The NHS & the United States of America

[Loyal Rogue]

Yes. Overall quality provided by a system can't be judged by what only the wealthy have. But, it can be judged by the over-all performance. And I have provided evidence demonstrating that it is comparatively high, over-all in the US. You have not shown anything to the contrary.

You have demonstrated only that you are willing to ignore the main indicators that are used to judge healthcare globally, infant mortality rates and life expectancy, in favor of extremely narrow "cherry-picked" stats based on unreliable test results to try and prove a false point because apparently you're unable to disagree with your ideology based on contradictory facts.

Much like the "evidence" for going to war in Iraq or the "evidence" against manmade climate change, this appears to be another issue where the rightwing faith-based community is not allowed to agree with the reality-based community and is willing to twist the facts until they can claim that they fit their faith.

It was three cancers studied, chosen because they are some of the most common cancers that people get. The performance of our system when dealing with those cancers is a good indication of general quality because it's not plausible that any system would have any reason to focus on and do well with three very common diseases at the expense of others.

Actually it's extremely plausible to only focus on the couple of tests that show good results out of the thousands of others that don't when you are trying to catapult the propaganda that you're #1 in an area where independent global statistics place you at about 37th.

If you think that there are other illnesses that Americans get that our system performs relatively badly at treating, go ahead and show the evidence.

LOL
Try ALL of them if you can't afford the treatments, have no insurance, are under insured, can't afford the deductibles or copays, or get denied by your insurance company.

I agree with this. So, how is it not logical that we join together to simply repeal the government legislation prohibiting buying insurance across state lines?

That is a red herring.
The whole "across state lines" issue is about allowing an insurance company to sell insurance in a particular state while ignoring the state laws that govern insurance companies within that state.
This would allow an insurance company to cherry-pick which one state's laws they will follow while ignoring every other.
Nothing is currently stopping an insurance company from selling in any state so long as they want to setup shop there and abide by that state's laws.

The problem with the industry is not too much regulation but not enough.
Competition won't come from removing the existing regulations. That will only allow bigger companies to force out more competition than they already do allowing more monopolies and less choice.
What kind of regulation do you propose to prevent that from happening?

I've already posted evidence showing this. Do you have any evidence showing the contrary?

Your "evidence" has been debunked by a new study on the Dept. of Health and Human Services website here:
http://www.ahrq.gov/news/press/pr2009/faminspr.htm

How is that twisting numbers? They clearly explain the criteria they used for their study.

Yes, I know they did.
If you are willing to ignore 98% of the data and only cherry-pick the 2% that agrees with your assumption then you can "prove" just about anything.

Using McKinsey's methods I could prove to you that most people shopping at Wal-Mart only purchase yellow Hello Kitty underwear if I define the criteria enough to exclude the other 98% of shoppers and products in the store.

To further expand on DP's gymnastics reference, you would clearly win a gold medal.

This doesn't describe a "statistical error" of any kind.

No? Then perhaps your definition for "statistical error" is different from the rest of the world?

Are you saying that more people are going to the US for procedures that require that they stay the night in the hospital but more people are going elsewhere for procedures that don't require that?

No, I'm simply stating that your so-called "evidence" is a gross distortion of the facts.
Considering that your own "study" only stated that "most" of less than 40% are going to the US, even they contradict your assumptions by leaving unspoken that more than 60% are not going to the US.
That's not even factoring in that they completely ignore 98% of all medical travelers in order to arrive at those bogus numbers.

Do inpatient procedures not indicate where people are going when quality matters more than cost?

No, that is a false assumption.
Quality of surgery has nothing to do with whether it is an in-patient or out-patient procedure.
Are you saying that people who have corneal transplants or any other surgery done to their eyes (all out-patient) aren't concerned about quality???

You are mistaken. There are more than 50 JCI hospitals in the world and the report used data from non-JCI as well as JCI hospitals.

No I'm not. I never said there were only 50 JCI hospitals worldwide.
There are over 200.
I said that McKinsey only collected data from 50 of those JCI hospitals and that comprised almost the total data for their study.

No they don't. They simply define their criteria.

Yes they certainly do.

Another 10.0 performance. Bravo!

To re-cap: the majority of people going somewhere for a procedure complicated enough that it requires they stay at a hospital over night are going to the US.

To recap: only if you ignore the 98% of data that doesn't agree with you.

After careful reconsideration, I'm afraid I shortchanged you earlier... I don't believe anyone could even come close to your performance so I'm awarding you not only the gold, but the silver and bronze as well.

This is an indication that the quality of health care in the US is very high.

Ooops, forgot that qualifier again... "for millionaires."