Just a little pot-stirring on healthcare (maybe Cardiac and ER and Jarid will opine)

[LA Ute]

This was in the Wall Street Journal's Political Diary today:

Maybe President Obama has watched too much "Sicko" because he sure likes to reiterate Michael Moore's bromides. In his joint address of Congress, he said: "We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it."

But as Mr. Obama is fond of saying, that simply is not true.

While Americans may have a lower life expectancy than other affluent countries, the disparity is mainly due to Americans' poor personal health-care practices -- not to any flaw in health-care treatment. "The U.S. actually does a pretty good job of identifying and treating the major diseases. The international comparisons don't show we're in dire straits," says University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Samuel Preston, a researcher who has studied the matter

The real problem, it turns out, is that Americans are accident-prone, health unconscious slobs. Until the mid-1980s, the U.S. had the highest per capita cigarette consumption in the developed world, and the U.S.'s obesity rate today is more than twice that of Canada and ten times that of Japan. These aren't problems of the health care system (i.e. in the diagnosis and treatment of disease). These are problems of behavior. Adjust that data for the higher U.S. incidence of homicide and obesity, and Americans actually have the highest life expectancy in the developed world.

Now everybody go work out!

[statman]

This was in the Wall Street Journal's Political Diary today:

Maybe President Obama has watched too much "Sicko" because he sure likes to reiterate Michael Moore's bromides. In his joint address of Congress, he said: "We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it."

But as Mr. Obama is fond of saying, that simply is not true.

While Americans may have a lower life expectancy than other affluent countries, the disparity is mainly due to Americans' poor personal health-care practices -- not to any flaw in health-care treatment. "The U.S. actually does a pretty good job of identifying and treating the major diseases. The international comparisons don't show we're in dire straits," says University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Samuel Preston, a researcher who has studied the matter

The real problem, it turns out, is that Americans are accident-prone, health unconscious slobs. Until the mid-1980s, the U.S. had the highest per capita cigarette consumption in the developed world, and the U.S.'s obesity rate today is more than twice that of Canada and ten times that of Japan. These aren't problems of the health care system (i.e. in the diagnosis and treatment of disease). These are problems of behavior. Adjust that data for the higher U.S. incidence of homicide and obesity, and Americans actually have the highest life expectancy in the developed world.

Now everybody go work out!

I think one of the biggest reasons for the discrepency is that we DRIVE a lot more than they do. Cars kill both old and young. Having significantly more people driving and dying at younger ages, adds up, and our life expectency suffers as a result...

[Indy Coug]

I'll agree that personal eating/exercise habits contribute, but I've been to other developed nations and not been exactly impressed with their own regimen of self-abuse.

Statman touched on this, but one of the major contributors to the difference in life expectancy is the marginal differences in mortality for Americans aged 15 to 50. During those ages, the overwhelming causes of death are homicide, suicide and accidental deaths.

Once you get past age 50, the differences disappear or the US actually overtakes other developed nations' survivorship rates at an age that is increasingly dependent on healthcare for their continued survival.

[ERCougar]

statman makes a good point about traffic accidents. We have much higher mortality rates from driving than Europe. The higher smoking rates are no longer true, and I'm pretty surprised they were ever true. Obesity is obviously much higher here and is expensive. Poverty is a bigger problem in the US and obviously contributes to worse health outcomes.

In the end, why does it matter? We pay much more into the system without better results. You may disagree that we're the worst, but we're not significantly better either.

[statman]

I'll agree that personal eating/exercise habits contribute, but I've been to other developed nations and not been exactly impressed with their own regimen of self-abuse.

Statman touched on this, but one of the major contributors to the difference in life expectancy is the marginal differences in mortality for Americans aged 15 to 50. During those ages, the overwhelming causes of death are homicide, suicide and accidental deaths.

Once you get past age 50, the differences disappear or the US actually overtakes other developed nations' survivorship rates at an age that is increasingly dependent on healthcare for their continued survival.

Our survival rates for cancer are also significantly better than most (if not all?) other countries. That, and as you pointed out, the mortality rates of our older people are much better measures of the actual quality of our health care than a simple measure like life expectancy...

[statman]

statman makes a good point about traffic accidents. We have much higher mortality rates from driving than Europe. The higher smoking rates are no longer true, and I'm pretty surprised they were ever true. Obesity is obviously much higher here and is expensive. Poverty is a bigger problem in the US and obviously contributes to worse health outcomes.

In the end, why does it matter? We pay much more into the system without better results. You may disagree that we're the worst, but we're not significantly better either.

I think we DO have better results. Better survival for cancer patients is one measure where we're a lot better - and to top that one off, we'll treat older patients and patients with many more additional problems than Europeans would. Our cancer patients are generally sicker than theirs, and they still have better survival rates. It's one of the reasons why our care is a lot more expensive than theirs, but to say we get nothing for our money is simply not true...

