A presidential national address I think is needed at this point. He should call for a stop to these bs townhall meetings, and ask the media to stop pumping the bellows. Probably won't work but it couldn't hurt

when someone DOES get hurt/killed, the Beck's and Limbaugh's of the conservative media will simply say "I can't be held responsible for the actions of deranged individuals" and then blame Obama for inciting riots with his socialist agendas.

i put this in the pub thread about whos responsible for the various distortions on the question of health care, but it's just as relevant here given the turn in the conversation. have a look:

The Threat Is Real: Why Right-Wing Rage at Townhall Meetings Could Quickly Turn Deadly | Politics | AlterNet

Agreed. I think it might behoove The President to address the concerns and fears of the populace of a country currently $9,000,000,000 in debt and spending (and planning to spend) even more like theres no tomorrow.

I just heard on msnbc that there is a stand off in LA where a man who allegedly made threats against the whitehouse is holed up in an aparment building causing the police to evecuate the residents.

This is only gonna get worse.

I generally assume when I fail to clearly communicate a point that the failure is mine. In some instances I conclude that some of my points are simply ignored, but there is a difference between that and when I don't have the ability to clearly communicate what I am thinking. My points are usually elementary, the difficulty is in eliminating the "noise". So, even this point can easily be interpreted the wrong way as an insult to the reader. But the point is elementary - simplicity is surrounded in a fog of complexity, with the challenge being to cut through the fog.

Didn't see any liberals going over to Afghanistan to protest right after 9/11, did you? Didn't see any liberal protesters going over to Iraq after they invaded Kuwait, did you? Didn't see any liberal protesters in Iraq as Saddam was ordering hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people be killed, did you?
Didn't see any liberal protesters in Vietnam after the US withdrew protesting the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, did you?
Don't see any liberal protesters going to N. Korea or Iran to protest the war postures those countries are taking to perhaps help reduce the risk of another war, do you?

---------- Post added at 07:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:38 PM ----------

I don't take any statistics seriously until I look at them in detail. The point of the op ed peice was to quickly show that there was a different perspective concerning the notion that US health care is inferior to other industrialized nations. It all depends on how you parse the numbers. Sebelius never clarified what she meant by her comments, there are questions, and those questions remain unanswered. It appears that you are not even curious. I am willing to dig deeper, read reports and footnotes, etc., I am still waiting for someone to give a link to the report so we can look at it in detail - I can not find a free copy.

LOL dude, you're a riot. It's like watching the hannity line of logic, it just falls flat on it's face. Apples to oranges and strawmen all over the place.

At least put some effort in to making sense next time.

I think it's incumbent on the majority of liberals (aka 'non-nutbags') to stand up and denounce the strong arm tactics of the SEIU thugs RIGHT NOW.

that should do it.

Which report is that? The World Health Statistics?

WHO | World Health Statistics 2009

Or was there another WHO publication you were looking for?

WHO | Publications

It's all available as free .pdf downloads. You can also find the statistics quoted above here, and honestly I think they're more relevant to the discussion. I copy and pasted the summaries, but you can find a wide range of statistics on everything from child mortality to obesity and nutrition to tobacco and alcohol consumption, if that's your thing.

Out of curiosity, did you actually look before declaring this information unfindable?

Again, according to the statistics provided by the international non-partisan body charged with monitoring this very issue, US citizens pay more per capita, and get less for it. These are facts, and are not subject to opinion.

Finally, I need you to come right out and say it, because it's unclear to me. What questions precisely are you referring to that remain unanswered?

In a country like Zimbabwe in Africa they spend about $300 per year per person on food. The Zimbabwe GDP is about $300 per person according to Wikipedia. Zimbabwe spends about 100% of their economy on food, not counting what is donated. Zimbabwe ranked 155 in the Health care report. What do you conclude from this random bit of information, nothing.

