It is to late at night to get into a major tiff.

If you wish to fallow the unfolding health care debate, go to the Kaiser Family Foundation web site. On the left hand side, Special Features, Drew Altman will be periodically posting.

http://www.kff.org/

This site will fill you in on other policy issues which surround health care.

The number of Canadians that come to the US for health care has been quantified, and one of many scholarly papers with data and methodology is this one:

http://healthaff.highwire.org/cgi/content/full/21/3/19

I urge you to read the whole paper for its data, but will quote the last paragraph in the discussion section.

Phantoms in the snow. Despite the evidence presented in our study, the Canadian border-crossing claims will probably persist. The tension between payers and providers is real, inevitable, and permanent, and claims that serve the interests of either party will continue to be independent of the evidentiary base. Debates over health policy furnish a number of examples of these “zombies”—ideas that, on logic or evidence, are intellectually dead—that can never be laid to rest because they are useful to some powerful interests. The phantom hordes of Canadian medical refugees are likely to remain among them.

Sorry about that, this and other papers have not been able to substantiate the claim that significant Canadians come to the US for their health care. A bit self serving, but when Klein mentions Zombies, he references the paper by Berer quoted in my previous post — ref. 23 in Klein’s paper.

Lex periodically holds a socialized medicine “Hoe Down”, so I am sure we will all get a chance to dance with the Zombies again. A while back he brought up the invasion of the Canadian population seeking relief from their oppressive system in the US. As I recall he referenced an Editorial in the Wall Street Journal. I kind of prefer sources that have undergone peer review, vigorous scrutiny, and list references that an inquiring mind might pursue.

Oh My God in heaven… A private for profit company being in business to make money. What is this world coming to?

Come on man. Health insurance comapnies are interested in your health. If health insurance company A can keep you healthy it lowers their overhead. Now, on the other hand, if they’re constantly having to pay for your hospital care it raises their overhead. It’s like saying that car insurance companies want you to get into a wreck. That’s simply nonsense. If you don’t get into a wreck they get to keep your premium. Same with health insurance companies. If you stay well they get to keep all of your premium Vs. if you get sick they have to give some of that premium towards your healthcare.

Now, as far as not getting to pick your doctor… I have Kaiser permanente. Probably one fo the biggest health insurance companies out there. To say that I cannot pick my own doctor is ridiculous. Yes, they give me a group of doctors to pick from, but it is a group of HUNDREDS of doctors. Surely out of hundreds of doctors everyone can find one that they like… and that’s just Kaiser. If Kaiser doesn’t have a doctor that you like there’s Blue Cross, or any other number of health insurance companies that you can pick from. Surely one of them has a doctor that you like.

As far as socialized medicine… or government sponsored medicine… riddle me this batman… why do so many Canadians come here to the US to recieve healthcare if it’s so great?

Jim C

For the record, I have only been here in lex’s domain under two years, not 3-4. But during that time, I have not altered my positions nor modified my message very much. I frequently have offered my opinions on COIN and referenced Galula, Hammes, and others, even before Petraeus ’s publicized successes. Also, I have and do on occasion listen to sources from the front lines, as well as many other differing sources, to arrive at a better overall understanding.

Please remember too that I did not just fall off the turnip truck, as I have some first hand experience in war and combat, and have seen similar mistakes in strategy, tactics and policy made in the past.

Relentlessly yours,
fliterman

Flit, you’ve been around here as long as I- you talk conclusively with 20/20 hindsight on many things re Iraq. If you knew these things 3-4 years ago, why didn’t you share them with us? Don’t bother, I already know the answer.

It seems they come in here to cherry pick some stuff and only that stuff that buttresses their own views. Relentlessly.

b2

And so, thank you Tom G.!!! I will take a few minutes to tickle your fun bone.

First of all, we have to take a look at what are known as Health Care Zombies.

http://www.chspr.ubc.ca/node/407

I know, I know, the paper by Barer et al dates to 1998, is in a PDF file, and is 74+ pages long, but it is Health Care Zombies that we wish to emphasize. Go to the last page of the paper, click back a page or two, and scan read. What you will get is that Barer and his merry band are pointing out is that no amount of data, tedious exposition, snappy retorts are going to kill a Health Care Zombie… They will live on, to dance with the willing forever… The Zombies are the myths that surround health care.

The moment you dare to bring forth the relatively irrefutable date that the US ranks lower in any of 10 to 18 Health Care Metrics in comparison to other industrialized countries, and that we pay more than any other countries, while leaving a significant proportion of our population uninsured, out of the wood work come a whole group of people, the band strikes up the “socialized medicine” tune, and everybody starts dancing with a Zombie.

Now here is the deal. If you wish to find out about “National Health Care”, go to Health Care System in Transition, pick your country, and start reading. They are all big PDF files, so I would go to Sweden, who we all know is the bastard daughter of Lenin, a “socialized country”.

And there is a Zombie, shoot him — in Sweden the government does not tell you what doctor you get, that is free choice. There is another Zombie, shoot that one — in the USA you have free choice of your doctor, not so, the Health Care Plan you sign up gives you a “panel” of doctors, any other you pay out of your own pocket… Whoops, over there is a big Zombie — heavy centralized planning, shoot that one, in Sweden planing goes down to the commune(county) level.

Now, just go back to Jim C’s post #12 as he discusses his own problems, and guess what, there is another really big Zombie, Health Insurance. Insurance companies interested in your health??? Strike up the band, bring out the Zombies, it does not take a high school valedictorian to tell you Insurance Companies are not interested in your health, they are interested in making money.

But, guess what, government by the people, and for the people, is interested in your health. At present it tries to protect your water, your food, and although it is a battle, the air you breath. It keeps an eye on hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities. Although lots of folks are pissed off about it, including the President, it provides health care for the poor and the elderly. Go one step further, the warrior class is so valued, that it gets free health care (aka National Health Service). And if you your fun bone is tickled by irony, so do fed prisoners.

Fliterman and I can only work the edges of this debate, you just cannot kill a Health Care Zombie. When he initially raised the question of whether the treasure we are wasting in Iraq could not be better spent here, in the US, for the health of our nation, it was a clarion call for all the Zombies to come out, and the band started playing…

As for the shoot out that is occurring at Lex’s OK corral about Iraq, it is clear that one camp has defined success, but refuses to define failure. My humble attempt to point out that Anthony Cordesman had defined some measures for either failure or stalemate was met with derision. Sigh, is their any other human endeavor, other than war, where failure might provide a learning lesson?