3 ms·

Those comparisons aren't very enlightening if you don't compare the quality of services provided.

jamesb93 7y ago
Does it really matter how much better it is when you can go immediately bankrupt from a simple procedure? I imagine there is immense pressure and loss of wealth by simple virtue that people probably don't maintain good health but go in when it gets bad enough that going bankrupt is worse than dying or being violently ill with no end in sight.
- davidivadavid 7y ago
  You're muddying several issues here. I'm simply stating that the value of a healthcare system in terms of outcomes must be compared to how much it costs. What you're talking about is how the system is financed, which is a different issue. For example, as a French citizen, I would expect that if we're in the top 5 in terms of spending (regardless of whether it's done privately or publicly), we should have a system that's in the top 5 in terms of outcomes. I wasn't in any way trying to suggest the US healthcare system is the "best" or whatever, just pointing out that pure cost comparisons are meaningless.
  - jamesb93 7y ago
    You would hope an increase in cost is correlated to an increase in the quality of care.
arcticbull 7y ago
Luckily for you the OECD [1] and WHO [2] did just that and the results are awful for America, performing markedly worse than systems that cost one third as much. [1] https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Health-at-a-Glance-2017-Key-Findings-UNITED-STATES.pdf https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Health-at-a-Glance-2017-Ke... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_ranking_of_health_systems_in_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_rank...
- davidivadavid 7y ago
  Great, that's exactly what I was talking about. I'm not sure what warrants that tone, when I was simply stating something obvious (you can't judge a healthcare system by its cost if you don't look at the outcomes). Thank you for contributing more valuable data/information. It's interesting to see that the WHO methodology also got criticized. This points to the complexity of actually picking the right metrics/outcomes you want to optimize for.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    > I'm not sure what warrants that tone... Sorry if it didn't come across that way, it was meant to be light-hearted ^_^ tone doesn't always carry well over the internet. I wasn't criticizing you at all. The OECD data is pretty damning. America leads its peers in obesity, smoking, air pollution and bankruptcies, and lags dramatically (1-2 standard deviations) in consultations skipped due to cost, population coverage, life expectancy, doctors per capita and beds per capita. Mission failed, IMO. All for the low, low price of twice to three times what most other countries spend.

Does it really matter how much better it is when you can go immediately bankrupt from a simple procedure? I imagine there is immense pressure and loss of wealth by simple virtue that people probably don't maintain good health but go in when it gets bad enough that going bankrupt is worse than dying or being violently ill with no end in sight.

davidivadavid 7y ago
You're muddying several issues here. I'm simply stating that the value of a healthcare system in terms of outcomes must be compared to how much it costs. What you're talking about is how the system is financed, which is a different issue. For example, as a French citizen, I would expect that if we're in the top 5 in terms of spending (regardless of whether it's done privately or publicly), we should have a system that's in the top 5 in terms of outcomes. I wasn't in any way trying to suggest the US healthcare system is the "best" or whatever, just pointing out that pure cost comparisons are meaningless.
- jamesb93 7y ago
  You would hope an increase in cost is correlated to an increase in the quality of care.

arcticbull 7y ago

Luckily for you the OECD [1] and WHO [2] did just that and the results are awful for America, performing markedly worse than systems that cost one third as much. [1] https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Health-at-a-Glance-2017-Key-Findings-UNITED-STATES.pdf https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Health-at-a-Glance-2017-Ke... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_ranking_of_health_systems_in_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_rank...

davidivadavid 7y ago
Great, that's exactly what I was talking about. I'm not sure what warrants that tone, when I was simply stating something obvious (you can't judge a healthcare system by its cost if you don't look at the outcomes). Thank you for contributing more valuable data/information. It's interesting to see that the WHO methodology also got criticized. This points to the complexity of actually picking the right metrics/outcomes you want to optimize for.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  > I'm not sure what warrants that tone... Sorry if it didn't come across that way, it was meant to be light-hearted ^_^ tone doesn't always carry well over the internet. I wasn't criticizing you at all. The OECD data is pretty damning. America leads its peers in obesity, smoking, air pollution and bankruptcies, and lags dramatically (1-2 standard deviations) in consultations skipped due to cost, population coverage, life expectancy, doctors per capita and beds per capita. Mission failed, IMO. All for the low, low price of twice to three times what most other countries spend.