Here is a link to "food" data:

Per capita food expenditures declining around the world. - Free Online Library

Now according to the World Health Organization the life expectancy in Japan, highest, was 74.5. For the US the number was 70.0 Here is their definition of how they came up with the number, and the link:

Here is their explanation:



World Health Organization Disability Adjusted Healthy Life Expectancy Table (HALE)

Here is a link to data from our National vital Statistics report from the CDC:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_09.pdf

Page 30 shows life expectancy of a person born in 2004 of 77.8, compared to the 70.0 number above and the 74.5 number for Japan. Then if we look in the data (realizing this is a nation with racial issues with blacks and Hispanics - legal and illegal) if we look at white people only, the life expectancy is - 78.3 compared to 69.5 for black males.

So, what do you conclude from those bits of information?

Then if we look at something like homicide, which has an impact on life expectancy. We find that the US had a homicide rate 3.3 times higher than Canada in 2000. Here is a link to a report:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-...001011-eng.pdf

What do you conclude from that?

How does the WHO report adjust for these kinds of factors when coming to a conclusion about health care? You don't know, I ask questions. You take the report on blind faith, I challenge the report. You think I have a problem, I don't. I spend time connecting dots, do you?

---------- Post added at 08:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:52 PM ----------

Did you read what I was responding to? I get tired of the line about how liberals protest against war. That is bull shit. They risk nothing when they go out and do their little protests.

Sorry, these numbers are useless until you include taxation levels. You can't include how much you "pay directly for healthcare" and then exclude how much you pay in taxes for it. I'm not demanding that one produce the taxation number as well, I'm simply discounting the numbers provided as a partial picture to backup a pre-determined conclusion.

---------- Post added at 05:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:59 PM ----------

I think that's a great idea. Let's have the president be the only voice in the healthcare debate. Letting the people say their peace is just muddying the water towards real progress. Better yet, let's just let him write his bill in to law. Then, we don't even have to waste our time debating it. This would be a lot easier if we just crowned him Emperor.

Give me a break. I ended up here and could not fine a downloadable version of the current report:

WHO | The world health report

So, I asked! Assuming others had already read the report, I thought someone could simply provide a link, gee.:shakehead:

Assuming that the homicide rate is unrelated to the overall mortality rate (which I'm not sure it is, unless healthcare providers are in the habit of leaving gunshot victims to die), according to the document you linked the homicide rate in the US as of 2007 was 5.5 per 100 000 population. Taken in the context of the overall mortality rate (as provided in the WHO statistics) of 1080 per 100 000, I'm not sure this can really be considered statistically significant.

Here is some info I came across a few minutes ago:

American Economy vs Canadian Economy - Difference and Comparison - Diffen

---------- Post added at 09:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 PM ----------

You say you are not sure, neither am I. That is my point. You have to dig into the numbers. I still don't understand how WHO makes its "adjustments" to life expectancy. whatever assumptions they use could very well materially alter the numbers and any conclusion they reach from the numbers. Getting to seem very subjective to me, but I will read the full report now that I have it.

Apparently my rhetorical style made my point unclear.

A difference of 5.5 per 100 000 is just over half of a percentage point within the context of the overall statistic. Even if we completely discount homicides we still end up with an overall mortality rate of approximately 1074.5 per 100 000 (inflated from 108 per 1000 to correlate with the homicide statistic). This is still significantly higher than the figures for Canada (720 per 100 000) or the UK (790 per 100 000).

Homicide rates have absolutely no relevance here.

You can't be serious here. You really can't. So you don't want to use data weighed on GDP? Fine, but you do realize that it UNDERMINES your point, right? Because the difference between what the US spends and other nations spend on healthcare actually INCREASES if you just use the dollar amount. Do you not understand that? Are you just trying to string together words to pretend you have a point?

Have you actually read anything at all that has been posted on this thread? It is not just life expectancy that the US does worse than other developed nations. It's infant mortality (not too many homicides there), it's number of doctor visits, it's hospital beds available, it's yearly mortality rates, it's adult mortality rates net of homicides and injuries, it's newborns with low birth weight, it's mortality by infectious disease, and so on and so on.

