[Freedom42]

Great site, Ingelein. Thanks for posting the link.

I do disagree with the coalition's contention that under a single-payer system, we will not see wait times for health care. I think increased waits for some treatments will be inevitable if 47 million people are added to the system.

That said, I look to my own sister's experience with wait times in Canada. When she was diagnosed with uterine cancer 10 years ago, there was no wait. Her treatment was immediate. She was also fortunate to be in a large city and could take advantage of an innovative operation that was then being performed by only three surgeons in the world.

Total out-of-pocket cost: Less than $50. Because she opted for a private room.

[MBANurse]

• Nationalized health insurance does not insure equal access to the health care system. Elderly people in Canada and the United Kingdom report much more difficulty in obtaining health care than U.S. seniors. While New Zealand's guidelines for treatment of end state renal failure imply that age should not be the sole factor in determining eligibility, they state that "in usual circumstances, people over 75 should not be accepted." To the terminal misfortune of that nation's elderly renal failure patients, New Zealand has no private dialysis facilities.
• Removing the medical sector from the free enterprise system tends to reduce the overall quality of health care. Study-upon-study has shown the quality of health care is typically higher in the U.S. than in any other nation, including those with nationalized health insurance. The United States has lower breast and prostate cancer mortality rates than New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, France and Australia.
• Germany, Sweden and Australia are now establishing free-market alternatives in an attempt to alleviate problems caused by their nationalized health care systems. Indeed, these countries are learning that the best course for provision of quality health care is not more patient power rather than more government power.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/medica...ealthins_2.htm


From a liberal website
http://liberalorder.typepad.com/the_...alized_he.html
Nationalized Health Care?

One of the problems with the funding of health care in the U.S. is that the individuals who consume the health care usually are not directly paying for it. The third-party payer system means that I don't incur directly the cost of consuming health care. Consequently, I consume more than I would have had I paid the marginal cost of each unit of health care I do consume.
People who advocate a nationalized health care system often tout the lower cost of medical care in countries with national health care systems relative to the U.S. But health care has to be rationed no matter how it is delivered.
Larry White over at the Division of Labor has this interesting post about his own travails in the U.K., and a link to this article.

About 800 babies are born each year under 25 weeks. Medical advances mean about 39% of those born at 24 weeks now survive, and 17% of those at 23 weeks. A normal-term baby is born at 40 weeks.
The cost of treating very premature babies is high. A neonatal intensive care bed costs about £1,000 a day and very premature babies can require intensive care for four months.
Research to be presented at the Royal College of Paediatrics conference shows babies born at 25 weeks or under cost almost three times as much to educate by the time they reach the age of six as those born at full term — £9,500 a year compared with £3,900.
Professor Sir Alan Craft, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics, said: “Many paediatricians would be in favour of adopting the Dutch model of no active intervention for these very little babies. The vast majority of children born at this gestation who do survive have significant disabilities. There is a lifetime cost and that needs to be taken into the equation when society tries to decide whether it wants to intervene.”
Any change to a Dutch model would be opposed by parents such as those of Joey McCormick, born three weeks ago at 24 weeks’ gestation. Doctors say he has a 90% chance of living. His father Daniel McCormick, a chef from Norwich, said: “The doctors behind the proposals must regard Joey as a number and an expense, but to us he is our little boy.”

Yes, economic decisions must be made by those bearing the costs and benefits of their consumption. When a third party pays, there is an overconsumption of health care. But when politicians and bureaucrats make the relevant decisions, are we really ready to accept the outcome?
One of the reasons we pay more for health in the U.S. is that advances in medical technology allow us to take on riskier problems, and with increasing success. The long run benefits are large. A nationalized health care system would largely end the innovation and technological advances in medical care. Is this worth the promise of lower health care costs? It depends on whose making the decision.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/34979.html

"
Health expenditures in nationalized systems are kept lower chiefly by price controls and the frank rationing of services. In Canada waiting lines for many medical procedures are legendary. Last year, lawyers in Quebec filed a class action suit on behalf of 10,000 breast cancer patients who contend they had to wait too long for radiotherapy. The story is the much the same for Britain's National Health Service where more than 800,000 patients are waiting for NHS operations.
US life expectancy does lag Britain's (77.7 versus 78.4 years), but Britons are four times more likely to die than Americans while undergoing major surgery. Furthermore, the most seriously ill NHS patients were seven times more likely to die than their American counterparts."


http://www.fee.org/publications/the-...e.asp?aid=4707

"
In any case, we are confident that we would never see the cost savings these doctors predict. Do they think the Pentagon’s single-payer system has kept down the costs of military hardware? The Times notes, “The system envisioned . . . would be built on the foundation of the current Medicare program.” But the costs of Medicare at the turn of the millennium were running about 700 percent above original estimates.
Plans that lower prices of a good will logically prompt consumers to demand more of it. Those of us who have been caught between insurance plans know that certain “indispensable” visits to the doctor or dentist can often wait until our coverage is restored and somebody else has to pay for them. But the PNHP attempts to deny basic economics: “Co-payments and deductibles are . . . unnecessary for cost containment,” its website states. "

[MBANurse]

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=6911

http://www.helium.com/tm/135186/nati...-surface-looks

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/arc...mpetitiveness/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1110155AAngXl4

http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2...ll_on_nat.html

http://www.mwilliams.info/archive/20...lth-care-3.php




I'll post some more later on.

