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I'm not disputing your number per se in the I think the U.S. system is too expensive and I suspect the system in Canada is cheaper than the ugly hybrid the U.S.
by SamAtt 17y ago
I'm not disputing your number per se in the I think the U.S. system is too expensive and I suspect the system in Canada is cheaper than the ugly hybrid the U.S. has. But having said that, as someone whose looked at the numbers, the facts you quote are largely bull (sorry)
If you look at the breakdown of things you'll see that a lot of the cost difference is because people in the U.S. have a choice and they choose the more expensive option. There are also issues of tort reform which the U.S. desperately needs. Because the current system leads doctors to order thousands of dollars in additional treatments to rule out things that Canadian doctors don't have too (and while the actual suits themselves are a relatively small portion spent on health care it should be mentioned that the U.S. pays 4 times more per capita on malpractice suits)
As for wait times it's true but the base line number doesn't take into account the fact that many don't have health care. Again I reiterate the U.S. system is screwed up. But the fact is people with insurance in the U.S. tend to have shorter wait times and it's only when you factor in things like free clinics and government programs that the wait times rise above those in Canada.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- barrkel 17y agoDoctors don't need the threat of tort to have an economic incentive to oversupply health care, while consumers of health care have a significant asymmetric information disadvantage, so they cannot necessarily contradict their doctor's advice. Meanwhile, non-mandatory health insurance, in the absence of other factors, is a recipe for adverse selection.
- SamAtt 17y agoIf you're going to take the point that doctors are dishonest than pretty much anything goes so I don't see your point as being valid. But assuming doctors are professionals with a degree of integrity the only reason they'd over treat is if they felt they could lose their practice for not doing so (and if they knew other doctors felt the same way and would over treat in the same way) As for your last point i can't really refute it because you didn't really back it up and if it were obviously true than the health debate would be settled already.
- barrkel 17y agoIf you're going to take the point that incentives don't matter, you're going to have to back it up, because it sounds like you're saying that capitalism - the profit motive - doesn't work. Is ordering an extra test - just in case - malpractice? Is not doing another scan, because it's expensive, morally superior? Are you saying that we should expect economically efficient care from doctors out of their benevolence? "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Are doctors different? Adverse selection is also a pretty basic economics concept. You can read more about its applicability to health insurance here - and cites more: http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/2574.html http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/2574.html
- ubernostrum 17y agoBefore arguing that tort reform is "desperately needed", it'd do you some good to go read up on Texas' experiment. In a nutshell: * They passed the toughest, strictest malpractice reforms in the country. * Seven years later they're still seeing the same skyrocketing health care costs as before the reforms.