The Current Events, News, and Politics Thread
01-10-2012, 10:55 AM
#961
Really? Turning the USA in to a third world country? So, you wash your clothes in a river and butcher your own animals after having toiled all day in the fields? You time your electricty use with the continual blackouts? Collect rainwater and live in a one-room hut with dirt floors?
Is the income of an average citizen rising as quickly as the cost of living? All the costs of energy, food, housing, transportation, etc?
The downhill slope is not looking at a leveling out, and if it doesn't, what will be the outcome? Prosperity?
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01-10-2012, 01:13 PM
#966
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You are correct in that there has been minimal or negative growth in real median or mean wages in America over the past ten years or so, depending on the source. That's not good. However, please note that the trajectory of real median household income has almost never been a straight line up and to the right. For the past 40 years or so it has been an instance of higher lows and higher highs.
The past 10 years that is not the case. Let me see if I can find a good graphical representation of this...
[Edit: See attachment]
Cliffs: Low or negative inflation-adjusted household income growth over the past ~10 years is not a good thing. It's also not completely unheard of in the history of the USA, much like other elements of business cycles.
Last edited by Braineack; 10-08-2019 at 09:48 AM.
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01-10-2012, 03:02 PM
#967
Really? Turning the USA in to a third world country? So, you wash your clothes in a river and butcher your own animals after having toiled all day in the fields? You time your electricty use with the continual blackouts? Collect rainwater and live in a one-room hut with dirt floors?
The average Chinese or Indian citizen would see a huge increase in their standard of living by moving up to the average Mexican's standard of living, which is still well below the average American's.
Again, take all of those comparisons with a tablespoon full of salt. Health care reform is a particular topic of interest for me and I have several books on my shelf waiting to be read on the subject. We have already discussed the differences in definition/measurement of statistics like "life expectancy" between countries.
The average spending also has to take in to account the availability of certain health care. For example, some of the drugs and procedures available in the USA might be wildly expensive and not available in other countries (or not performed as successfuly). Thus, Person A with some life-threatening disease might spend a large sum of money in the USA and the Person B in other nations might either be denied access to those procedures or they might not be available.
That would translate to the USA having a higher average health care spending per person.
Likewise, that table includes all public and private health care spending - including hospitals and infrastructure. If you compare the Winnie Palmer facility to a brick hospital from the 1800s, that will also skew the results.
The average Chinese or Indian citizen would see a huge increase in their standard of living by moving up to the average Mexican's standard of living, which is still well below the average American's.
Again, take all of those comparisons with a tablespoon full of salt. Health care reform is a particular topic of interest for me and I have several books on my shelf waiting to be read on the subject. We have already discussed the differences in definition/measurement of statistics like "life expectancy" between countries.
The average spending also has to take in to account the availability of certain health care. For example, some of the drugs and procedures available in the USA might be wildly expensive and not available in other countries (or not performed as successfuly). Thus, Person A with some life-threatening disease might spend a large sum of money in the USA and the Person B in other nations might either be denied access to those procedures or they might not be available.
That would translate to the USA having a higher average health care spending per person.
Likewise, that table includes all public and private health care spending - including hospitals and infrastructure. If you compare the Winnie Palmer facility to a brick hospital from the 1800s, that will also skew the results.
As in certain people of the very rich go to Cuba rather than deal with our system.
And yet, check out Cuba's budget.
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01-10-2012, 03:08 PM
#968
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01-10-2012, 03:11 PM
#969
Considering my statement is not from Moore or Sicko and uses independent third party numbers as well as numbers from the WHO...Cuba is superior to the US in about as many criteria as we are to Cuba, and we tie in numerous statistics in the WHO and third party reports.
On a medical budget of less than 1/20th the US's per person. Part of the secret, as elaborated in the linked article? Preventative care.
Last edited by blaen99; 01-10-2012 at 03:21 PM.
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01-10-2012, 04:39 PM
#974
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Originally Posted by Wired article
Despite a 50-year trade embargo by the United States and a post-Soviet collapse in international support, the impoverished nation has developed a world-class health care system. Average life expectancy is 77.5 years, compared to 78.1 years in the United States, and infant and child mortality rates match or beat our own. There’s one doctor for every 170 people, more than twice the per-capita U.S. average.