[ERCougar]

Our survival rates for cancer are also significantly better than most (if not all?) other countries. That, and as you pointed out, the mortality rates of our older people are much better measures of the actual quality of our health care than a simple measure like life expectancy...

Of course, that IS the age at which people enter our socialized medical system. Not a ringing endorsement of the private insurance system.

[ERCougar]

I think we DO have better results. Better survival for cancer patients is one measure where we're a lot better - and to top that one off, we'll treat older patients and patients with many more additional problems than Europeans would. Our cancer patients are generally sicker than theirs, and they still have better survival rates. It's one of the reasons why our care is a lot more expensive than theirs, but to say we get nothing for our money is simply not true...

You're making some pretty broad claims here. Links?

Also, I'm not sure our goal in designing a healthcare system is to make old people who are very sick with cancer survive as long as possible, at the expense of the rest of the population.

[Indy Coug]

Of course, that IS the age at which people enter our socialized medical system. Not a ringing endorsement of the private insurance system.

Socialize the entire system and that advantage will vanish. What makes it succeed is because it is still somewhat free-market and privatized, Medicare recipients notwithstanding.

[LA Ute]

In the end, why does it matter? We pay much more into the system without better results. You may disagree that we're the worst, but we're not significantly better either.

I wasn't necessarily endorsing what the WSJ said. They tend to take a pretty hard-line attitude that the free market fixes everything. (I don't agree, which is why, although I've been trying to read Atlas Shrugged just to see what objectivism is all about, I'm finding that be one of those books that, once you start reading it, you just can't pick it up!)

Our healthcare system is truly a mess and really could serve everyone better. My hopes are not high that we'll get much of a solution this time.

[ERCougar]

I wasn't necessarily endorsing what the WSJ said. They tend to take a pretty hard-line attitude that the free market fixes everything. (I don't agree, which is why, although I've been trying to read Atlas Shrugged just to see what objectivism is all about, I'm finding that be one of those books that, once you start reading it, you just can't pick it up!)

Our healthcare system is truly a mess and really could serve everyone better. My hopes are not high that we'll get much of a solution this time.

LOL...I had the same experience with Atlas Shrugged. It was my first attempt at Rand and I just kept thinking that for fiction, this is awfully and painfully boring.

[Soccermom]

Our healthcare system is truly a mess and really could serve everyone better. My hopes are not high that we'll get much of a solution this time.

My hopes are not high either. I fear that we will only see a bigger mess. I wish we could just do one thing at a time. Baby steps so to speak. Like why not just focus on tort reform and see how big of a dent that makes? With all the advances in medicine it is amazing how much we expect doctors to be gods to go along with those advances.

I wish there was a magic answer. I don't like my insurance company deciding what care I can and can't receive. To an even greater degree of objection, I don't want the government deciding for me. And I certainly don't like being subjected to unnecessary tests or paying more for care because doctors feel the need to cover their derriereres for fear of a lawsuit.

[ERCougar]

Socialize the entire system and that advantage will vanish. What makes it succeed is because it is still somewhat free-market and privatized, Medicare recipients notwithstanding.

While I think is another debatable claim, I'll refrain because I mostly agree with you. I don't think that the problem in America is the quality of healthcare, I think it's the cost. In my ideal world, we would connect costs and patients much more closely than we do now, at least for the patients who can afford it. I do believe that everyone should have access to a basic level of healthcare in any civilized society and I'm willing to pay higher taxes to ensure that this occurs (you could argue that we're already doing this through state Medicaid programs).

[thesaint258]

My hopes are not high either. I fear that we will only see a bigger mess. I wish we could just do one thing at a time. Baby steps so to speak. Like why not just focus on tort reform and see how big of a dent that makes? With all the advances in medicine it is amazing how much we expect doctors to be gods to go along with those advances.

I wish there was a magic answer. I don't like my insurance company deciding what care I can and can't receive. To an even greater degree of objection, I don't want the government deciding for me. And I certainly don't like being subjected to unnecessary tests or paying more for care because doctors feel the need to cover their derriereres for fear of a lawsuit.

I agree with the baby steps idea. Another example is President Obama saying that we can pay for a lot of his plan by making Medicare more efficient. If there's money to be saved, why not do it health care plan or not? I'm not sold on the urgency of getting comprehensive reform done now. Taking smaller steps will help us figure out what will really work.

[Goatnapper'96]

I agree with the baby steps idea. Another example is President Obama saying that we can pay for a lot of his plan by making Medicare more efficient. If there's money to be saved, why not do it health care plan or not? I'm not sold on the urgency of getting comprehensive reform done now. Taking smaller steps will help us figure out what will really work.

If medicare is inneffecient, which I am sure it is to some extent like any private or public program, how is Obama going to suddenly make it more effecient? The way medicare is going to become cheaper is through two methods: 1.) Paying doctors less for services and 2.) rationing of services. Whatever inneffeciencies that exist in medicare today are going to be there tomorrow.