Of course, but for all their imperfections they are widely recognized as better than what the USA currently does and win out on almost every objective metric.
The superiority of the Canadian and British models is not uncontroversial. This policy analysis rebuts many of the arguments for example. It includes numerous objective metrics on which the US does better than Canada or the UK. Debate the claims if you want but don’t pretend the issue is settled.
On basis of what observations? To my knowledge all other developed nations employ some form of socialized health care.
There is a lot of variation between nations. Many nations that have some form of ‘socialized’ health care also have significant amounts of private health care. Many countries have introduced market based reforms within their socialized health care systems in an effort to improve efficiency. Health tourism is increasingly common in Europe.
Because it’s not a new idea. Everyone else has helpfully tried it out for us already and found that it basically works.
‘It’ is not a single idea or system. Ultimately the biggest problem with healthcare reform in the US is that there is very little chance that it will adopt the best practices found in other nations. There are too many powerful special interests for the political process to select policies based on effectiveness. The more government involvement there is in healthcare, the more healthcare will be subject to problems of regulatory capture, special interest lobbying, rent seeking and bureaucracy. De-regulation and reduced government involvement creates incentives for serving patient interests as a primary route to success. Increased regulation and government involvement means that it becomes more and more profitable to focus effort on lobbying, gaming the system and political maneuvering rather than on patient care.
Debate the claims if you want but don’t pretend the issue is settled.
I don’t have the time to respond properly to the linked PDF, but skimming it quickly it doesn’t seem particularly persuasive. Obviously, the argument isn’t “settled” because people still argue about it, but that doesn’t mean both sides have arguments of equal strength.
At any rate, I’m really going to have to drop the discussion at this point because I don’t have the time to go digging up supporting references. If you seriously think that the US system is of comparable quality to European systems our difference of perspective is far too vast to bridge by simple off-the-cuff arguments here.
Thanks for your time, though, this has been enjoyable.
they are widely recognized as better than what the USA currently does and win out on almost every objective metric
The linked document contains a number of objective metrics on which the US does better—waiting times, use of high tech surgical procedures, access to high tech diagnostic equipment, breast and prostate cancer mortality ratios, specialist to patient ratios and patient satisfaction measures. I linked it as evidence to rebut the specific claim that the US is worse on ‘almost every objective metric’.
I don’t have the time to respond properly to the linked PDF, but skimming it quickly it doesn’t seem particularly persuasive.
I’m not asking you to make a detailed rebuttal, I’m just providing evidence of objective measures on which the US does better. I don’t have time for a detailed debate either. You seem to assign an extremely high probability to the belief that healthcare in the US could be significantly improved by adopting a European system though and I’m questioning whether the evidence justifies such high confidence.
Ultimately the only reason this is even a political issue is because of the high levels of government involvement. With less government involvement people could spend their healthcare dollars in the way they thought best without having to persuade anyone else. That’s another reason I oppose high levels of government involvement.
The superiority of the Canadian and British models is not uncontroversial. This policy analysis rebuts many of the arguments for example. It includes numerous objective metrics on which the US does better than Canada or the UK. Debate the claims if you want but don’t pretend the issue is settled.
There is a lot of variation between nations. Many nations that have some form of ‘socialized’ health care also have significant amounts of private health care. Many countries have introduced market based reforms within their socialized health care systems in an effort to improve efficiency. Health tourism is increasingly common in Europe.
‘It’ is not a single idea or system. Ultimately the biggest problem with healthcare reform in the US is that there is very little chance that it will adopt the best practices found in other nations. There are too many powerful special interests for the political process to select policies based on effectiveness. The more government involvement there is in healthcare, the more healthcare will be subject to problems of regulatory capture, special interest lobbying, rent seeking and bureaucracy. De-regulation and reduced government involvement creates incentives for serving patient interests as a primary route to success. Increased regulation and government involvement means that it becomes more and more profitable to focus effort on lobbying, gaming the system and political maneuvering rather than on patient care.
I don’t have the time to respond properly to the linked PDF, but skimming it quickly it doesn’t seem particularly persuasive. Obviously, the argument isn’t “settled” because people still argue about it, but that doesn’t mean both sides have arguments of equal strength.
At any rate, I’m really going to have to drop the discussion at this point because I don’t have the time to go digging up supporting references. If you seriously think that the US system is of comparable quality to European systems our difference of perspective is far too vast to bridge by simple off-the-cuff arguments here.
Thanks for your time, though, this has been enjoyable.
The linked document contains a number of objective metrics on which the US does better—waiting times, use of high tech surgical procedures, access to high tech diagnostic equipment, breast and prostate cancer mortality ratios, specialist to patient ratios and patient satisfaction measures. I linked it as evidence to rebut the specific claim that the US is worse on ‘almost every objective metric’.
I’m not asking you to make a detailed rebuttal, I’m just providing evidence of objective measures on which the US does better. I don’t have time for a detailed debate either. You seem to assign an extremely high probability to the belief that healthcare in the US could be significantly improved by adopting a European system though and I’m questioning whether the evidence justifies such high confidence.
Ultimately the only reason this is even a political issue is because of the high levels of government involvement. With less government involvement people could spend their healthcare dollars in the way they thought best without having to persuade anyone else. That’s another reason I oppose high levels of government involvement.