On one post you are saying that the US healthcare system is wonderful because you don't want to live longer anyways, on the other you are saying that all statistics are wrong....

Just for the record, it now appears that Palin was for "death panels" before she was against them, given the proclamation she signed last year:

Yep...just what the House bill proposes.

Yet,....being the hypocritical hack that she is, and in the self-proclaimed new role as the voice for the "common, hard working, patriotic American", for some reason she feels to the need to keep stoking the fires and demonstrating her ignorance.

The homicide rate for people born in 2009 is most likely zero.
The homicide rate in 2010 for people born in 2009 is also close to zero.
The homicide rate in 2011 for people born in 2009 is also close to zero.
Etc.
Etc.

does your analysis take into consideration the cumulative impact of the difference between the two countries?

Secondly, if we look at probabilities of homicide, from the source cited below it shows the lifetime odds of death in the US in 1996 by homicide is 1:169 or 592 in every 100,000. That is .6%.

Here is a link to the data:

Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters

I don't have comparable data for Canada, but if it is 1/3, the rate for Canada would be about .2%. One of the keys is when these homicides occur. compared to an 80 average year life span, if the homicides occur in the years of let's say 18 to 25 it would have a bigger impact than if they occurred 48 to 55.

Again if we take the time to dig into the numbers there is clearly a difference between male and female life spans. Many factors contribute, one could be the difference in homicide rates between males and females. If, this is a factor- this factor would have nothing to do with health care. The same could be true in the comparison of Canada and the US

You can dismiss homicide rates, I don't. I would want a detailed mathematical analysis before reaching the conclusion you have come to.

---------- Post added at 10:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:37 PM ----------

This is interesting but there are really two different issues on the table regarding "death panels (I agree this is a bad way to describe the issue), there is what you refer to, and there is what I am concerned about. See my post #90 and what preceeded it on this issue.

ace, I knew you would find a way to attempt to dodge and weave around this one.

Its more than a "bad way to describe the issue"....it is willful and intentional fear-mongering.

I have a better idea.

Read the bill, or at least the section in question, and not just your IBD editorials and ignorant characterizations like PalinSpeak.

Or keep defending her and the similar baseless yet emotionally laden provocative crap (socialism gone wild) from the right that is at the very heart of their opposition, as we have come to expect.

How do differing rates of homicide explain higher infant mortality? higher mortality to infectious diseases? Fewer hospital beds per capita available?

---------- Post added at 04:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:13 PM ----------



Data provided throughout this thread have shown how much the state spends on health.

You've descended into absurdity again. I have no idea what you could possibly be trying to say with this. It's just meaningless words.

I can only assume you're referring to the difference in homicide rates. No, I did not factor that in. Instead, I excluded the impact of homicide rates entirely from the US statistics, while not altering the statistics from any other country. It was a fairly simple subtraction problem. Given that homicide tends to be fatal, we can assume that the mortality rates in Canada and the UK are including murders in their numbers.

There is no possible way this data could be weighted more strongly in favour of the US, and the US healthcare system still comes out looking worse.

None of this is even slightly relevant to the discussion. Lifetime statistics are meaningless here, because you're not comparing directly to overall mortality statistics. Homicide rates amongst 18-25 year olds is relevant when viewed in the context of mortality in general amongst 18-25 year olds. It's not relevant when viewing the overall mortality rate. I have no interest in going through this age group by age group, although you're welcome to do so if you really think that will bear any fruit.

Homicide rates are higher in the US than in Canada, and I'm pretty sure they're higher than in the UK as well. I'd be glad to discuss the reasons for that in a separate thread.

None of this has any relevance whatsoever to a discussion regarding healthcare.

Let's move on. Please.

Ace's arguments sometimes reminds me of this:

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8140/...servatards.png

I'm done. Also, I win.

