http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1151492.html I read this in the paper this morning. It's an un-scientific poll, although it is a reasonably large population sample. Here's another article I read on the subject while finding this one (it's from 2 years ago): http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=c1c55309-756a-4c4a-a032-a1968442a1f7&k=77424 I've always felt like the debate in America is too focused on buzzwords like "socialism," "fairness," "rationing," and "uninsured." We get so hung up on these things, when what it should really boil down to is customer satisfaction. We should poll the populations of a variety of countries and find out what the actual populations think about their health care systems. Then weigh in our own cultural values, and go with whatever seems to make the most people happy for the lowest cost. I wouldn't make major decisions about my business without benchmarking other companies. Yet we seem to think we should run our health care system without trying to learn anything from anyone else.
Somewhat interesting data. However, I disagree with your assertion that it should boil down to "customer satisfaction", unless of course, you are including all associated costs in the "customer satisfaction" metric. There is no doubt we could increase the number of people who are happy with their access to medical services by taxing the top 1% of Americans to pay for 5% of the people's healthcare. "Satisfaction with access to services" should not be the top metric for making these decisions.
That's the part where I think, like I said, we weigh in our own cultural values. Danish people are obviously more culturally open to hosing wealthy people than we are.
Agreed. We would also need to try to consider the affects on R&D. Our system is clearly superior for driving innovation and providing new technology for the rest of the world. Simply polling individuals about their "satisfaction" wouldn't touch on this metric.
I've always thought it was pretty unfair that the rest of the world gets a cheap ride on our largess. Our ridiculous spending subsidizes innovation that the rest of the industrialized world benefits from without having to pay. I don't know how you change that paradigm, but it seems to me there's got to be a better system than just letting America pick up the tab for most of the world's health care innovation. (It's kind of similar to how we pick up the tab for much of the world military policing activity.) Maybe if we actually managed to control costs in the US, it'd force other countries to invest more? *shrug*
I believe it comes down to my responsibility as a citizen. I don't believe I should be responsible for paying for my neighbor's heath care any more than I'm responsible for paying for their food, clothing or shelter. I'm not talking about paying temporarily for the neediest among us who need some short term help. I'm talking about people who have the means to pay for these things themselves. Currently, the majority of the "uninsured" CHOOSE to be uninsured. If someone has to make a choice between heath care coverage and a car or new clothes or going out to dinner, then they get no sympathy from me.
BTW, don't think that us developing a socialized medicine program won't negatively affect Canadians. We're their outlet for when they can't get the care they need through their system.
I don't know that I would consider it "unfair". I actually think it is great that we get to have that huge economy in our system. Sure, it might make our premiums higher, but without the incentive to innovate and the greatest economy this world has ever seen (which the healthcare sector plays a large part of) people all over the world would be a lot worse off when it came to "healthcare". We'd still be resorting to using leaches.
