Mr. Woodring notes that his son is in bad shape, but that the great American medical system isn't letting him down:
I am thankful for a medical system where my son can be scheduled for surgery on the very same day the issue came to the surgeon's attention. I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have seen such immediacy of response in that many other places around the world [Michael Woodring, "Life Keeps Happening," Constant Conservative, 2012.07.24].
Take a moment, extend your blogospheric condolences... and now let's talk policy outcomes.
I enjoy countering anecdote with anecdote and referring to two instances where folks my wife knew got hurt in Canada, walked into the nearest hospital, and got same-day treatment.
I also enjoy checking assumptions with evidence. A 2007 Commonwealth Fund report found that found only 8% of U.S. patients having to wait four months or more for non-emergency or elective surgery, compared with 33% in Canada, 41% in the U.K., and just 6% in Germany. But young Woodring's surgery doesn't sound elective to me. Canada and the U.S. report the highest percentage of folks having to wait six days or more to get an appointment to see a doctor. The U.S. has the highest percentage of patients who report having a hard time getting care outside of normal office hours. Given those mixed numbers, it seems difficult to uphold Mr. Woodring's tacit claim that the prominence of private care in our patchwork system makes American health care better than those dad-burned furriners' government health care systems.
On that seem topic, it is worth noting that America's flagship government health care system, Medicare, performs just a touch better on access than the private system:
Medicare patients have better access to physicians than the privately insured. In 2011, 74 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, and 71 percent of privately insured patients, reported "never" having to wait longer than they wanted to get an appointment for routine care. Medicare beneficiaries also reported more timely appointments for injury and illnesses. Only 6 percent of Medicare enrollees said they were looking for new primary care physician, compared to 7 percent of the privately insured, suggesting that "most people are either satisfied with current physician or did not have to look for one" [Bob Doherty, "Facts Challenge Physicians' Views on Medicare Spending," ACP Advocate Blog, 2012.07.24].
I wouldn't want Mr. Woodring's son to have to wait until he's on Medicare to get his bones straightened out. Given how well Medicare works, I'd rather just extend Medicare to everyone.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/23/survey-more-doctors-report-they-cannot-afford-to-take-new-medicaid-medicare-patients/
Thirty-six percent of doctors say they are no longer accepting new Medicaid patients due in large part to declining reimbursements...
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/fewer-texas-doctors-willing-to-accept-medicare-medicaid-2413482.html
"Only 31 percent of Texas doctors said they were accepting new patients who rely on Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and disabled, in the survey provided to The Associated Press on Sunday. In 2010, the last time the survey was taken, 42 percent of doctors accepted new Medicaid patients. In 2000, that number was 67 percent."
So Cory, does a free market system provide better service to those who have someone else pay the bills than those who pay their own bills? I hope you have enough common sense to say no, which then leads to the conclusion that the current U.S. system is not free market. Lets be real, we are arguing over one socialist system versus another.
I used to think we had great specialist care, but no longer.
Waits for many specialists in Sioux Falls are 2-3 months now and when you finally get in they are so swamped they do a poor job. I wanted to have an old mri compared to a new one, took me three months to get in and three months after that they still hadn't done it!
If everybody doesn't know the AMA acts as a monopoly when it sets the number of degrees it offers annually. That's great but there aren't enough doctors. Looking forward to covering more people, the biggest question is having enough doctors. Years of dubious practices are going to come back to bite us. We need to strip the AMA of this role.
Since we pay more than the rest of the world for higher rates of infant death, diabetes and obesity as well as lower life expectation, there is much to fix on the cost side. Unfortunately we don't have a single payer system which gives patients collective bargaining power like the rest of the world does. Also locking in government payments for pharmaceuticals at rates sometime 10x what they pay in Canada through Medicare part D is one of the all time great spending gaffes. These pharmaceuticals don't locate in the us or pay our taxes yet we offer them patents so our money can "inspire them to do research". I don't know about you but every medical researcher I've ever met has reasons other than money for what they do. We need to eliminate patents in this area it is a concept invented when technology crawled at a snail's pace and in our faster adapting world it just isn't working anymore.
