The Warring States of NPF - Private VS Public Medical System

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Private VS Public Medical System

Which is better?

The private system costs money, but is faster and usualy more effient, aka more accurate diagnosis etc., however, the public system is free MUCH longer waiting list, and less efficiency, not to mention wailing in agony in the waiting room for 4 hours, but all have access, including the poor who may have a bad heart, who could not get help in a Private system.

Now.. DISCUSS!

We've got a public medical system up here in Canada, and I can assure you that people do not spend four hours wailing in agony in waiting rooms. If your condition isn't too serious, then you can be put on a waiting list for quite a while, but if you need immediate treatment, you'll get immediate treatment.

I'd also like to know where you're getting those "faster and more efficient" figures from.

Anyway, I did a bit of Googling, and found a few interesting links on the subject. More to come as I find 'em.

EDIT: I found another site which has a list of what various countries (including the US as well as sever countries with private healthcare systems) spend on healthcare compared to their population and GDP. The statistics are a bit out of date, being from 1997-2000, and the page is just up on someone's private webspace rather than being an official study, but the author cites all his sources and the numbers seem fairly consistant with what I've seen elsewhere. According to the list, the US spends 13.7% of its GDP on healthcare. Canada, with its socialized healthcare program, spends 8.6%. In fact, none of the other countries in the list spend as large percentage of their GDP on healthcare as the US does. The numbers are similar when compared to population. The US spent $4,357 for each member of its population during the year 2000. Canada spent $1,938 per capita the same year. The only country with a higher healthcare cost per capita on the list was Switzerland.

EDIT AGAIN: After a bit more searching, I came across this page, which contains a similar list of statistics to the one I linked to earlier (it's near the bottom of the page. Scroll down.) Its figures are pretty much the same as what was on the other list, but it also contains figures for the average life expentancy in the countries listed. The USA was the only country on the list with a privatized healthcare system, and also had the lowest life expentancy, at 77 years. Japan had the highest, at 81.4 years, with Australia and Canada taking the second and third place spots, at 80 and 79.3 years respectively..

Dude, I'm Canadian. I broke my leg once and spent 3 hours in a waiting room with a broken leg. My mother's kidneys were giving her problems once. She spent most of the night at the hospital, only spending one hour with an actual doctor.

Both systems have their ups and down. Being of the lower middle class, I would like to be part of a public medical system, but cannot afford it.

As a matter of principle, I'm inclined to say that a private medical system is better, and I mean COMPLETELY privatized. Higher competiton amongst medical companies would help insure that I don't get robbed when I need a checkup.

Still, the one we have in America works okay...I guess

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ih8stupidppl

15% of Americans have no health insurance. That means that there's 40 million people in the US without access to healthcare. We seem to have different definitions of "working okay".

I have to go Iguana on this one, we're trying to save lives, not make money.

The "I guess" was supposed to display my less than superb confidence in the American medical system. I suppose I should be more direct next time.

A privitised system dosnt lead to better treatment of the people, it leads to screwing them over more. In america our great privitised system has the great medicare system to aid the companys in their quest to make more money, they cant bid or negotiate, so they charge more. A well funded public system is more efficent and better then any form of heath care fun in a capatilist socioty. The companys and privit hospitols dont give a rats ass about the people, i had a shatterd foot, and extreamly seriuse break that gave me arthritis in my foot when i was 14, i waited for 6 hours. Now why again is privit better

Wayne Dunn wrote a great article on this subject on LewRockwell.com.

Quote:

Is there something special about health insurance that makes it crisis-prone? I mean, we never hear about the horrible "house insurance crisis" or the "spiraling cost of auto insurance.

It wouldn't be too hard to create such a crisis though. In fact, let's try to map one out.

Just imagine if politicians resolved that, since automobiles are vital for getting people to work, companies ought to provide for the care and maintenance of its employees' vehicles.

So political pressure is applied to employers-- maybe through the tax code, or perhaps legislation is passed outright; and, before long, auto insurance is restructured to cover not merely accidents, but routine maintenance and service. For a monthly premium and a $10 or $15 "co-pay,"

your car insurance would cover the cost of an oil change, tune up, new tires, whatever it needed.

Something odd would begin happening though. Mechanics would stop hearing the now pervasive, "How much will it cost?"

Why? Because if all you had to do is plop down ten or fifteen bucks and your insurance paid the rest, why would you care what the mechanic charged? Heck, you'd start taking your car in for an oil change every 1000 miles instead of every 3000. Rather than getting your tires rotated, you'd just have new ones put on. And that rear electric window that won't lower, you'd not think twice about having fixed.

The influx of customers seeking what would be virtually free service means, however, you'd have to wait days, even weeks, to see a mechanic.

Costs would skyrocket. Since comparison shopping would be a thing of the past, auto service centers would have no pressure to lower prices.

Moreover, they'd have to buy more equipment and hire more employees to accommodate the heavier workload, driving costs still higher.

Insurance companies would have to raise premiums. Some people wouldn't be able afford it. So politicians would trot out new government programs -- Car-aid, Car-care-- to help the "disadvantaged." We'd see another deduction on our pay stubs. The numbers of "disadvantaged" would swell.

Resultantly, auto shops would have to hire more clerks to manage all the red tape generated by the government programs and regulations, making costs even higher. Perhaps by then an oil change might run $200 and a brake job $1000.

Before long, we'd hear speeches about our alleged "right" to affordable car insurance. Some would even propose putting everyone on the government dole with "universal" car care coverage.

Now in the midst of all this, imagine that some "radical" suggests the

following: that people would be able to afford car insurance and maintenance costs if only government would reverse everything it'd done to cause the mess in the first place.

How would that likely be met? Probably with screams of "You don't care about the poor!" and "Do you expect people to pay for oil changes out of their own pockets? Have you seen how expensive they are?"

See how easy it is to kick off a crisis? Just add a little government control in the "right" area, and the thing practically runs on cruise control.

America doesn't have a health care crisis. It has government crisis. Or, put another way, it has a freedom crisis."

that is a really bad artical. Heath care is nothing like car insurence, you can live without a car, hell i do, but you cant live without surgerys,medicien and the like. That is a very right wing attempt at making it seem that national heath care is a bad thing