I did read the report. Regarding infant mortality, in the US the adolescent 15-19) fertility rate 41 per 10,000 compared to Canada's 14. A statistic like this can have an impact on infant mortality rates due to simply understanding or not understanding prenatal needs and not the quality of available health care. If a 15 year old girl is embarrassed by her pregnancy, hides it, and doesn't get proper prenatal care the odds of a healthy birth goes down. If she determines she is pregnant early, goes to the doctor, and follows doctors order the odds of a healthy birth goes up. All I have been saying is in order to come to correct conclusions, you have to drill down into the numbers.

In my living will, I want my family to pull the plug. I am more concerned with the quality of life not the duration. Why is that difficult to understand? If I get old and can not think clearly, have sex, eat what I want, function in society, control bodily functions, my wife has been instructed to leave a loaded gun within my reach.

---------- Post added at 03:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:58 PM ----------

I acknowledge the description "death panels" is inappropriate. I have no problem with living wills, or doctors being paid to assist people when they set one up. However, I have a concern outside of this primarily concerning how limited resources get allocated when I generally don't trust Washington bureaucrats. You and Obama can continue to dismiss this, but it won't go away.

---------- Post added at 03:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:02 PM ----------

I am not sure what "higher mortality to infectious diseases" stat you refer to, that leads to the conclusion the US health care system is inferior to other developed nations, can you clarify?

Fewer hospital beds per capita is interesting but what about doctors per 10,000 people in the report. The US has 26. Canada has 19. Canada has 101 nurses the US has 94. But the US has 177 "other health care providers", Canada did not show a number. So what do you conclude from that?

After reading the report I conclude that is takes an active imagination to conclude with any degree of real certainty that the health care system of any developed nation is materially better or worse than another.

---------- Post added at 03:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:09 PM ----------

Just for fun, I created my own mortality table in Excel so I could easily do "what ifs". Population 10,000, maximum age 100, death rates systematically increase each decade for the population start with 1 death per year in year 1 ending with 925 deaths in year 100, but 200 deaths per year from 90 to 99. Life expectancy was 73.29. Then simply adding 200 homicide deaths in year 25 (meaning year 100 deaths went down to 725) the life expectancy dropped to 71.79. Homicide rates makes a big enough difference to "move the needle".

You can say "oh, you just made those numbers up", or "thats not relevant" or whatever - but again my point is I understand what I did and the assumptions I made. the WHO report is not clear and I challenge you to clearly explain how they made their adjustments to life expectancy and why.

---------- Post added at 03:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:20 PM ----------

LOL, This is more accurate:


I like to think I am cutting edge

---------- Post added at 03:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:32 PM ----------

Not so fast!

You, of course, have to evidence to suggest that babies out of teenage pregnancies are more in danger of dying not because of lack of access, but because of lack of understading...

In fact, the US has higher infant mortality, and mortality for kids under 5, for a variety of reasons that go beyond neonatal care. The US does worse for mortality of children under 5 to pneumonia, for example.
You can't be serious with this crap. You want to live a shorter life? Fine, but so why pay more for it? Ill tell you what, cancel your health insurance and start sending me 100 bucks a month. It will be cheaper than your health insurance, and you will die even earlier.
Besides, this is based on the assumption that access to health care only affects when people die, not their quality of life when alive...



No, it takes an active imagination to try to come up with specific excuses as to why the US does worse in almost every single health statistic, especially when the disparities don't match up with the claim you are making.

As for the infectious diseases part, look up years of life lost to communicable diseases, and you will see how death to infectious diseases affects the life expectancy rate. Oh, and death to infectious diseases in the US declined for most of the 20th century, but started going up again in 1980...



They made no adjustments to their life expectancy table. What you are doing is comparing different variables, why I don't know.

The WHO has exactly the same number for life expectancy as that calculated in the US. The two things you are trying to compare is the data the WHO has on "Healthy life expectancy" and "life expectancy." They are different things, and so to claim that the WHO is trying to mess up the numbers only shows how little you know.


As far as homicides go, look around a bit more. Soon you will find the mortality rate for injuries, which will include not only homicides, but any and all accidents. You will see that in the US the mortality rate for injuries is 47, for Canada 34 and for France 48. In other words, the difference in mortality rate to injuries is not enough to explain the difference in overall mortality rate for Canada, and should actually benefit the US in a comparison to France.

