[geeks] healthcare was: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro

[Mike Meredith]

On Fri, 23 May 2008 08:46:34 -0500 (CDT), Lionel Peterson wrote:
> >Given the astonishingly high cost of the current US health care
> >system, a universal socialised health care system may be cheaper in
> >the long run.
> 
> How so? Without cutting back services as you expand coverage to more
> people, it will only get more expensive, and as you cut back services
> you will find it hard to get approval for a plan (any plan) to
> increase medical coverage.

Well I'll leave the problem of how to migrate to a fully socialised
system as an "exercise for the reader" :) Frankly I haven't the
faintest idea of how the US would move to one. Perhaps the US _is_
stealthily transitioning to a fully socialised system which might go
some way to explaining the huge cost to the US economy of health care.

I've been digging through the WHO database trying to do some
comparisons of health care quality, but it's a little too much like
hard work for a pleasant Friday evening. One thing is clear though ...
whilst the UK and the US have variations, it's pretty clear that the US
isn't dramatically better ... it's better in some areas and worse in
others.

Given the massive difference in cost (UK roughly 10%, US roughly 16% of
GDP), you would expect to see the US being dramatically better. And
that doesn't seem the case.

> Sure - once the doctors organize and start refusing to take payments
> from insurance companies. They probably won't, but that would be the
> tipping point IMHO.

Learning various details here about the US insurance industry would
seem to indicate that it's probably a significant part of the problem
in the US.

> Depends on the fence - picket would hurt, split rail not so much...

If you have a long time to sit, take a cushion :)

-- 
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
 ... a software firewall is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.