Universal Health Care

I am showing universal healthcare in the rest of the world is considerably cheaper and performance is generally better than the US. Such statistics and data are not "bunk" - if the system is better, then the US would be better to use it. My proposals are based on objective facts we can measure, rather than a hypothetical dream that has never existed. It makes no sense to say the US system is worse than the rest of the countries because of the government. These other countries have the same government regulations as the US PLUS considerably more. The most successful nations have government providing up to 90% of healthcare costs, and have excellent research and economies as well. To clarify my sources, I use journals, NGOs and government agencies because these are the standards used in academia. As published for peer-review, they are most reliable sources. As the OECD data "R&D as a percentage of GDP" showed, nations with the highest R&D spending were universal systems, not the US. You cannot say R&D will SLOW to a "trickle" from government, when these countries already have HIGHER R&D rates and much more government. Drug R&D was the ONE THING you said remains private about the US. http://titania.sourceoecd.org... Yes, my source did say Americans produce fewer doctors and nurses than universal systems... "Despite the relatively high level of health expenditure in the United States, there are fewer physicians per capita than in most other OECD countries. In 2002, the United States had 2.3 practising physicians per 1 000 population, below the OECD average of 2.9. There were 7.9 nurses per 1 000 population in the United States in 2002, which is lower than the average of 8.2 across OECD countries." http://www.oecd.org... Although 75% was not used by the report's authors, their data clearly stated the pharmaceutical drugs discovered ALL relied on some government funding, but the government research provided the primary discovery in 73% of the first group and 83% in the second. This was after 2/3 of the drugs were set aside because they had been discovered by foreign countries. http://www.pnas.org... You also seem to be arguing there exists a global conspiracy to make private-system overhead costs look much higher than the rest of the world, including US publicly funded systems. The article from the New England Journal of Medicine makes its definitions quite clear and it is consistent with every other major journal publication on the matter. Increased marketing waste is a standard "Prisoner's Dilemma" economic scenario where markets can be less efficient than government. When a company starts to compete by increased marketing, competitors have to do the same. Eventually, everyone pays more with no increase in service. Other countries rely on physicians to make medical decisions on published research, not drug companies paying doctors to promote their drug or marketing directly to consumers with no medical training, as in the US. Research to deny potentially unhealthy people does NOT save money. It saves the insurer money, but passes the full cost on to someone else. The cost to the entire economy is actually much higher as a result. Healthcare will never be an efficient market-system because nobody will "shop around" when they need care and providers will always maximize their profit. A person will normally pay everything to live, so you need an organized consumer agency to collectively negotiate prices, as every universal system does. If you don't believe the NEJM, perhaps I can show how overhead waste exists in the US private system. In Canada or the UK, I simply show my health card and any doctor's office or hospital has my information available. They know my history, concerns, and can rush me in right away. In the US, each insurer has their own "network" of hospitals or doctors I must use. Before I can even be seen, I must fill out paperwork and guarantee I have an insurer within the "network". Finally, the doctor must call my insurer and negotiate any procedures, which they have a profit-incentive to deny (physicians are trained to negotiate differently for each major insurer). This is very wasteful. "[Source] admits that the US has much shorter wait times for those who deserve (pay for) a procedure, and that universal health care would increase the wait time." Actually, it says the US has shorter waits for ELECTIVE NON-EMERGENCY treatment than CANADA. It also says the Americans were more likely to go without such care, which seems like a much worse trade off. The previous sources pointed out waiting for EMERGENCY care was longer in the US than anywhere else. Americans wait more for emergency care, are more likely to go without elective care, but shorter wait times for those who get it is a better system? Although better than the US, Canada has unique problems which aren't common in most universal systems and wouldn't exist in the US. Physicians can be trained by Canadian taxpayers and move away to the US where most physicians have high debt and must demand higher wages. Canada cut back on spending in the 90s, when a surplus of physicians was a greater problem. Canada is the best healthcare system to attack because it is the most similar system to the US. Universal healthcare is not "mob rule" because it is UNIVERSAL. All taxpayers get it, and they all get the same basic level of insurance. Your article even criticized the admirable fact that Sweden's Prime Minister could not "cut in line" ahead of the poor. Actually, EU and US obesity rates are quite similar. In many EU countries, obesity is even higher. Smoking (a more serious killer) is also higher in Europe. They also have higher rates of immigration, especially in nations like Sweden, Denmark, or Germany. http://www.guardian.co.uk... As for the economy, Europe is doing just fine. The IMF's richest 10 nations includes all of the Scandinavian and welfare states, with the highest tax rates and largest government health spending in the world. Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Qatar. The US has slipped out of the top 10. http://tinyurl.com... Many people forget to adjust for population growth and fail to realize Europe has actually grown faster than the US over the last decade once we account for this (US growth is mostly due to faster population growth). US deficits, low savings, falling dollar and rising inflation suggest America isn't likely to catch up soon. http://tinyurl.com... http://www.sciam.com... http://www.policyalternatives.ca...