Free enterprise is a cruel joke as far as health care in this country is concerned.
Everyone knows this...It's like the fable of the Emperor's New Clothes, yet, nobody says a word about the nakedness of our dysfunctional health care system. We have let this madness go on for so long, that people just assume that's the way it is.
Doctors operate on intuition and not scientific principals, as an excellent article by David Leonhardt points out in last Sunday's NYT Magazine. There are no national standards for health care. Why do doctors in Sioux City use fewer stents for heart patients than doctors in Davenport? Why does it cost two and a half times as much to treat patients in Florida vs. Minnesota, according to studies from Dartmouth.
The rest of the developed world doesn't put up with this lunacy, which is why their healthcare bills average about two thirds less than the costs in the US, and their outcomes are often twice as good. US health care ranks 37th in the world. Life expectancy is 31st, tied with Kuwait and Chile.
That's why health reform is so important. The Republicans rail about how the free enterprise system will fix everything ... How our healthcare system is the best in the world.
Sure, that's why an American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as an Irish woman.
It's cruel, cold, self serving and grotesque. And that ain't no joke.
C
November 9, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Gop does not care if the free market system helps anyone except the CEOs and shareholders. If someone gets better, that's fine, so long as it did not cost too much, and if it cost anything that was too much, really.
November 9, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
“All systems are capitalist. It's just a matter of who owns and controls the capital -- ancient king, dictator, or private individual. We should properly be looking at the contrast between a free market system where individuals have the right to live like kings if they have the ability to earn that right and government control of the market system such as we find today in socialist nations.”
Ronald Reagan
November 9, 2009 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Way too many Americans are too lazy or too stupid to pay attention to all this stuff. Healthcare isn't the only thing messed up with our supposedly free marketplace.
I have, like most people, a credit card. Which I pay in full every month. I have been with Citibank for at least thirty years. They sent a me a notice which came today raising the rate again. This time to 23.99%. Yet they borrow from the FED at a near zero rate. B of A is the same.
I've decided to change my business checking to a local credit union and also my credit card. Screw these people. They evidently don't want and certainly don't deserve my business. Free enterprise at work.
The idea here is, there are few real choices with healthcare. People can't really do anything that will have an impact on the way services are obtained or paid for. There are no true alternatives. The entire country is trapped in a broke dick system that is a rip off by any reasonable measure. And we have a congress which is completely corrupt, fully intent on keeping it exactly that way. And they could care less.
I thought Bush was uniquely and exceptionally stupid. I was wrong. He was neither unique or exceptional. In fact his stupidity is quite apparently mirrored by mainstream America.
It is disturbing that we find ourselves gaining this intimate appreciation of the famous words of Patrick Henry, "Give me liberty or give me death".
Of course, a great many citizens, who happen not to be paying attention to all of this, will not have noticed the disappearance of their liberty. It sucks to realize we are at the mercy of this chunk of stupid America and a thoroughly corrupt congress and really can't do much about it. You truly can't fix stupid. Or force people to change.
We'll just have to wait for nature to take its course. I'd guess that'll end with the criminals and the criminally stupid meeting an untimely end. If history is any indication that's usually the way this stuff works. How that might manifest itself in ths day and age is anybodys guess. The one thing which has caught me completely off guard is the speed with which this nation is crumbling in moral and ethical terms. Bush arguably gave that a very big push with his illegal war and is actually accelerating. Oh well.
November 10, 2009 3:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
TPC, you hit a lot of buttons in this comment.
"Free markets" naturally trend toward monopoly or the more socially acceptable corporate collusion. Competition is a facade. Many years ago, if one gas station lowered it's price, the nearby stations had to do the same thing. Now if one station raises its price, the rest see an opportunity and match the increase. The same with credit card rates, insurance rates, etc. The only "vote" consumers have is where they spend their money. But since it's all one big circle jerk, it really doesn't make much difference.
Vis-a-vis stupid, that's exactly what Bush offered the voters: "He's just one of us. I'd like to sit and drink a beer with him." It's the same attraction with Palin or Beck. They're just as dumb as we are.
It's all an amazing process to watch. Between the corporate flim-flams and voter ignorance it's pretty easy for the assorted shills to frame the health care "debate" to suit their purposes. The fact that they can convince average folks to rally against their own best interests speaks volumns.
So I guess I'll take my medication now.
November 10, 2009 8:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Women's health costs extra. That is because being a woman is a pre-existing condition.
November 10, 2009 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Sure, that's why an American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as an Irish woman."
Citation?
November 10, 2009 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's one: http://www.mdgmonitor.org/map.cfm?goal=4&indicator=0&cd=
You'll note that the maternal mortality rate associated with childbirth is 11 out of 100,000 live births in the US, versus 1 out of 100,000 live births in Ireland. Granted, that 1 out 100,000 might actually be near 1.5 meaning that an American woman would only be 5-6 times more likely to die in childbirth. If you don't like that source, feel free to find your own. The data underlying the map comes from WHO.
November 10, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. If you explore that graph further, it's clear that Ireland was cherry-picked to make the case as strongly as possible. However, all of the developed Western countries derided for their socialized health care have a lower maternal fatality rate than the US. (I stipulate "developed", because Cuba definitely has a higher maternal fatality rate than the US. Michael Moore's movie to the contrary, I wouldn't be holding up Cuba's health care as an example for us to be following.)
November 10, 2009 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rec. I would hazard a guess that the reason it costs "two and a half times as much to treat patients in Florida vs. Minnesota" is that most Minnesotans move to Florida to escape the winters in their elderly years.
November 10, 2009 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
The WHO study, which ranks us 37th, has been latched onto by a lot of defenders of socialized medicine ever since Sicko came out. Many don't understand its methodologies.
Here's a very simple article which links to the a more substantive article by the Cato Institute.
One big problem with the WHO study is that it penalizes countries that spend more on health care. Remember costs are not totally due to doctors jacking up the rates, they are also due to the fact that we are a rich country that can afford more and better types of treatments than many countries. Adjusting for this bias, we are 15th in the world.
But the big problem with any ranking system is that it is impossible to weigh all the factors in an objective manner. That is why we have the market to sort it out.
November 10, 2009 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
When it comes to the major industrialized democracies, the U.S. continues to rank at or near the bottom as of 2008, as it did in the case of the 2000 data discussed by Cato -
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934746.html
(Our bottom ranking also continues in regard to infant mortality)
The Cato type analysis, which attempts to explain away our poor showing with a series of adjustments, has been thoroughly debunked by health policy analysists and isn't taken seriously outside the sphere of rightwing politics. Interestingly, though, it inadvertently made the case for current reform efforts via one of its claims. Specifically, it attributes part of that showing to the prevalence of subpopulations in the U.S. unable to afford adequate healthcare.
It now appears that Congress will soon pass a law that takes a significant step forward to rectify that deficiency. Within a decade or so, we should therefore see our life expectancy rating vis-a-vis other nations begin to improve.
November 10, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Federal Diagnostic Clinics....
November 10, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink