pacalis

America, The Nanny State

So you want more of the system that makes fat people, requires more working hours, has less vacation... and I miss the point?

Your arguments are the usual populist ideas - the US must be best because...
1. faster care - faster care is not an end goal, health outcomes are. If another country has "fast enough" care and it has better outcomes it wins - and nearly all OECD countries have better outcomes than the US for less money.
2. American's are less healthy - yes they are. Obviously this is a chicken and egg problem, but it doesn't speak well to our current system does it?
3. Innovation - There are lots of stories (myths) about this but American innovations from pharma haven't show up in the GDP numbers for at least decade and during that decade there has been a long standing argument about declines, not gains, in pharma productivity. And on the whole Biotech's a money loser - every year we spend more on R&D than the whole industry makes. Want a current example, look at whose making H1N1 vaccine - only 3 of 15 potential suppliers are US based.

Still, these are your points and nothing James Quinn mentioned.

On Nov 02 04:10 PM John Galt wrote:

> > Pacalis The US pays more - it doesn't matter if Europe pays via
> taxes and VAT and the US pays out of a paycheck into insurance plans.
> The US pays more per person.
>
> Now I don't know what the horror in 8 weeks of vacation is, but the
> US pays more relative to GDP.
>
> - I don't think you get the point.
> A) People in the US receive better faster care
> B) People in the US are less healthy/more obese than Europe.
> C) Our investment in health capital (and Europeans piggy backing
> off our innovation) make their systems easier to run.
>
> Would you expect Mcdonalds to cost more than Ruths Chris Steakhouse?
> If an operation is done quickly in hospital A and that same operation
> is done in 3 months in Hospital B... which do you think will cost
> more? Who do you think has more health problems, the 220 pound fast
> food eating American or the healthier European?
>
> "Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his
> own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his
> history. "