Im getting sleep apnea machine

Can you explain to me why it is not fair? The parameters for every number I gave are all the same for every country. It is not a matter of free market vs socialized market. Health is health care. These posts are about what the health care system is about in different countries.

Here is something to think about. There is a gap of 7% in the % of gpd that is spent on health care between the US (17%) and Canada/Netherlands (10%). To put this in perspective, if all people who have more then 1 billion dollars in America would give away everything they own you would not be able to cover those 7%
The number is simply to large of a difference to just be 'extra scans' and such.

As I have mentioned before, the American health care has some really good high care (specialized) options for those who can afford it. I do however believe that you are overestimating how many people are able to afford that level of health care. Most people have to deal with just the normal lvl of health care. And on that level, on average, the American health care system is not that good. Even I can name some areas in which the American health care system is above average in America and yes those cases also matter but there is much more then just those areas.

As for the the lower life expectancy, even if compensated for those things you just mentioned it is still significantly lower compared to the rest of the western world. I've literally dedicated a part of my previous post about it. If you want I could provide more data on the subject. It is really fascinating material.

I have 2 questions about your post John Galt

On what data are you basing that wealthier people are better of in the US then in Europe? Most of the things that I have found talk about a very small difference for the wealthy.
Do you think that it is a choice between fully private and fully socialized?

The Netherlands also has the 4th highest tax rates in the world.

Your argument is invalid and based on theft.

I got my comparison for Canadian versus American life expectancy by income from Statistics Canada (government source) and Journal of American Medical Association. For the top 50% of earners the Americans are higher by 3-5 years.

The reason why I was saying it is not fair to compare spending is because in socialized care the government has the final say in spending decisions. In free market the people have the final say. Some people will choose to spend significantly more than would be allowed under a government plan. For example, in America the gold standard for colon cancer screening is regular colonoscopy beginning at age 50. In Canada it is too expensive to do this so we use fecal occult blood tests for our screening. This is an example of rationed care in a socialized system. The government decides what you get or dont get. There is also rationing in a private system, but that rationing is determined by income. Some people can afford colonoscopy and some cannot and must choose the FOBT test. The key difference is choice. If I can afford a life saving treatment, I want to have the choice to pay for the treatment and not have it denied by the government. In Canada it is actually illegal to provide any services covered by the Canada Health Act privately, so people do not have the option, unlike in some countries that have a two tier system.

Here are some other examples of rationed care in Ontario (most populous province in Canada).

Yearly general checkups were eliminated in 2012. You can now only be covered when you have a medical issue. When you do have an issue, you can only talk about one issue per visit, forcing patients to essentially triage themselves to determine which issue is most serious. In 2004 eye exam coverage was removed from the public health care plan. In 2004 chiropractic was also removed from public plan. In 2013 physiotherapy was also removed from the public plan.

It seems every few years something that used to be covered is eliminated, and my private insurance has to pick up the tab. Oh and our taxes have not gone down at all with all the cuts by the way.

Government only succeeds in raising costs and decreasing efficiency. It doesn't create. It cannot innovate. It only legislates, regulates, and taxes.

The only area government excels at is in bureaucracy.

I still think there is a role for government. I am a libertarian so my belief on government is that they should stick to the essentials: military, policing, and courts. Those are areas where I believe the private sector should have no business in. Other than that, they should try to stay out of the way of productive people.

I absolutely find this discussion fascinating and educational.

@Letsie I had no idea you were from the Netherlands! I think that is where my son resides when he isn't traveling so much.

I know I'm going on a tangent here. But I remember the first time I talked to someone from Canada, this was my former fedmate and friend, Bobo. I asked him if they had McDonalds and stuff there. He laughed and said they weren't backwards. ha ha ha ha

I think I asked the same thing of our former UK players. What I found astounding is that Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) over there doesn't serve mashed potatoes with their chicken! They have "chips" or "fries" as we say here. Most UK-ians LOVE KFC.

Aaaaaaaaaah I've had long discussions about "brown sauce" and what the heck that is, a debate over whether spaghetti is a noodle, and how all sodas in southern US are called cokes. lol

See what all we can learn about each other from chatting and posting! :-D

Sorry, now back to healthcare in the US:

I wonder if the life expectancy of US at 78 years is due to the high fat foods that Americans eat. We are all getting fatter and fatter!

@ Johanes bilderberg
It is true that our countries have made different choices concerning health care and taxes. Because of that I am using % of gdp spent on health care as a measurement.
People in the US pay a lot less taxes then those in most other countries. But in the end you do end up spending a lot higher % of your money on health care. As mentioned before Canada and the Netherlands spent around 10% of their gdp on health care. The US spent around 17%
Your argument that higher taxes are theft might be true or not we can talk about that. But it has 0 relevance for this discussion.


