Well, this can be a complex question:
Joey is twelve. No, wait, fifteen. His face is twelve. His neck, scarred from pepper spray, is a bitter eighteen. His abdomen, with a line from a stab wound, is a harsh twenty-five. I guess it averages out. Okay then, fifteen it is.
Over My Med Body has the rest of this sad story.
Oh yea, there is plenty more at Grand Rounds Vol. 2, No. 29.
Jane Galt has written a series of posts on health care that are worth while reading for all. The latest in the series is here and both Tyler Cowan and Arnold Kling quote this sentence:
Have the government pay for all health care expenditures above 15% of adjusted gross income, and cover 100% of health care expenditures by people living under 200% of the poverty line.
Both have suggestions to tweak Jane’s proposal and you should also read their posts.
Jane’s proposal with some tweaks has a lot to recommend it but the framing, yes, the framing needs to change. It needs to change for this and all other discussions that include a phrase similar to “..the government pay…” Everyone needs to be clear that the government really does not pay for anything. It takes money from you and I, the payers, and gives the money to someone else, the payees.
So, one thing missing from the above statement is the mechanism for and the rate at which the government is going to take money from you and me and distribute it to others. Once this is defined then let the payers decide whether they will fund this.
In the comment thread for one of Drum’s typical single payer blurbs is this about how the US health care system sucks compared to the Canadian system:
She is also able to get to see her G.P. typically on the same day, an experience I have yet to enjoy here in the US. Instead, I’m told to go to an urgent care clinic where I pay more out of pocket.
Perhaps this guy should get a different GP! My family is routinely able to get in to see our GP on the same day. The rest of his comparisons are pretty much anecdotal apples and oranges.
As to Drum:
1) Well, yes the government incented and dominated US system has big issues. As usual Kevin wants more of the same.
2) He has the solution for both Canada and Britain’s systems: Decent funding levels would make both of them a lot better. Yep, if it ain’t working throw more money at it.
Kevin, some day the money is going to run out….oh yea, as the bushies demonstrate on a daily basis it already has.
If you are too skinny or too heavy you have a higher risk of fatal injury in certain car crashes(reg):
Male drivers with a body-mass index (BMI) greater than 35 or lower than 22 were significantly more likely to die after front-end or left-side collisions, compared with men with intermediate BMIs, reported Shankuan Zhu, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at the Medical College of Wisconsin here.
Moderately overweight men (with BMIs around 28) were least likely to die, compared with their larger or skinnier counterparts,
One reason is that vehicles are not designed for you:
Current vehicle cabin designs are based on a standard crash test dummy in the driver’s position with a BMI of 24.3, the authors said.
“These cabin designs may not be optimal for drivers with a different body habitus and may contribute to the higher fatality seen at both ends of the BMI continuum,” the authors concluded.
This seems another good incentive to maintain yourself in reasonably good shape!
I wonder, though, if we will start seeing law suits by families of dead heavyweights claiming unsafe design or misrepresentations about safety.
In Canada, and needing surgery? You might be better off to be a dog:
Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years before receiving treatment.
But no one is about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there. Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees.
The country’s publicly financed health insurance system — frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity — is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.
Dr. Day, for instance, is planning to open more private hospitals, first in Toronto and Ottawa, then in Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. Ontario provincial officials are already threatening stiff fines. Dr. Day says he is eager to see them in court.
“We’ve taken the position that the law is illegal,” Dr. Day, 59, says. “This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years.”
This is not an unexpected result when the commons is overgrazed and free riders multiply. Heck, this is the expected result of any government program.
Via Hit & Run.