I don't think this country owes me anything, but this is different.

I don't get how or why people are afraid of Universal Healthcare. What is it, ace(and others against it)? Is it not wanting to give tax dollars so that somebody gets a free ride to the hospital? I can understand that, each for his own. It's not my thing, but I get it.

Concerning the "death panels". I don't know what else to call these, so we'll borrow the rhetoric. Really? You believe this shit? Have you no critical thought??? If one of your leaders tells you Obama wants to promote teenage unprotected sex, wouldn't you step back and wonder if they're just trying to get you riled up?
Overall, what I'm trying to understand is, where do you get this information, and why do you trust it? And if it appears erroneous, like maybe the birther movement, why don't you denounce it as such?
For example: I personally don't feel the American auto industry should get tax dollars. I'm not gonna disrupt a news conference or a town hall meeting. If I have real questions about it, I'll wait for a turn to speak. This town hall bullshit is frankly scary, if you believe Obama is the next Hitler then we really don't live in the same reality.
Rb is right, there's no strategy except for shouting and making noise.

I know you guys might have real concerns, but if you do, then voice them appropriately. Obama is not gonna fistfuck your babies and shoot your grandma in the head.

Sometimes, when eating out in public some people just prefer the privacy of the booth seat over the communal tables in the middle.

Alright. Is that the main reason for you? How about everyone else who opposes it?

cost
vagueness in the totality of the 1,000+ page of the bill
additional monstrous beauracracy

well, the obvious question, powerclown, is whether you have the same kind of reaction to, say, current levels of military expenditure, which follow from the fact that the military has never quite gone off cold war status, which makes no sense except insofar as it benefits the patronage system which depends on this state of affairs, and which typically supports republicans.

you know, the center of republican-style military keynesianism.
what's been in place since the reagan period.

Can't you see that some people don't want to be financially responsible for the medical welfare of others, of strangers? That they just want to be able to work and provide for their own families? That some people don't want yet another government regulation over their lives? Some people still believe in the notion of self-determination, of the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Its a principle thing.

---------- Post added at 01:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:47 PM ----------

Is it the obvious question? I'm still trying to make sense of this whole 'green revolution'.

Y'know...I had whole big diatribe going....then I changed my mind. I can simplify it by saying that as one of 20% of undecided Americans, the one thing that would make me embrace a government run healthcare program would be if all government employees, and I mean ALL government employees, from Obama, to my congressman, to the Supreme Court Justices down to the crabby lady at the DMV, were forced to be on the EXACT same program as anyone else. When that happens, I will support Universal Healthcare. Until then, all I have to do is look at the VA to get a glimpse of what I can expect from government run healthcare.

well, if you pitch your objection to large amounts of money flowing through the federal government, it seems reasonable to wonder if it's consistent or not. so from that viewpoint, yes, it's obvious. wanna answer?

As an aside, this seems like another one of those issues where one of the major stumbling blocks is party affiliation as personal identifier. It's a phenomenon I've noticed repeatedly in politics, and in American politics in particular.

Republicans as individuals feel they must oppose universal healthcare, because Republicans as a party oppose it. Republicans as a part oppose it seemingly because Democrats as a party favour it.

And of course the same is true across the aisle, or however the Yanks phrase that.

But the United States of America is the only developed nation that doesn't have universal healthcare to my knowledge, and all of the evidence that I'm able to find at least shows that you're worse for it.

Republicans as a party and as individuals don't seem to be able to reconcile this with their mandated opposition. So we end up talking about tables and murders and horses instead.

This discussion stopped being productive several pages ago.

Are you suggesting that prenatal care is not related to infant mortality? Are you asking me to prove that to you? Are you asking me to prove to you that people at the highest risk of not getting prenatal care are poor teens? Is that what we need to spend time on?

When I read the WHO report I saw mortality for children under 5 as 8 per 10,000 (.08%) compared to Canada as 6 per 10,000 (.06%). Perhaps some consider that alone to be statistically significant enough to draw conclusions, I don't.


