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There are outliers but most systems fall between two extremes of regulation, the heaviest regulation is basically a socialist system, owned by the people, run a
by cortic 10y ago
There are outliers but most systems fall between two extremes of regulation, the heaviest regulation is basically a socialist system, owned by the people, run as a public service and so directly regulated. the lightest regulated is a private system, in a country that believes in free trade, unimpeded, Laissez-faire. As a general rule, the latter gives you worse outcomes at higher prices and is, from a patient perspective, unsustainable. the former gives you better outcomes at lower prices and scales with the countries needs (along side GDP) and is very sustainable.
Switzerland has very heavy regulations, everyone is covered by a national insurance system like other EU countries, but the very fact that its private companies that carries out the health care show in the stats, they pay almost twice the GDP of the UK for about the same outcomes, same with Germany, which has a similar system, its about 18% of GDP (and their GDP is higher per person).
"I am saying that its able to make money which gives it flexibility" - if this is really what you are trying to say, then you should have started with "Private, profit driven health care is fine for rich people", which i would have agreed with.
"waiting time for operations, to see a specialist" - this is a bad example, how many Americans wait all there lives for an operation, or never see a specialist because of the price. if you factored this in the average waiting times in a private unregulated system would dwarf a socialist waiting list(which by definition includes everyone).
"With regards to drugs" - in England we have 'NICE' which is a public board mandated to approve drugs and procedures on the NHS, with the fist stipulation that the drugs or procedures are shown through proper trials to work. This system is not perfect, but its a hell of a lot better than a private board incentivized to approve any BS treatment on profit basis alone.
"In Denmark if you go to the dermatologist you have to wait 3 week. In the US I went straight in." Try to put your personal feelings aside and look at the stats; http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Denmark/United-States/Health http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Denmark/Uni...
- ThomPete 10y agoI am sure you don't notice it yourself but you are basically trying to argue through painting things into extremes. It's either socialist or Laise-Faire, Switzerland is heavly regulated, Public boards are based on rationality, private boards are based on greed alone. No a taxpayer paid healthcare system does not make it a socialist system anymore than a taxpayer police force or army does. And the US system isn't laissez faire just because it's broken in many ways. Most economies are mixed economies. So I am not sure what you are trying to prove here. The fact remains that public healthcare has it's own issues regardless of whether you personally think they are better issues to have and any honest dive into those the countries systems will show you that. You can't both have your cake and eat it. Switzerland is heavy regulated you claim (which is wrong) but they pay twice the GDP for about the same outcome. So what is it? A system governed by the state, a system that's private or something in between? With regards to Germany most of their insurance is covered by public healthcare 80% if not more. So why is that? Furthermore the US is a huge country with hundreds of millions of citizens and millions of illegal immigrants and spread out over a huge area. Based on it's circumstances it's not doing too shabby regardless of the statistics. It's just not as simply as you would like to paint it in those extreme corners. There is an interesting discussion around Medicaid vs. private insurance in the US you can read about here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2014/08/14/no-really-employer-health-insurance-is-better-than-government-care/#3969b1883ca7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2014/08/14/no-really... My point was never to say one thing was better than the other yet thats what we are really discussing here. My point was that there are tradeoffs in both systems.