[MBANurse]

http://www.balancedpolitics.org/univ...ealth_care.htm

[HM2Viking]

Academic referenced sites? Blogs are questionable as they represent the opinion of the writer.....I have a bias towards single payer because it has been shown to work better through the experiences of other countries. I also post links to clear information and original reputable sources that show the basis of my writing and thinking. Here are some examples of reputable research.

Administrative costs consume 31 percent of US health spending, most of it unnecessary.
(Woolhandler, et al “Costs of Health Administration in the U.S. and Canada,” NEJM 349(8) Sept. 21, 2003)

Taxes already pay for more than 60 percent of US health spending

Americans pay the highest health care taxes in the world. We pay for national health insurance, but don’t get it.
(Woolhandler, et al. “Paying for National Health Insurance — And Not Getting It,” Health Affairs 21(4); July / Aug. 2002)

Despite spending far less per capita for health care, Canadians are healthier and have better measures of access to health care than Americans.


Objectives.

We compared health status, access to care, and utilization of medical

services in the United States and Canada, and compared disparities according
to race, income, and immigrant status.
Methods.

We analyzed population-based data on 3505 Canadian and 5183 US

adults from the Joint Canada/US Survey of Health. Controlling for gender, age,
income, race, and immigrant status, we used logistic regression to analyze country
as a predictor of access to care, quality of care, and satisfaction with care,
and as a predictor of disparities in these measures.
Results.

In multivariate analyses, US respondents (compared with Canadians)

were less likely to have a regular doctor, more likely to have unmet health needs,
and more likely to forgo needed medicines. Disparities on the basis of race, income,
and immigrant status were present in both countries, but were more extreme
in the United States.
Conclusions.

United States residents are less able to access care than are Canadians.

Universal coverage appears to reduce most disparities in access to care.

(Am J Public Health. 2006;96:XXX–XXX. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2004.059402)

(Lasser et al. “Access to Care, Health Status, and Health Disparities in the United States and Canada: Results of a Cross-National Population-Based Survey,” American Journal of Public Health; July 2006, Vol 96, No. 7)
Source: http://pnhp.org/single_payer_resourc...th_program.php accessed 12/28/07.

[HM2Viking]

Originally Posted by MBANurse

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=6911

http://www.helium.com/tm/135186/nati...-surface-looks

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/arc...mpetitiveness/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1110155AAngXl4

http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2...ll_on_nat.html

http://www.mwilliams.info/archive/20...lth-care-3.php




I'll post some more later on.

Not one of these is a reputable research based academic source.

[HM2Viking]

Originally Posted by MBANurse

http://www.balancedpolitics.org/univ...ealth_care.htm

Again not from a referenced academic website....

My original point stands:

My challenge has been and remains for anyone to demonstrate with research driven and academically supported data that a consumer driven health care system for the US could deliver equal health outcomes to those achieved by the UK, France, Canada, NZ or AUS. The evidence says that the single payer systems do a better job.

[Freedom42]

Originally Posted by MBANurse

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=6911

http://www.helium.com/tm/135186/nati...-surface-looks

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/arc...mpetitiveness/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1110155AAngXl4

http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2...ll_on_nat.html

http://www.mwilliams.info/archive/20...lth-care-3.php




I'll post some more later on.

The sources you cite include the opinions of a landscape architect (whose statements you’ve selectively edited), the opinions of several bloggers, the opinions of an agenda-driven organization that allies itself with Milton Friedman (and they're opposed -- shocking!), and the anonymous opinions of people who post on Yahoo. There might have been legitimate info in some of the magazine articles at some time, but they’re old, and the attributory links are broken. Is this really the type of information on which you base your conclusions?

I’m surprised on an issue as important as this that a nurse does not turn to credible sources for background. Unless, of course, this is a matter of principle for you (“I provide for me”) to the exclusion of facts. As for the question of why we should continue to rely on for-profit businesses for health care, it remains unanswered.

[MBANurse]

Viking,
Your citations are not academically referenced. Your sources are not subjective. YOUR sources cherry pick the information that they want to.

Freedom42;

THERE are lots of sources in the first post that are not blogs or opinions... or at least they are no more opinions than what pnhp is offering.

Just like I said

[MBANurse]

Viking... the articles that I posted are opinions. Just like the opinion of the pnhp that you provide. Your source IS NOT an academic website...it is the biased opinion of those that want Nationalized healthcare

If you read the opinions... yes they are opinions.. most of them cite or link the studies that they based their opinions from...

National Polls, filed lawsuits, HARVARD ECONOMISTS, etc...
MY original point stands... IT wouldn't matter if I conducted a 10 year research project that clearly deomstrated that National healthcare in the United States is not workable with all kinds of footnotes and citations it wouldn't change anyone's mind that believes that we should save everyone from everything... including themselves

I do not feel that way. You either make it, or you don't. The world, the country, nor myself does not owe you anything. Period.