71–80 of 334 posts
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Better end of life care would revolutionise healthcare. No country does this well
Not everyone agrees on what “better” means though. When you start putting dollars and days into formulae around dying, many people lose their damn minds…
I am looking forward to blood glucose monitoring via the Watch.
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Counter point: the NHS in the UK has more government involvement than the US healthcare system. The NHS (despite fairly extreme under-funding) has better health outcomes for patients than in the US. “Better outcomes” needs more detail: Medical bankruptcies per year: ~200k in US, ~0 in UK. Caveat: bankruptcies often don’t have one clear root cause, the other ~600k bankruptcies per year in the US may or may not have an…
> NHS (despite fairly extreme under-funding) has better health outcomes for patients than in the US The American system’s problem is exclusion, not quality of care. If you get care in America, your outcomes are among the best in the world.
"American healthcare is the best in the world like sportscars- Ferrari, Lamborghini, BMW, Bugatti, etc. are the best cars in the world. Surely they both are the bests in the world- but only for the small percentage of people that can actually afford them."
This is sad.
(Many, including me, wouldn't buy a sportscar even if they could afford one, and sportscars aren't the "best" in their opinion. But this comparison drives the point home.)
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Who cares how much it costs if your health insurance cover it? The reality is that healthcare is so expensive that it can bankrupt anyone who isn't a millionaire- which is why it needs to be mandatory and comprehensive. Right now millions of Americans are basically committing fraud: they go to a doctor who has taken an oath to help you. The bill is not getting paid so the government has to step in anyway. May as well…
>Who cares how much it costs if your health insurance cover it? At least under the current model, many people don't hit their deductible or max out of pocket. I know some older retired couples who are buying insurance on the market with 10k+ deductibles because they're generally in really good health, and the cost of insurance isn't absolutely insane with that level of deductible. They would absolutely drive an hour…
It's interesting to see that "Health care consumes 18% of GDP in America" compared to ~10% in most developed countries. In my (non-american) opinion part of that difference comes from the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US. Maybe not entirely, but much more than in Europe, where universal healthcare sponsored by the state is the norm. Another point is that US healthcare is considered the mos…
Another point is that US healthcare is considered the most expensive and worst-performing in terms of outcomes compared to the other developed countries. Not that your thesis isn't correct but be careful there. You're combining the cost of care for the people who get care with an average outcome that includes people who don't get care. The quality of care for Americans who can afford care is excellent.
It's interesting to see that "Health care consumes 18% of GDP in America" compared to ~10% in most developed countries. In my (non-american) opinion part of that difference comes from the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US. Maybe not entirely, but much more than in Europe, where universal healthcare sponsored by the state is the norm. Another point is that US healthcare is considered the mos…
The problem is that "market" is a really bad fit for meeting healthcare needs, and doubly so when it's intermediated by insurers. People get the amount of healthcare they can afford from their discretionary budget and work their insurers for - not the amount they need. So they may get "more" (or at least more expensive) care than they need, or less. Note that many of the European systems are semi-private, so you reta…
Institutions like healthcare, education, public transport, prisons(!) and so on are more efficient, less corrupt and of higher quality when they are in large parts collectively and democratically organized and funded. The "in large parts" is important here: A community should agree on what that means and let the market play out on the edges, or the bureaucratic costs become too heavy _and_ unfair. Decentralization is key here.
What prevents someone from setting up an affordable healtcare plan, porentially with it’s own chain of hospitals? Other than the startup capital? As broken as the US healthcare system appears from the outside, the free market SHOULD have pushed prices down, not up.
This isn't.
With the amount of lobbying, financial contributions to campaign funds, oligopoly, the market isn't free.
This is also one of the market where you have to pay. You can choose to not go to vacations or not to buy an apartment (even if you live horribly); you cannot just not have an appendix operation or not fix your ankle if it is broken.
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The simplest changes we could make would be to ban the addition of sugar to certain mainstream food categories (drinks, bread, sauces), and also to require nutritional information to be listed as per 100g, not per serving size. Follow that by banning burning of coal and oil, we also remove a significant amount of noise and air pollution. Next we can ban any hormone-disrupting chemicals (including as plastic additives…
You missed maybe the most important thing: Allow cities for humans to be built. The American suburbia model is unhealthy on so many different levels. This only became apparent to me on my trips back stateside after living in Europe for a while.
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The cost of healthcare in the Netherlands is however extremely affordable, which I think is the most important difference between Europe and the US. In NL, you pay ~€110/month annually, with a max out-of-pocket cost of €385 per year. So, maximum €1600 cost annually. People with a low income, students, etc, get approximately the same amount of money as a cash benefit to cover these costs. I'm not saying this is good,…
When I was living in NL with no income, after subsidy the cost was around 10 euros. The arrangement was indeed strange though with the government paying me to pay the insurance company and then for the employed there was then a further health care tax amount.
it gives you the direct control over which insurer to buy, thus encouraging market competition.
If the gov't controlled which insurer got paid instead, there'd be a lot more lobbying and "corruption" and backroom deals which would not benefit the citizenry.
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The problem is that "market" is a really bad fit for meeting healthcare needs, and doubly so when it's intermediated by insurers. People get the amount of healthcare they can afford from their discretionary budget and work their insurers for - not the amount they need. So they may get "more" (or at least more expensive) care than they need, or less. Note that many of the European systems are semi-private, so you reta…
> a full state-run system, which is vulnerable to undercapacity (which the UK is currently suffering from) That's more because we've had decades of deliberate underfunding due to the "austerity"/"capitalism++" lunatics in charge than a natural consequence of a state-run system though.