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Meanwhile, I went to the emergency room in a hospital with my girlfriend in London two years ago and it was free for her. We're Americans. Guess which country

Meanwhile, I went to the emergency room in a hospital with my girlfriend in London two years ago and it was free for her. We're Americans. Guess which country has better health outcomes.

makomk 7y ago
Yeah, here in the UK she could've been told that she wasn't going to get tested for coronavirus over the phone for free. It's a much more civilized system. (Though to be fair, we did a little better at adding Italy to the list of qualifying countries promptly than the USA.)
- Veedrac 7y ago
  UK tests per million: 387 USA tests per million: 26 Not really the same.
  - tedunangst 7y ago
    There should be some adjustment for expected exposures, no?
    - Veedrac 7y ago
      If you believe the numbers, the UK has 6.9 per million infected, and the USA has 4.1, so they're pretty similar. You shouldn't believe the numbers, though, because the USA is barely testing people—and not because they aren't sick; testing in the US is often expensive, as obviously idiotic as that is. I'd expect the USA to have a higher number of infected per capita in actuality.
______---______ 7y ago
>Guess which country has better health outcomes. The US, by all objective measures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_of_healthcare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_o... It's actually not uncommon for Brits to travel to America to pay for treatments not available on the national health or to avoid the often years-long waiting lists.
- jacobush 7y ago
  Mmm yeah I wonder. UK: someone dies of cancer or whatever. Enters the statistics as cancer death. Drags down outcome. USA: someone dies of cancer or whatever. Was poor. Gets buried. Cancer statistics unharmed.
  - lostmsu 7y ago
    You still have to report some cause of death.
    - jacobush 7y ago
      And how well does that work do you think? Given how many are misdiagnosed or undiagnosed before death, how much money and effort do you think is spent on the cause of death for some random, (literally) poor corpse? Of course "some" reason will be logged.
      - lostmsu 7y ago
        You were implying, that sloppiness leads to reduced cancer statistics, painting a better picture for the US. Well, if another cause of death is used instead, the picture will look worse for it. There is no escape.
        jacobush 7y ago
        I think it might actually! (Like obesity, heart failure, complex some-or-other, "natural causes", take your pick.)
- jfk13 7y ago
  On the other hand, https://www.salon.com/2018/03/05/americans-still-have-to-go-abroad-to-get-affordable-health-care/ https://www.salon.com/2018/03/05/americans-still-have-to-go-...
- tialaramex 7y ago
  Here "Not uncommon" means "Very uncommon" because of course as this story illustrates US medicine is _ludicrously_ expensive and so the only reason you'd _travel_ there to get medical treatment is because that's the only place offering some obscure treatment you want. Also is that list of really weird stats "all objective measures" ? No. It's just "Here are some numbers somebody seemingly randomly picked from a _vast_ array of statistics kept for the OECD".

Meanwhile, I went to the emergency room in a hospital with my girlfriend in London two years ago and it was free for her. We're Americans. Guess which country has better health outcomes.

makomk 7y ago

Yeah, here in the UK she could've been told that she wasn't going to get tested for coronavirus over the phone for free. It's a much more civilized system. (Though to be fair, we did a little better at adding Italy to the list of qualifying countries promptly than the USA.)

Veedrac 7y ago
UK tests per million: 387 USA tests per million: 26 Not really the same.
- tedunangst 7y ago
  There should be some adjustment for expected exposures, no?
  - Veedrac 7y ago
    If you believe the numbers, the UK has 6.9 per million infected, and the USA has 4.1, so they're pretty similar. You shouldn't believe the numbers, though, because the USA is barely testing people—and not because they aren't sick; testing in the US is often expensive, as obviously idiotic as that is. I'd expect the USA to have a higher number of infected per capita in actuality.

______---______ 7y ago

>Guess which country has better health outcomes. The US, by all objective measures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_of_healthcare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_o... It's actually not uncommon for Brits to travel to America to pay for treatments not available on the national health or to avoid the often years-long waiting lists.

jacobush 7y ago
Mmm yeah I wonder. UK: someone dies of cancer or whatever. Enters the statistics as cancer death. Drags down outcome. USA: someone dies of cancer or whatever. Was poor. Gets buried. Cancer statistics unharmed.
- lostmsu 7y ago
  You still have to report some cause of death.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    And how well does that work do you think? Given how many are misdiagnosed or undiagnosed before death, how much money and effort do you think is spent on the cause of death for some random, (literally) poor corpse? Of course "some" reason will be logged.
    - lostmsu 7y ago
      You were implying, that sloppiness leads to reduced cancer statistics, painting a better picture for the US. Well, if another cause of death is used instead, the picture will look worse for it. There is no escape.
      - jacobush 7y ago
        I think it might actually! (Like obesity, heart failure, complex some-or-other, "natural causes", take your pick.)
jfk13 7y ago
On the other hand, https://www.salon.com/2018/03/05/americans-still-have-to-go-abroad-to-get-affordable-health-care/ https://www.salon.com/2018/03/05/americans-still-have-to-go-...
tialaramex 7y ago
Here "Not uncommon" means "Very uncommon" because of course as this story illustrates US medicine is _ludicrously_ expensive and so the only reason you'd _travel_ there to get medical treatment is because that's the only place offering some obscure treatment you want. Also is that list of really weird stats "all objective measures" ? No. It's just "Here are some numbers somebody seemingly randomly picked from a _vast_ array of statistics kept for the OECD".