I would rather spend money today to keep my cholesterol low, blood pressure low, etc., than to not spend the money and spend extra days at the end of my life in a hospital bed. It is clear on this issue, that you make your choices, I make mine - government should not dictate to you nor me.


I did not see WHO make the value judgment regarding the quality of health care that you seem to make.

and my point is we need to understand the numbers. when comparing two countries on this issue, you have to understand for example what is the impact of AIDS on the numbers, and how does cultural aspects in one country compare to another in this regard outside of health care to determine how the numbers impact health care delivery questions.

Read the report again. They did make adjustment to life expectancy, for something they call "full health" - which you can not explain.

Lets be clear. I am asking for an understanding of their numbers. The numbers are in their report, not mine. Isn't fair to ask? If we are going to make policy decisions based on the report and comparisons to other nations, don't we want to understand the numbers. How do we know their source is not biased? How do they explain that in some categories of statistics some nations show no data?


I was challenged regarding homicides. I was told homicides would make no difference when comparing the US and Canada. I simply went through an exercise to prove, at least to me, that it does make a difference. I am comfortable with the conclusion I have come to until someone proves otherwise, you have not.

No, Im suggesting that teenagers not knowing about prenatal care is not enough to justify the difference, that you have no evidence that infant mortality is higher among teenagers, and that even if it is, that this is caused by not knowing about prenatal care, as opposed to not having access to it (which would be directly related to the quality of US healthcare)


Statistical significance only comes into account when you are talking about samples. When you have population data, you already know that they are statistically significantly different. And to put things in another way, 8 is 33% higher than 6.


You can't really be insisting on this point. First of all, the differences in healthcare do no come solely at the end of one's life. Second of all, the difference include differences in preventive care, where the US does even worse. Third of all, you've yet to mention costs.

"I want to die young, so I want a healthcare system that is less efficient and more costly" has to be the more insane, absurd defense of the American healthcare system I have ever heard.


where did any value judgements come into place?

The point is that YOU don't understand the numbers, and guess randomly at improbably things that could explain differences in care, outcomes, and cost

You can't really be that dense. You really can't. "Healthy life expectancy" is not the same as "life expectancy." Their numbers are exactly the same you will find being used by the CDC. The adjustments they made to "healthy life expectancy" is the same they did for most nations.

Their source is the CDC and the US Census Bureau. Not all nations collect data on everything, hence why there is some missing data.


No one said homicide doesn't make a difference. What was said was that homicides don't explain the difference in mortality rates between the US and Canada.

That's exactly what Obama and friends has been telling everyone except in the end, like all other government run crapola, it will cost a whole lot more than 100 bucks a month for far less than we are receiving now. One only needs to look at the VA to see what things will resemble once the government takes control.

I would buy into this a lot easier if every single legal resident in the US including but not limited to our President and our other elected officials was on the same plan as the average Jane and Joe Blow down the street. Until then I believe this is nothing other than another government scam.

Do you have any actual evidence or estimate for any of the several proposals being circulated? Because so far my problem with Obama's plans is that there really isn't a specific proposal, just a generally stated intention to do something about it.

No I don't and neither does anyone else for that matter. That's the biggest problem with this whole mess. Nobody really has a "plan" but yet they was trying to push the non-plan to a vote before the break. What a bunch of baloney. And then to say everyone that disagrees with this approach is a terrorists or anti-American is bullshit. This "hurry and get something done before the American public figures out what happened" crap both parties played with the "bailout" isn't quite cutting it this time around and thats a good thing. If nothing else all this public outcry will make our elected officials slow down and actually debate something and come up with a good plan rather than something similiar to the bullshit we was all fed on the bailouts. I don't expect anything good to come out of the town hall meetings but maybe when the discussion moves back to the halls of Congress something good will come out of it. And think about it, if the insurance companies and drug companies are behind whatever it is they are contemplating is it really going to be that good for the taxpayer or consumer?

Yes, I get it. I don't share the feeling, but I get it.