their own healthcare/insurance systems.
Second, the idea that 30 million versus 300 million makes a huge difference in scaling healthcare is pretty silly. Sure, a healthcare system for 1,000 people would have different challenges than one for 1,000,000 people, but on nation-sized scales? You have regional divisions to keep it manageable.
What exactly makes Australia or the UK's system unscalable to the size of a US state?
> It's the reason why if you look at a list of the world's oldest nations the United States is right at the top, and is one of the largest.
Massive amounts of minimally populated land to expand into likely played a more significant role, as well as a lack of aristocracy - if you look at European upheaval it's usually an issue of one of the two.
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The problem is that the United States isn't a 'country' in the way the UK, or Denmark, or Australia is. The entire population of Denmark is 5.59 million, the size of a single second or third tier city in the US. Australia is 22 million, the size of the NYC metro area. You can socialise and centralise healthcare in countries on such a small scale, but it becomes exponentially more difficult to do in a country like the…
"50 separate state governments" I'm not understanding the problem here. Run "git clone" on the Canadian model fifty times. All done. Furthermore we seem to have "no problem" scaling up central federal control of seemingly everything other than health care, so a comparative explanation would seem necessary, as to why federal social security is possible or federal OSHA or federal EPA or federal militarized police or th…
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It's not true to say that the US, in general, ignores these systems when in fact, a significant portion of the US population pays very close attention to them and would like nothing more than to seem them implemented here. There is, however, a significant minority of really horrible, angry, violent, and generally racist people who feel deeply and ideologically threatened by the social contract on which these systems…
"really horrible, angry, violent, and generally racist people" Seek help.
Non-US anaesthesiologist here. I love my job and relish going to work each morning. I spend almost no time on non-clinical paperwork. I work reasonable hours, have some busy on-call shifts but am generally well supported by my department. I earn good money in the state system - enough to raise a family comfortably and have a nice house, but not silly money. I pay no malpractice insurance, but pay $400 annually to a n…
The problem is that the United States isn't a 'country' in the way the UK, or Denmark, or Australia is. The entire population of Denmark is 5.59 million, the size of a single second or third tier city in the US. Australia is 22 million, the size of the NYC metro area. You can socialise and centralise healthcare in countries on such a small scale, but it becomes exponentially more difficult to do in a country like the…
Really? Please can you elaborate on this as it makes no sense to me.
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In US you have socialized the costs. Not the healthcare system. I think the only social type of medicine in US is the VA (they have the purse, their own hospitals and staff IIRC) and last time I read their costs of delivered product were much lower that the US average.
The VA is not a good example of a working system though, it has been heavily in the news for denying timely treatment, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Health_Administration_...
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NZ
Keep in mind that, well-paid and satisfied specialists aside, there is another side to this picture - important to remember with state-run healthcare systems such as NZ, so often a poster child for socialist policy. For example this IT department head of a major district health board who embezzled ~$17 million dollars over a period of 6 years, with which to buy, among other things, luxury vehicles. http://www.odt.co.…
That's one hell of a lack of imagination. You mean stuff like this, which happens all the time here? http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/federal-court/william...
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I agree that Denmark don't scale. But that doesn't mean that the current system we have in the US is good or that the insurance based version is by any metrics the best possible solution for the US. You could also think in states instead. If you look at it from a purely financial point of view the problem of the US system is that when given the choice, younger people don't insure themselves because they are healthy a…
Sorry - edited my post to make clearer the fact that I'm not saying the US's healthcare system is good. I just think that comparisons with other countries are futile. My comment was intended to be a general one about the way politics works in the US.