Not everything is perfect in Cuba. There are shortages of medicines, and the best care is reserved for elites. But it’s still a powerful feat. “In Cuba, a little over $300 per person is spent on health care each year. In the U.S., we’re spending over $7,000 per person,” said Drain, co-author of Caring for the World and an essay published April 29 in Science. “They’re able to achieve great health outcomes on a modest budget.”
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01-10-2012, 04:41 PM
#975
Again, focusing on spending without controlling for outcomes seems ludicrous as a measure of the quality of healtchare in a country. I bet Rwanda has REALLY low per capita spending on healthcare... You know, because people die of dysentery and cholera there.
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01-10-2012, 05:06 PM
#978
So you're trying to argue that, in the US, unless you can pay out of pocket for the best care (or have the political/social connections to gain access), you're likely to end up in a facility that doesn't have running water or even rudimentary sterilization techniques? Are poor people in the US often subjected to surgical procedures conducted without painkillers?
Is that the intentional parallel you're trying to draw?
Is that the intentional parallel you're trying to draw?
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01-10-2012, 05:17 PM
#979
So you're trying to argue that, in the US, unless you can pay out of pocket for the best care (or have the political/social connections to gain access), you're likely to end up in a facility that doesn't have running water or even rudimentary sterilization techniques? Are poor people in the US often subjected to surgical procedures conducted without painkillers?
But if you are arguing for a statistically insignificant minority that is oft-cited by those opposing single payer, hell, we have people who inject home depot silicone into breasts using maybe $50 worth of stuff from home depot.
Are poor people in Cuba subjected to such medical procedures? No?
Is that the intentional parallel you're trying to draw?
Our poor are frequently faced with a choice of health care or bankruptcy (62% of all bankruptcies are caused by health care costs, see previous thread with sources on this). You claim Cuba's poor are faced with a choice of such poor medical health conditions that infection and disease would run rampant - but if this were true, then the numbers from the WHO would reflect it. Are you saying the WHO is lying?
And you know what? If we went to single payer overnight, everything staying exactly the same in this country, not a single thing changed except for the change to single-payer...
We'd see a 30%-45% cut in costs immediately.
That's how much in administrative overhead in billing we have. Seriously, I am not ------- with you, overinflating numbers, or playing word games. These are based in hard numbers. I can provide as many sources as you want confirming this.
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01-10-2012, 05:25 PM
#980
You're impossible. Here's an excellent example of why any statistics about Cuban healthcare, regardless of who is collecting them, are fraught with problems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba
Trying to isolate positive aspects of the Cuban healthcare system for application in American society is akin to examining their political system, and then recommending that we install more palm trees in American government buildings.
According to Katharine Hirschfeld, criticizing the government is a crime in Cuba, and penalties are severe. She noted that "Formally eliciting critical narratives about health care would be viewed as a criminal act both for me as a researcher, and for people who spoke openly with me". According to Hirschfeld the Cuban Ministry of Health (MINSAP) sets statistical targets that are viewed as production quotas. The most guarded is infant mortality rate. The doctor is pressured to abort the pregnancy whenever screening shows that quotas are in danger. Once a doctor decides to guard his quotas, patients have no right to refuse abortion.
[...]
After spending nine months in Cuban clinics, Katherine Hirschfeld asserted in her paper "My increased awareness of Cuba’s criminalization of dissent raised a very provocative question: to what extent is the favorable international image of the Cuban health care system maintained by the state’s practice of suppressing dissent and covertly intimidating or imprisoning would-be critics?"
[...]
After spending nine months in Cuban clinics, Katherine Hirschfeld asserted in her paper "My increased awareness of Cuba’s criminalization of dissent raised a very provocative question: to what extent is the favorable international image of the Cuban health care system maintained by the state’s practice of suppressing dissent and covertly intimidating or imprisoning would-be critics?"
Trying to isolate positive aspects of the Cuban healthcare system for application in American society is akin to examining their political system, and then recommending that we install more palm trees in American government buildings.
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