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And the Western European governments have _death panels_ to decide who deserves medical care and who deserves to die. And, in Western Europe, you must wait ove

And the Western European governments have _death panels_ to decide who deserves medical care and who deserves to die. And, in Western Europe, you must wait over a month for your non-urgent surgery, and much longer to be admitted into the ER. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/world/europe/uk-national-health-service.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/world/europe/uk-national-.... And you might die while waiting for your medical care: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/bacchus-barua-/wait-times-canada_b_5505110.html https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/bacchus-barua-/wait-times-cana... And guess what, your taxes are 50% higher to pay for all this.

ceejayoz 8y ago
> And the Western European governments have _death panels_ to decide who deserves medical care and who deserves to die. In the US, we just call them "insurance companies". > And, in Western Europe, you must wait over a month for your non-urgent surgery Have you ever tried to get non-urgent surgery in the US? https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-physician-relationships/patient-wait-times-in-america-9-things-to-know.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-physician-rel... > In a survey of 15 large U.S. metropolitan areas conducted by national physician search firm Merritt Hawkins, researchers found the average patient waited approximately 29.3 days to see a family medicine practitioner in 2016, an increase of approximately 50 percent since 2014. > And guess what, your taxes are 50% higher to pay for all this. Europeans pay half what the US does for their healthcare, including taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
- sol_remmy 8y ago
  > Have you ever tried to get non-urgent surgery in the US? Whatever you say on this does not line up with reality. The UK, a nation of 60 million, has 120,000 people waiting over 6 months for surgery: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-patients-waiting-six-months-surgery-lists-triples-four-years-healthcare-hospital-a7768416.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-patients-waiti... That would be equivilant to over 640,000 people waiting over 6 months for surgery in a country with 320 million people. The wait times do not compare. They are 10x, 20x worse in Europe.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    > The wait times do not compare. They are 10x, 20x worse in Europe. What's the surgical wait time for an uninsured American? That's 12.2% of America, or forty million people. http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/16/news/economy/uninsured-americans/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/16/news/economy/uninsured-ameri... In some cases, this winds up being an infinite wait time: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR2007022702116.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02... Side-note: I'm citing a whole bunch of sources in my replies to you. Maybe you could do so for your "10x, 20x" numbers?
    - sol_remmy 8y ago
      You just moved the goalpost. We were talking about wait times for insured people, which is 88% of Americans. Can we stick to one topic until it is resolved? For the 88% of Americans who are insured, their wait times are lower than in rich Western European countries and Canada, and far lower than poorer Western European countries like Italy. Here's an article about people in Canada paying for surgery in the U.S. to avoid waiting forever for their surgery: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Long+Canadian+wait+times+send+patients+south+surgery+Video/9702357/story.html http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Long+Canadian+wait... Have you ever seen an article about people going to Canada for superior medical care? No. Canadian medical care is clearly cheaper but also inferior.
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        > We were talking about wait times for insured people, which is 88% of Americans. No, we're talking about wait times for people in the respective countries. If you think wait times of six months are excessive, you should be incensed about "forever". > Have you ever seen an article about people going to Canada for superior medical care? I would suspect the citizenship/residency requirements make this difficult in practice, as does their legal ban on a parallel private system. Meanwhile, if going overseas for care is a bad sign, as you allege, the US sees the same thing: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/02/americans-flee-america-overseas-health-care-just-canadians/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/02/americans-fle... "Lots of people are pointing out that this isn’t really true, but I want to point out something different: Americans flee the US in pretty similar numbers to Canadians fleeing Canada. The best numbers we have suggest that about 45,000 Canadians left the country for medical care in 2015. (That’s all destinations, not just the US.) Meanwhile, about 250,000 Americans left the US for medical care abroad. And these numbers don’t even count the number of Americans who get their prescription drugs from overseas."
realusername 8y ago
> And the Western European governments have _death panels_ to decide who deserves medical care and who deserves to die. Private insurance is also a death panel, they decide who deserves medical care and who deserves to die. > And guess what, your taxes are 50% higher to pay for all this. The US health-care is not tax-free, you already pay more in the US for health-care with just the taxes than Western Europe. It's just that you also pay insurance on top of those taxes as well.
arethuza 8y ago
Even here in the UK with our avowedly socialist NHS you don't have to wait for anything - if you want you can always go private.

