Is access to health care a basic human right: or a privilege?

[Revmitchell]

Of course I don't. I should just believe whatever you tell me, right?

No more than I you. You made the unfounded claim. I simply responded in kind.

 

[Gold Dragon]

There's nothing anti-free market about charity.

Those passages are not about optional voluntary charity. They are requirements/commands.

 

[Gold Dragon]

You made the unfounded claim.

Except they are not unfounded.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/leaving-canada-for-medical-care-2016-post.pdf

In 2015, an estimated 45,619 Canadians received non-emergency medical treatment outside Canada
....
Canadians who choose to seek treatment abroad do so for several reasons, many of which may relate to their inability to access quality health care in a timely fashion within Canada’s borders. Some patients may be sent out of country by the public health care system due to a lack of available resources or because some procedures or equipment are not provided in their home jurisdiction. Others may choose to leave Canada because they are concerned about quality (Walker et al., 2009) and are seeking more advanced health care facilities, stateof-the-art medical technologies, or better outcomes. Others may leave in order to avoid some of the adverse medical consequences of waiting for care, such as worsening of their condition, poorer outcomes following treatment, disability, or death (Esmail, 2009; Barua et al., 2013; Day, 2013). Some may leave simply to avoid delay and to make a quicker return to normal life.

International Survey of Older Adults Finds Shortcomings in Access, Coordination, and Patient-Centered Care

A survey of older people in 11 countries finds that U.S. adults are sicker than their counterparts abroad, as well as the most likely to have problems paying their medical bills and getting needed healthcare. U.S. adults also reported difficulty getting care in a timely fashion and using emergency departments for issues that a primary care physician could treat. Among the bright spots for the United States: having a care plan for chronic illness, and planning for end-of-life care.

U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective

On several measures of population health, Americans had worse outcomes than their international peers. The U.S. had the lowest life expectancy at birth of the countries studied, at 78.8 years in 2013, compared with the OECD median of 81.2 years. Additionally, the U.S. had the highest infant mortality rate among the countries studied, at 6.1 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2011; the rate in the OECD median country was 3.5 deaths.

The prevalence of chronic diseases also appeared to be higher in the U.S. The 2014 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey found that 68 percent of U.S. adults age 65 or older had at least two chronic conditions. In other countries, this figure ranged from 33 percent (U.K.) to 56 percent (Canada).13

A 2013 report from the Institute of Medicine reviewed the literature about the health disadvantages of Americans relative to residents of other high-income countries. It found the U.S. performed poorly on several important determinants of health.14 More than a third of adults in the U.S. were obese in 2012, a rate that was about 15 percent higher than the next-highest country, New Zealand. The U.S. had one of the lowest smoking rates in 2013, but one of the highest rates of tobacco consumption in the 1960s and 1970s. This earlier period of heavy tobacco use may still be contributing to relatively worse health outcomes among older U.S. adults.15 Other potential contributors to the United States’ health disadvantage include the large number of uninsured, as well as differences in lifestyle, environment, and rates of accidents and violence.

The Institute of Medicine found that poorer health in the U.S. was not simply the result of economic, social, or racial and ethnic disadvantages—even well-off, nonsmoking, nonobese Americans appear in worse health than their counterparts abroad.

 

[777]

It's not so easy to compare the US with Canada or Europe, read all the links provided in this thread so far, and all it's done is reinforce my belief in the old "tripod" theory - healthcare can be universal and of high quality but that will make it prohibitively expensive ( going to that now in the US) or it can been universal and inexpensive but that will greatly degrade the quality or it can be inexpensive and high quality but then forget universality. IOW, you can pick two of the three - universality, quality, and affordability but you have to sacrifice one.

Vermont and California were trying to do it all and ended up just folding. America practically provides much of Europe and Canada with a defense for free, but not in an American state. Complex problem for a complex country.

 

[FollowTheWay]

I'm sorry you see me that way. I'm a Canadian living in Australia and am proud of the heritage of Tommy Douglas who was a socialist, baptist minister who is widely viewed as the founder of the Canadian health care system. Like all health care systems, there are pros and cons. The systems in Canada, US, UK and Australia all have aspects that work really well and other aspects that don't work so well. There is no perfect way to run health care. But when I look at these 4 countries whose health care systems I am most familiar with, it is very difficult to find any metric where the US system as a whole actually outperforms the other ones.

I agree with you. The basis for unregulated capitalism is greed. America currently ranks about 17th in the world in terms of the quality of its healthcare delivery system, last among developed nations. It was was interesting that Cuba was mentioned. We are ranked barely above Cuba. I believe helping the indigent is a Christian responsibility whether it's done ourselves or through someone or something else. To simply say "let those people die because they don't deserve to live" is unacceptable.

 

[Revmitchell]

To simply say "let those people die because they don't deserve to live" is unacceptable.

who says that?

 

[FollowTheWay]

It's not so easy to compare the US with Canada or Europe, read all the links provided in this thread so far, and all it's done is reinforce my belief in the old "tripod" theory - healthcare can be universal and of high quality but that will make it prohibitively expensive ( going to that now in the US) or it can been universal and inexpensive but that will greatly degrade the quality or it can be inexpensive and high quality but then forget universality. IOW, you can pick two of the three - universality, quality, and affordability but you have to sacrifice one.

Vermont and California were trying to do it all and ended up just folding. America practically provides much of Europe and Canada with a defense for free, but not in an American state. Complex problem for a complex country.

To my knowledge the single payer healthcare system signed into law in MA by Republican Mitt Romney is working fine.

 

[FollowTheWay]

who says that?

YOU DO when you refuse to help them.

