Did you know that socialist healthcare does work?

Question

Total Health Expenditure per capita:

United States - $5711

United Kingdom - $2389
Canada - $2989
New Zealand - $1893

Life Expectancy at Birth (m/f):

United States - 75/80

United Kingdom - 76/81
Canada - 78/83
New Zealand - 77/82

Child mortality, per 1000, (m/f)

United States - 8/7

United Kingdom - 6/5
Canada - 6/5
New Zealand - 7/6

When will America wake up and start looking after its citizens?

Source: http://www.who.int/countries/en/

Lundstroms2004 - The figures I have provided are from 2004, as you would have seen if you'd bothered to look at the source.

Even if you don't accept the life expectancy figures. You can't dispute the infant mortality rate or the heath expenditure figure.

Strange how people can get so upset when someone questions the values they've been brainwashed with.

wmcritter - the figure is the amount spent on healthcare per capita, period. It includes money from taxation and/or from private financing/insurance/etc. Public heathcare gives far better value for money.

In regards to your comments about you paying for your neighbour's stupidity - is it also your neighbour's stupidity that he got cancer or that she got pregnant or that he got injured in an industrial accident?

Answer 1

Insurance, insurance, insurance.

That is your healthcare crisis in a nutshell.

Take a look at the money insurance give to politicians? Look at who they support. Do you think if these people are elected our insurance costs are going to go down?

BTW, I know several people who live in Europe and they all despise the national healthcare in their country. In one case a person had an aneurysm and was admitted to the hospital, just put in a room with NO care other than food or water. The purpose is a lot like triage on the battlefield, if the person survives for a day then they will treat them. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT IN AMERICA.

In another instance a man had a severe herniated disk, it took him four months to get a MRI and was told he could schedule surgery in a YEAR. The guy could hardly walk, so he borrowed CASH and came to NYC were he had the disk repaired. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT IN AMERICA.

The answers are simple, Americans will not accept this level of care, period, and as a result we will be paying more. Now if you can get the outrageous insurance profits down to a reasonable level, say on average the same as oil and gas averaged over the past 25 years, then we would have reasonable health care insurance costs.

Did you hear that Merck offered in NY to drop its price on one of the popular drugs and Schumer is lobbying hard to stop them. WHY? Maybe chuckie owes a debt to the competition.

Yes you are right America needs to wake up to socialist politicians on the take from healthcare insurers and we need to wake up to the foolishness of SOCIALISM>

I have two close friends who are doctors, they have paid a fortune for their education, spent their entire youth in school, pay outrageous insurance bills, maybe get paid 60% of their bills if they get lucky and it takes at least six months to get paid.

My son had to have surgery on his jaw, he could not bite through ANYTHING with his front teeth. The insurance company denied the claim saying it was cosmetic. I do not consider being unable to eat a steak or even a sandwich cosmetic. We went to the docs and the hospital and were given a 60% discount for cash. Both groups said this is what they would have received from the insurance company and they would have had to wait as much as a year to collect.

I have two friends that work for major drug manufacturers. When we talk about the cost of getting a drug to market, well lets just say I would not run a business on that kind of margin.

Now go take a look at the stocks of drug manufacturers and insurance companies. The drug companies are doing just okay, but the insurance companies are making major profits year after year.

So quit your whining, vote out the whores who sell us out to insurance profits.

My doctor friend tells me that 90% of the total dollars you will spend in your life for medical treatment occurs during your last 30 days of life. From that you can see how the insurance companies make out like bandits.

Answer 2

How about a coop health care system that wouldn't involve the insurance companies. Those who want the insurance backed system could stay with it and those who wanted the coop system could all pay a reasonable fee and it could be managed to save money for all. I have looked at the numbers on this and it should be workable, just think 300 million people times $50 per month into the system would be $15,000,000,000.0 is that 15 billion, I think it is and surely that will do alot. Give it some thought.

Answer 3

You stated that socialized healthcare works, but then went on to support your flawed argument by giving us the average life expectancy of various countries--one has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. In fact, life expectancy studies have been used to prove that our country's diet is sorely inferior to that of other countries. Yet, now you would use the same data to prove something completely different. I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way.

Our country should reject socialized medicine on principle alone--we're not a welfare state, our constitution doesn't provide for socialization of industry, including medicine, and handing over control and power to the federal government has proven time and time again to be a huge mistake.

Now, why don't you take a look at the facts surrounding the state of the health care in the countries you listed. The wealthy in those countries do not get healthcare in their own nation--they come to the United States to get it, because we are far and above superior. Doctors from around the world flock here to make a living because we pay competitive wages based on performance and education, whereas socialist nations do not. Further, people who are forced to accept the freebie healthcare in the nations you cited are often standing in line for months to receive even the most basic of treatments, and most report the level of care and service to be lacking.

Answer 4

First of all, does this amount take taxes into consideration? I saw nothing in the source that said.

Second, it is still immoral and unethical, regardless of it's efficiency. National health care systems are not free, they are paid for by the tax payers. This means that I (as a tax payer) am forced to pay for my neighbor's healthcare when he chooses to smoke 3 packs a day, or eat a box of twinkies a day, or drive 125mph in a 35 while it's raining. Stealing money from people that take care of themselves to pay for other peoples' bad choices is immoral, unethical, and criminal.

Socialism is immoral, inefficient, and just plain stupid. Capitalism and free markets are ethical, efficient, and the best system yet invented by man.

Answer 5

The difference in numbers is too small to make a statement that bold. There are many factors to consider in those rates other than the fact theat USA has private healthcare and those others socialistic. I bet it's fair to say we far more "middle and upper class" incomes due to the lack of taxes required to run socialized healthcare. I'd rather be able to control my income than give it out to others who are taking advantage of the system.

Answer 6

We need to get rid of BushCo and the Bushi War Machine first! That's where all our money is going! To pay for no bid contracts for unneeded wars.

Bush screwed, on purpose some believe, up on 9-11, Katrina, Iraq, education, national debt...I hope the moron is impeached.

Answer 7

Never as long as we do nothing about the money in elections. Money buys elections and influence. The insurance industry gives too much money to politicians for them to go against the insurance company's interests.

Answer 8

1st of all, you need modern data. A woman born in the USA today has a life expec. of 100 years. 2nd, why does American have the best surgeons in the world, invents 90% of the new drugs to hit the market, and about 85% of the new medical procedures? 3rd, why do you deliberatly not use updated data so as to poision the debate with false information?

Answer 9

Well if it were to happen (and I would love to see it happen) the doctors that make hundreds of thousands a year would start losing money. The large pharmacutical companys would lose billions because they would have to lower their unfair high prices. They would just not let anything like that happen.

Answer 10

You think the Stats are correct? I think the US has the best health care in the world. I don't think the American people have the healthiest way of life. We are one of the most obese countries in the world. Do you think that would have any factor with your stats!