Health care or cap'n trade CO2?

In summary: Ford Motor Company is proud to have been a supporter of Canada's publicly funded health care system since its inception.""Canada's publicly funded health health care system is an important part of the overall Canadian economy. It is vitally important for the system to remain strong and viable so that Canadians have access to quality health care.""The Canadian health care system has been very successful in providing quality health care to all Canadians. We believe that it should be maintained and expanded.""The Canadian health care system has been very successful in providing quality health care to all Canadians. We believe that it should be maintained and expanded.""The Canadian health care system has been very successful in providing quality health
  • #36
As has been shown in numerous other threads, it is unlikely that any other country has better outcomes that actually depend solely on the health system - like cancer survival rates, cardiac survival rates, etc.

The uninsured number seems to surge every time a universal advocate closes on a microphone. First, uninsured doesn't mean health care is unavailable. Likewise, being insured by the government in some universal countries does not mean health care is available. Second, the number of uninsured in the US a year ago was ~47 million (as posted in many other threads) which include the following:
10 million illegal aliens.
9 million that are eligible for Medicaid, but just don't sign up.
18 million of the uninsured earn over $50k/yr
1/4 of the uninsured have been offered insurance by their employer but declined coverage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/business/04view.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
 
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  • #37
drankin said:
Like I said, we could do more to plug the holes but as far as infant mortality and longevity alone, we aren't that far off. And as far as that goes there may be other factors that skew the averages (I'm thinking our prevailent gang/drug culture may be a detriment to our numbers) that more or less puts us on par health care wise. As far as the money spent on it, well, you get what you pay for. Better care costs more.

Infant Mortality 2006 per 1000 births
US - 6.26
Canada - 5.04
UK - 4.85

Longevity
US - 77.1
Canada - 79.4
UK - 77.7
These numbers depend on many things having nothing to do with health care. If life span is corrected for unrelated incidents like homicides and car crashes the US is at or near the top of the list. You want numbers that tell you one thing: if you get sick or injured, what are chances of a good outcome? This is the question Giulanni raised during the election in comparing survival rates of his cancer in the US vs somewhere else, and he was right.
e.g.
http://www.ncpa.org/images/1703.gif

US health care is _not_ in trouble in terms of quality, it is in terms of cost. The US pays far, far more per person than any other country.
 

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