Health care reform vs cap-and-trade CO2: which saves more lives?

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I've been watching C-Span and the committee discussions about how to go about universal health care. In general, they don't know where to start. Which means they will throw vast amounts of tax-payer money at it until it floats itself and then more money at it to keep it from capsizing.

I think we should simply look at supplementing the system we have where required for both preventative and "life & death" (cancer, transplants, etc.). Look at plugging the holes in our society and moving on. Anything beyond that is going to suck for everyone. More taxes, less quality health care. One day I'll see this incredible pay-cut, except they will call it health care tax and it won't do me a bit of good.

In general, do we not have better health care available in the US compared to countries that have a nationalized system?
 
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drankin said:
In general, do we not have better health care available in the US compared to countries that have a nationalized system?
Other industrial nations have better outcomes, lower infant mortality, and better longevity while spending less money on a per-capita basis. We have close to 60 million people with NO health insurance, not just inadequate or high-deductible coverage, so our health care spending should be lower than that of other industrialized countries. It is not.
 
how will Al Gore power his mansion if we don't buy his carbon credits? :confused:
 
turbo-1 said:
Other industrial nations have better outcomes, lower infant mortality, and better longevity while spending less money on a per-capita basis. We have close to 60 million people with NO health insurance, not just inadequate or high-deductible coverage, so our health care spending should be lower than that of other industrialized countries. It is not.

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
 
Proton Soup said:
how will Al Gore power his mansion if we don't buy his carbon credits? :confused:

Interns + giant hamster wheels

http://weeklyvolcano.typepad.com/spew/images/hamsterguy.jpg
 
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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
 
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.