Here is a link from the best U.S. economist (in my opinion) to a report detailing how the structural disadvantages designed to fragment patient interests while collectivizing seller power is costing us a fortune:
http://samwick.blogspot.com/2012/06/concentration-in-health-care-markets.html
Professor Samwick was the Chief Economist for the Bush administration's Council of Economic Advisers in 2003 and 2004 before Greg Mankiw took that body off the deep end. He is also a firm supporter of ACA (and long ago my collegiate adviser).
We need to come together to negotiate on behalf of U.S. citizens. Lobbyists pay dearly to protect these monopoly powers that are essentially a direct transfer of money out of our pockets, and in many cases out of the country.
"That’s great but there aren’t enough doctors."
The Communist solution is very straight forward. In the job training centers (what we call public education), determine who has the skills to be a doctor and require it of them paying them the same loaf of bread they give the druggies on welfare. If they don't like it, then execute them.
Cuba has a far higher literacy rate than South Dakota does and offers better doctor training than USD, Sibby.
"But while the federal government has recently announced several initiatives to address disparities in L.G.B.T. health care access, the study confirms that most medical schools are lagging behind.
More than a quarter characterized what their school taught in regards to L.G.B.T. patients as “poor†or “very poor,†and almost half called their offerings only “fair.â€"
http://interested-party.blogspot.com/2011/11/nyt-physicians-ill-trained-to-treat.html
"The Communist solution is very straight forward. In the job training centers (what we call public education), determine who has the skills to be a doctor and require it of them paying them the same loaf of bread they give the druggies on welfare. If they don’t like it, then execute them."
You weren't able to read the article? It is a little thick for somebody who has the intellect to make an argument like this. Did you watch Red Dawn recently? Did anybody tell you Russia isn't communist and pays less in taxes than you do? Jesus was far more of a communist than Russia is.
When the founding fathers were getting bled and leeched did they envision trade associations that could restrain trade to increase "bleeder" wages at the cost of the electorate? Sure sounds like a union to me comrade.
Breaking news: Sibby comes out in favor of doctor's unions because he mixed up his rhetorics. Why is it you support doctors being protected from competition and excluding people from working Sibby?
Cuba has a far higher literacy rate than South Dakota does and offers better doctor training than USD, Sibby.
Have any data to back this up kurtz?
"Jesus was far more of a communist than Russia is."
So how many millions more would Jesus kill than Stalin? Unions are a reaction to monopolies, but they are not the free market solution. Yes, I am smart enough to understand there is more than two ways to skin a cat.
julie have the same ip address as fred garvin, CAH?
I get the sense that PP is bored.
I'd like to see a rewrite of the Bible where Jesus is a Stalinist. That would be fun.
What monopoly is the doctors union a reaction to? We bargain our teacher pay collectively as a state so it makes sense to have SDEA and NEA, but you oppose these in favor of the AMA which is a union taking advantage of a customer base that is forced to buy through a bunch of private insurers that shouldn't exist so the doctors can overcharge us. Single buyer is "socialism" we are told by the GOP because they are in the AMA's pocket. No the AMA is socialism and a monopoly that needs to be busted up.
Sooner or later the American people will demand socialized medicine.
Throw the insurance companies out, they'll say.
Stop making us sue to get basic care, they'll scream.
I reckon that I'll have long since died when it happens, though.
And a lot more lawyers will have offshore bank accounts.
Answer the question.
Why do you support doctors unions.
You can throw the word socialism around if you don't have a reasonable position to defend yourself? That's the strategy of somebody with no good argument.
Markets with one seller and many buyers are grossly inefficient as are markets with one buyer and many sellers . To force it is collusion. What we need is a good collusion suit against the AMA.
And you are no lawyer if you don't understand that having an offshore account with avoiding taxes as its purpose is illegal. You won't find a law firm in the state of SD that will do it and I know because I have an offshore account. "Tax avoidance".
The IRS should be going hard after all the tax fraud and they could but they have no money after Bush, let's say de-prioritized it. Google tax fraud and you will see how much low hanging fruit there is. It's not politically popular to prosecute tax cheaters.
[Julie ≠ "Fred"]
UNICEF says Cuba has 100% adult literacy. CIA World Factbook says 99.8%.
NCES finds upper-bound estimate for basic literacy in South Dakota to be 95.3%. Definitions of "literacy" may vary among sources.
I'm not sure where to start on quantifying quality of med schools. Suggestions?
Exactly, CAH: subjective, as are the relative benefits of capitalism over some other economic system. Iraq, did not use the US model for their constitution, either.