ceejayoz 8y ago

> And the Western European governments have _death panels_ to decide who deserves medical care and who deserves to die. In the US, we just call them "insurance companies". > And, in Western Europe, you must wait over a month for your non-urgent surgery Have you ever tried to get non-urgent surgery in the US? https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-physician-relationships/patient-wait-times-in-america-9-things-to-know.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-physician-rel... > In a survey of 15 large U.S. metropolitan areas conducted by national physician search firm Merritt Hawkins, researchers found the average patient waited approximately 29.3 days to see a family medicine practitioner in 2016, an increase of approximately 50 percent since 2014. > And guess what, your taxes are 50% higher to pay for all this. Europeans pay half what the US does for their healthcare, including taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...

sol_remmy 8y ago
> Have you ever tried to get non-urgent surgery in the US? Whatever you say on this does not line up with reality. The UK, a nation of 60 million, has 120,000 people waiting over 6 months for surgery: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-patients-waiting-six-months-surgery-lists-triples-four-years-healthcare-hospital-a7768416.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-patients-waiti... That would be equivilant to over 640,000 people waiting over 6 months for surgery in a country with 320 million people. The wait times do not compare. They are 10x, 20x worse in Europe.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  > The wait times do not compare. They are 10x, 20x worse in Europe. What's the surgical wait time for an uninsured American? That's 12.2% of America, or forty million people. http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/16/news/economy/uninsured-americans/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/16/news/economy/uninsured-ameri... In some cases, this winds up being an infinite wait time: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR2007022702116.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02... Side-note: I'm citing a whole bunch of sources in my replies to you. Maybe you could do so for your "10x, 20x" numbers?
  - sol_remmy 8y ago
    You just moved the goalpost. We were talking about wait times for insured people, which is 88% of Americans. Can we stick to one topic until it is resolved? For the 88% of Americans who are insured, their wait times are lower than in rich Western European countries and Canada, and far lower than poorer Western European countries like Italy. Here's an article about people in Canada paying for surgery in the U.S. to avoid waiting forever for their surgery: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Long+Canadian+wait+times+send+patients+south+surgery+Video/9702357/story.html http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Long+Canadian+wait... Have you ever seen an article about people going to Canada for superior medical care? No. Canadian medical care is clearly cheaper but also inferior.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      > We were talking about wait times for insured people, which is 88% of Americans. No, we're talking about wait times for people in the respective countries. If you think wait times of six months are excessive, you should be incensed about "forever". > Have you ever seen an article about people going to Canada for superior medical care? I would suspect the citizenship/residency requirements make this difficult in practice, as does their legal ban on a parallel private system. Meanwhile, if going overseas for care is a bad sign, as you allege, the US sees the same thing: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/02/americans-flee-america-overseas-health-care-just-canadians/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/02/americans-fle... "Lots of people are pointing out that this isn’t really true, but I want to point out something different: Americans flee the US in pretty similar numbers to Canadians fleeing Canada. The best numbers we have suggest that about 45,000 Canadians left the country for medical care in 2015. (That’s all destinations, not just the US.) Meanwhile, about 250,000 Americans left the US for medical care abroad. And these numbers don’t even count the number of Americans who get their prescription drugs from overseas."

realusername 8y ago

> And the Western European governments have _death panels_ to decide who deserves medical care and who deserves to die. Private insurance is also a death panel, they decide who deserves medical care and who deserves to die. > And guess what, your taxes are 50% higher to pay for all this. The US health-care is not tax-free, you already pay more in the US for health-care with just the taxes than Western Europe. It's just that you also pay insurance on top of those taxes as well.

arethuza 8y ago

Even here in the UK with our avowedly socialist NHS you don't have to wait for anything - if you want you can always go private.