[MortgFinsJohnQ]

If Canada is so great, why haven't you moved there? They're still accepting immigrants with open arms, you know.

That's a specious argument and completely ignores the point.

[SkatrySkith]

You've got some nerve giving links and not just running off with half baked opinions. The next thing you'll do is promote a legitimate discussion !

I know, I know. We can't allow that to happen, so, um, your mother's a Canadian*.




*And by "Canadian", I of course mean, "baby-eating socialist gay-lover."

[Bill-Watson]

Yea the point that the incoming director of Canadian system says their system is about to implode.
and things like braces cost abt four times what they should,

and things like Canadian breast cancer detection error rates are 10 times the global average,

and the head of the Canadian parliament gets cancer treatment in California.


yea those things.


But the best thing of all is all of these utopian countrys were largely rolling in money the last 10yrs,
now they are starving for money-can't wait to see what happens. In the UK the target time for being seen in an emerency room was recently raised to 4 hour wait, that is the target for emergent care, some hospitals having trouble hitting that mark have taken to parking patients outside so the clock doesn't begin.

[Bill-Watson]

Excellent point abt the contributions to medicine from Canada,

lot of extremely vital human advancing stuff in there. How could I possibly live without any of it?

and how many did you find in how many years and how many could the world live without not even noticing?

but who cares, not one has come since they nationalized healthcare, in fact nationalized healthcare saw an exodus of doctors who moved here.

[RicyReetred]

I know, I know. We can't allow that to happen, so, um, your mother's a Canadian*.




*And by "Canadian", I of course mean, "baby-eating socialist gay-lover."

OMG, I've been found out. I have relatives from England and a gay aunt and uncle. I am so ashamed.

[VipInoLo]

What nation offers the best health care on the globe? Answer: Not the United States.

The U.S. health care delivery system is by far the costliest on the planet, but comparison studies consistently show Americans get second-rate results by nearly every benchmark.

"We're twice as expensive as most other industrialized countries," said Gerard Anderson, professor of health policy and management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

"But we have outcomes that are typically about average, and we're not improving as quickly as other countries are improving," he said.

Last year, a study comparing preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries placed the U.S. dead last. France was first, followed by Japan and Australia.

In the U.S., one in three chronically ill patients says the health care system needs to be rebuilt completely. Only one in 10 feels the same way in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Foes of President Obama's push for universal coverage are quick to find fault with foreign systems, and some complaints are legitimate. In Canada, for example, a typical patient seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment had to wait 18.3 weeks in 2007, an all-time high, one study showed.

But nonpartisan, scholarly studies show that for the most part, universal systems work well. And the key numbers, from infant mortality to life expectancy, show those countries are doing something right.

"No one is suggesting that we adopt another country's health care system," said Robin Osborn, vice president and director of the international program in health policy and practice at the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit.

"We should be open-minded, and we should be entrepreneurial about looking at what works," she said.

Universal care has long been the norm in many countries, accepted by political parties and their followers from both the left and the right.

Of the 30 industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only Mexico, Turkey and the United States fail to achieve universal coverage

"There's a solidarity that operates in these other countries in terms of social values, a sense that people are entitled to health care," Osborn said. "In these countries, the idea of someone going bankrupt because of medical bills, it just does not exist."

In the United Kingdom, for example, there is no out-of-pocket cost to see a primary care physician or a specialist. Adults can fill prescriptions, no matter how new, rare or advanced the drug, for about $12.

Australia gives high priority to promoting access to primary care physicians. Patients in the United States spend, on average, about one-third the time that Australians spend in minutes per year with their primary care doctor.

People do better in countries that encourage regular primary care visits, in part because they get frequent counsel to follow healthy habits.

Obama has pointed to the Netherlands as a model closer to what he would like here. Dutch residents are required to purchase private health insurance coverage. And insurance companies must accept every resident in their coverage area.

Other countries are also further along than the United States in using information technology and employing a team approach to manage chronic conditions and coordinate care.

"It's really valuable to look at how other countries do it," Osborn said. "The issue is to look around and see what's good and what works, and then figure out why does it work for them."

Expensive without the results: Health care in the U.S. costs the most, not the best in the world

[tomspoumn]

Too bad reform may be killed by all the lies. It kinda reminds me of the presidential election. Same people spewing more lies.