 

[Revmitchell]

YOU DO when you refuse to help them.

Please show the post where I said ""let those people die because they don't deserve to live" or apologize.

 

[FollowTheWay]

Please show me how you have demonstrated a caring attitude towards the needs of the poor and a willingness to do anything about it.

 

[Revmitchell]

Please show me how you have demonstrated a caring attitude towards the needs of the poor and a willingness to do anything about it.

Please show the post where I said ""let those people die because they don't deserve to live" or apologize.

 

[Gold Dragon]

IOW, you can pick two of the three - universality, quality, and affordability but you have to sacrifice one.

All the data available shows otherwise. All of these other countries I am talking about provide universal health care for significantly less cost per capita than the US and significantly better quality in terms of health outcomes for its population than the US.

Some people confuse expensive and cutting edge for quality. It is like buying a car that has all the latest electronic gadgets but has an engine made of rusting tin and thinking you have a quality product. It is a shame that the US can spend so much money on health care and yet have a large percentage of its population having health care that is not much better than that provided by tiny poor nations. And that has spin off effects onto education, employment and crime.

Health expenditure per capita | OECD READ edition

OECD health at a glance for all major health metrics.

 

[777]

To my knowledge the single payer healthcare system signed into law in MA by Republican Mitt Romney is working fine.

Romneycare is NOT single payer - it was a precursor to Obamacare because it had a mandate too but neither of these systems is single payer. It means just that, one payer and that's the taxpayers.

 

[InTheLight]

Romneycare is NOT single payer - it was a precursor to Obamacare because it had a mandate too but neither of these systems is single payer.

Agreed.

It means just that, one payer and that's the taxpayers.

Essentially correct. The term single payer means the government is the single entity that pays the doctors, hospitals, clinics, pharma companies, etc. for health care, but ultimately it is the taxpayer that pays for it.

 

[777]

Health expenditure per capita | OECD READ edition

OECD health at a glance for all major health metrics.

You are trying to say single payer is good for national health. but that is an iffy proposition - what were these stats like before these countries implemented single payer and you could say it is preferable to get a MRI in less than eleven weeks, the average time you have to wait for one in Canada.

Yes, if you are stuck under single payer, the quality of healthcare does suffer and you kill off any innovation. All those Brits stuck in wards packed in like sardines? The real father of the Canadian system is screaming for reform and for reform now:

"Father" of Canadian Health Care Admits its a Failure - Civitas Review

The only reason it lasted this long was because Canada had "extra" services plans for sale that weren't universal. as did the UK.

 

[carpro]

Except you have Canadians going to the US and other places to get healthcare.

Government run healthcare means giving up freedom and taking on heavy taxes.

In the US there are more considerations in how healthcare will be paid for and provided than just healthcare. We consider loss of freedom, large government bureaucracy, being able to determine the best plan of action between us and our doctor with no interference from the government.

No country in the world has as ready access to quality health care as the U.S. The free market made it that way. Socializing it will destroy the ready availability of specialized diagnostic tests and treatment.

Healthcare is not a "right". It is a privilege that must be paid for...by somebody.

Just like lunches, there is no such thing as free healthcare.

 

[Gold Dragon]

You are trying to say single payer is good for national health.

All the metrics suggest that even if single payer universal health care is not perfect, it is more affordable and provide better health outcomes than the current system employed by the US. I don't know if a single payer system will be successful in the US. But something needs to dramatically change and I cannot see more privatization as making any impact on the health outcomes that are currently the problem in the us.

it is preferable to get a MRI in less than eleven weeks, the average time you have to wait for one in Canada.

I'm not sure why MRI wait times is a better measure of a health system than things like life expectancy, infant mortality, rates of chronic disease, etc. But if that is how your value system works then I guess you got what you paid for.

 

[church mouse guy]

We are always looking at white socialism and not other socialistic countries where the failures are even more total than they are in the white countries, who cannot deliver what is promised. The doctor under socialism now becomes a government employee and must tell his fellow citizen that he can only do what the authorities allow him to do and that he himself is not so well-paid anyway. Socialism is evil. Some Fox commentator tried to say that Cuba had a world-class healthcare system under communism. Cuba is a racist communist pit as poor as North Korea and you are lucky to find water clean enough to drink and more than a couple of eggs a month--even potatoes are rationed to a handful a month. Yet Cuba just in our lifetimes was the richest country in Latin America and had a per capita income comparable to Europe. I suppose the Fox commentator would be happy under another Stalin, the master of state-run everything.

 

[Gold Dragon]

We are always looking at white socialism and not other socialistic countries where the failures are even more total than they are in the white countries, who cannot deliver what is promised. The doctor under socialism now becomes a government employee and must tell his fellow citizen that he can only do what the authorities allow him to do and that he himself is not so well-paid anyway. Socialism is evil. Some Fox commentator tried to say that Cuba had a world-class healthcare system under communism. Cuba is a racist communist pit as poor as North Korea and you are lucky to find water clean enough to drink and more than a couple of eggs a month--even potatoes are rationed to a handful a month. Yet Cuba just in our lifetimes was the richest country in Latin America and had a per capita income comparable to Europe. I suppose the Fox commentator would be happy under another Stalin, the master of state-run everything.

Failed socialism occurs for the same reason as failed states of other ideologies. Poor leadership and governance. I'm not sure what race has to do with this. Are you saying that because there are a lot of Mexicans in the us that single payer health care in the US would look more like Venezuela than Canada?

 

[Matt Black]

It's a sad state of affairs when people consider possession of assault weapons to be a human right but not universal access to healthcare free at the point of delivery. Even sadder when it's Christians espousing such a viewpoint.