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Anti-fraud enforcement is a tiny nit compared to the overall poor performance of US healthcare compared to other single payer nations. We pay roughly double pe

by dv_dt 9y ago

Anti-fraud enforcement is a tiny nit compared to the overall poor performance of US healthcare compared to other single payer nations. We pay roughly double per capita, cover fewer people (which means the people who do pay in our system are paying more than double), and have lagging health measures such as life expectancy and infant mortality rates (2-3x higher in the US!). https://ourworldindata.org/the-link-between-life-expectancy-and-health-spending-us-focus https://ourworldindata.org/the-link-between-life-expectancy-... Anti-fraud measures can be evaluated for cost-benefit in isolation, but when the fundamental cost structures are so completely out of whack then we should prioritize discussion of the fundamental problems - which is lack of single payer universal healthcare in America.

prostoalex 9y ago
> infant mortality rates (2-3x higher in the US!). https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/why-american-babies-die/381008/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/why-ameri... "The researchers compared data on infant health and mortality in the U.S.; Austria, whose rate of 3.8 is roughly average among European nations; and Finland, whose rate of 2.3 is one of the lowest in the world. One of the biggest differences, they found, was in the definition of what could be considered a live birth. “Extremely preterm births recorded in some places may be considered a miscarriage or still birth in other countries,” they wrote. Although the chance of survival for babies born before 23 weeks is low (the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that doctors don’t resuscitate babies born before that point), they’re recorded as live births in the U.S."
- dv_dt 9y ago
  This is often brought up, so show the corrected or aggregate miscarraige and mortality numbers to get some point of comparison. Leaving it just open seems incomplete... Edit: Absent more aggregated numbers, it looks like Canada records similar to the US, while also having some similar issues with a higher pre-term birth rate, and US rate is still 50% higher than Canadas. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN
  - prostoalex 9y ago
    They do discuss the adjusted data a few paragraphs down: "This difference in reporting, they found, accounted for around 40 percent of the U.S.’s relatively high rate compared to Austria and Finland, a result supported by the CDC report—when analysts excluded babies born before 24 weeks, the number of U.S. deaths dropped to 4.2 per 1,000 live births. ... When the researchers broke the statistics down by age, they discovered that neonatal deaths were actually less frequent in the U.S. than in Austria and Finland."
    - dv_dt 9y ago
      Good find, but aren't neonatal deaths are a subpopulation of the overall infant mortality stats, so there is unfortunately, still no clarity. Canada it was noted had similar pre-term birth rate as America (and presumeably higher than Austria and Finland). It's like a grim logic puzzle where one gets a pile of facts and try to discern the answer. Country A has higher infant mortality rate than country B. Country A has higher preterm birth rate than country C. Country B has a higher neonatal death rate than country A. etc..

by dv_dt 9y ago

prostoalex 9y ago

> infant mortality rates (2-3x higher in the US!). https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/why-american-babies-die/381008/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/why-ameri... "The researchers compared data on infant health and mortality in the U.S.; Austria, whose rate of 3.8 is roughly average among European nations; and Finland, whose rate of 2.3 is one of the lowest in the world. One of the biggest differences, they found, was in the definition of what could be considered a live birth. “Extremely preterm births recorded in some places may be considered a miscarriage or still birth in other countries,” they wrote. Although the chance of survival for babies born before 23 weeks is low (the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that doctors don’t resuscitate babies born before that point), they’re recorded as live births in the U.S."

dv_dt 9y ago
This is often brought up, so show the corrected or aggregate miscarraige and mortality numbers to get some point of comparison. Leaving it just open seems incomplete... Edit: Absent more aggregated numbers, it looks like Canada records similar to the US, while also having some similar issues with a higher pre-term birth rate, and US rate is still 50% higher than Canadas. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN
- prostoalex 9y ago
  They do discuss the adjusted data a few paragraphs down: "This difference in reporting, they found, accounted for around 40 percent of the U.S.’s relatively high rate compared to Austria and Finland, a result supported by the CDC report—when analysts excluded babies born before 24 weeks, the number of U.S. deaths dropped to 4.2 per 1,000 live births. ... When the researchers broke the statistics down by age, they discovered that neonatal deaths were actually less frequent in the U.S. than in Austria and Finland."
  - dv_dt 9y ago
    Good find, but aren't neonatal deaths are a subpopulation of the overall infant mortality stats, so there is unfortunately, still no clarity. Canada it was noted had similar pre-term birth rate as America (and presumeably higher than Austria and Finland). It's like a grim logic puzzle where one gets a pile of facts and try to discern the answer. Country A has higher infant mortality rate than country B. Country A has higher preterm birth rate than country C. Country B has a higher neonatal death rate than country A. etc..