@ John Galt
Thank you for clarifying your post. It helps me understand several things that I did not understand before. I like your examples and it really reveals some 'issues' with the Canadian system and also on what you are basing your arguments.
In Europe most countries (once again the UK is the main exception) have a government controlled part and a private part. If you want to spent your own money on extra check ups you can go to a private clinic and get all the extra treatment you want. Sometimes even a part of it is covered by your insurance.

One of the major advantages in favor of government influence is that the costs are kept a lot lower on average and nobody goes bankrupt because they can not pay their health care bills. Everybody can get the care they need (as always there are always exceptions in specific cases)


@ johannes bilderberg
Can you back those claims up with numbers on this subject? I can respect an opinion but all the data I have found about health care does not support yours.


@ John Galt
Personally I believe that health care is to important to completely leave to corporations. Just look at the costs of medication in the US. Corporations can raise them at will and people simply have no choice but to pay for it. Add to that that a free market system is a lot more inefficient and does very little to help people who are not profitable enough.
I want to add to that that I believe a 100% state run health care system is not any good as well. That is the reason most European countries have both a Goverment and private sector for health care.


@ The wicked lady
There are several theories about the low life expectancy in the us. Wich is 79.8 years when compensated for deaths by car accidents, guns and the opiod epidemic.
Something to keep in mind is that until the 1980s there was no difference in the life expectancy between our countries.

Hi everyone hows all going?

@ John Galt

In your post you commented about how the top 50% of Americans, defined by income, live 3-5 years longer then the top 50% wealthy Canadians.

Could you please post a link? I have been trying to find that data but have not been able to find it and I am really interested in it.

The Netherlands also enjoys free national defense paid for by the American taxpayers.

Makes it a lot easier to look down your nose at backwards countries without high taxes and socialized medicine.

@ Johannas Bilderberg

At this point I am wondering if you are just trolling or if you are being serieus. All I am asking of you is to provide something to back up what you are saying about health care.
Johan galt for example made several really interesting and good points which has proven to me that health care is a really complex issue all over the world. It would be nice if you could do the same so that we can at least have a proper discussion.

If you have really read through everything then you could have also seen that I have said multiple times that there are also parts of the US health care system that are really good.

As for your point about the military, if you want to discus the benefits of that could we please do this in another thread? I would like Johan Galt and anybody else interested in this subject to be able to follow any discussions here.

It is very relevant to the argument. In fact it negates your entire argument.

Europe can afford socialized medicine, welfare, free universities, refugees, and the entire left wing American hating platform only because the American taxpayers have subsidized their national defense for the past 70 years. Barring that your nation would have had to spend hundreds of billions of euros preparing to stop the Soviet tanks from rolling through Germany and to the North Sea coast.

I am not bashing your national choices I am simply stating the facts.

France
http://www.niussp.org/article/new-data-on-life-expectancy-and-standard-of-living-in-france/,http://www.niussp.org/article/new-data-on-life-expectancy-and-standard-of-living-in-france/

UK
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(18)30214-7/fulltext

US
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866586/

Canada (older data so compare 2005-2007)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-624-x/2011001/article/chart/11427-06-chart5-eng.htm

Im not sure why this is so controversial. Of course productive people will have better outcomes in a free market system because the only limit on care is income. In a socialized system the limits on care are systemic, so while the poor will be elevated, the rich will be declined. Since there are generally more poor than rich, you will see higher averages in socialized systems.

Wow, this thread has got worse than i thought.

I AM NO LONGER PART OF GODS FAMILY ANY MORE AND I AM NOT A GOD I HAVE DISOWNED HIM BECAUSE HE DOESNT WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY MORE, HES FINISHED FOR GOOD.

Ignore my thread its over, i havent finish my work with God yet.

@johannes

Once again you are wrong. Just so you know the cold war era has been over for almost 30 years. During that time period your point had a lot more truth to it but now? Well lets see shall we I will do this one more time.

Nothing is free. We in Europe generally feel it is worth it to pay more taxes so that everybody can have better education and health care. This does not make it free most americans seem to have a hard time understanding this. This is why health care spending is ussually calculated in a % of gdp.

You are paying for our defences? .... Really?

The Total cost of US military troops in europe was 29.6B last year. 6.1B of that was for the EDI (european defense initiative)

The total european defense budget was 269B. The european defense budgets have been rising for 3 years in a row. For all 3 years the increases have been in the fastest in absolute and relative numbers second only to the US in the entire world.
To put these Numbers in perspective. 269B is more then 1.5 times the budget of China and more then 4 times that of rusia.
For the pas decade the european Arnies have been integrating more and more. We are not and never will be 1 army and this will be our biggest weakness. But to bluntly say something like: THE US TAX PAYERS PAY FOR YOUR DEFENSE is something you heard on VOX or from Trump and simply is no longer true.

So where is everyone from?

I've gathered that Letsie is from The Netherlands, John Galt from Canada, Robert E. Lee from the US, myself from the US. Johanas, where are you from?

Michael is from Australia.

Awesome! There are quite a few countries represented. I think that is what so awesome about the internet. :-D