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NHS is the world's best healthcare system, report says

 
 
 
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Perspicuo

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TheGuardian: NHS is the world's best healthcare system, report says
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/17/nhs-health

The NHS has been declared the world's best healthcare system by an international panel of experts who rated its care superior to countries which spend far more on health.

The same study also castigated healthcare provision in the US as the worst globally. Despite putting the most money into health, America denies care to many patients in need because they do not have health insurance and is also the poorest at saving the lives of people who fall ill, it found.

The report has been produced by the Commonwealth Fund, a Washington-based foundation which is respected around the world for its analysis of the performance of different countries' health systems. It examined an array of evidence about performance in 11 countries, including detailed data from patients, doctors and the World Health Organisation.
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you mean a study done by a panel of socialist international experts.
 
LOL Yeah. The socialist meanies want people to survive. To the Stalag with them! :angryfist:
 
Perspicuo said:
LOL Yeah. The socialist meanies want people to survive. To the Stalag with them! :angryfist:
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[TalkRationalAdmin]Hey, you guys stole our smiley!! :angryfist: You could at least name it right :whyyou:![/TalkRationalAdmin]
 
Sorry had to laugh at one line in the article, and I'm not sure the author intended it that way, but it said, 'The only black mark against the NHS is keeping people alive"
 
And on one report I saw it had the UK first in all the categories except outcome where it was 10th. So why wasn't it rated as 10th, just ahead of the US?
 
coloradoatheist said:
And on one report I saw it had the UK first in all the categories except outcome where it was 10th. So why wasn't it rated as 10th, just ahead of the US?
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What difference does it make?

This is proof that a single payer system is better than the US system.

Cheaper, everybody covered, and similar outcomes.
 
I have used the NHS several times and I am glad it exists.

Its not socialism and I am not a socialist, its just being smart about health care.

Paying tax is the price you pay to have a civilised society and the NHS is just part of that, just like highways, schools, policing etc, etc.
 
Aneurin Bevan (UK Minister for Health between 1945 and 1951) summed the whole debate up nicely when he said:
Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community.
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It really is that simple.
 
bilby said:
Aneurin Bevan (UK Minister for Health between 1945 and 1951) summed the whole debate up nicely when he said:
Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community.
Click to expand...
It really is that simple.
Click to expand...


It's that simple for many illnesses and injuries. However, clearly many illnesses and injuries are the result of "indulgences", meaning willful choices to act or fail to act in a manner known to cause such negative outcomes but done anyway out of short-term hedonistic motives. This includes eating poorly despite having the means to do otherwise, smoking, and "accidents" caused by reckless risk taking. Although, the people who can afford their own good health insurance are those most like to be able to afford the activities that contribute to such self-inflicted illness and injury.
 
coloradoatheist said:
Sorry had to laugh at one line in the article, and I'm not sure the author intended it that way, but it said, 'The only black mark against the NHS is keeping people alive"
Click to expand...
There are insurmontable limitations which will reduce survival rates among cancer patients. Those limitations are not to be confused for a deficiency in the health care system "in keeping people alive". There are :

1) Which type of cancer.

2) Under each type of cancer, what is the prognosis for aggressive metastatic types and indolent metastatic ones?

3) What is the refractory rate factor affecting patients with chronic and incurable cancer types? Refractory meaning patients developing resistance to one or several oncology designed pharma protocols.

4) What is the incidence of chemo based treatments causing (due to their high toxicity) a secondary morbidity factor?

Now, falling under the category of factors affecting survival rates, factors resulting from a health care system which restricts access to health care based on the individual's ability to afford the cost of treatments/procedures and testing :

1) Poor access to early detection : I have said it before and will say it again, when it comes to cancer, early stages respond much better to treatments than late stages. There is a variety of asymptomatic cancers known as "silent killers" who can only be detected in early stages via medical tests. Without access to imaging and highly specialized blood tests, the incidence of late stage cancers is bound to increase and result in lowering survival rates.

2) Poor access to preventative medicine : I can think of several ailments which can be managed and controlled on a long term basis, to prevent their reaching the status of emergent or acute, by relying on prophylactic treatments/procedures. Nowadays a colonoscopy meets both goals of early detection and prevention. Polyps will be removed as part of the procedure.

3) Poor access to rehabilitative care such as PT, OT, RT.

4) Poor access to treating chronic and degenerative conditions.

the list can certainly be longer but what is undeniable is that any health care system which will deliver based only on the medically needy person's ability to afford the cost of treatments/procedures/testing is bound to FAIL to keep " people alive".
 
doubtingt said:
bilby said:
Aneurin Bevan (UK Minister for Health between 1945 and 1951) summed the whole debate up nicely when he said:
Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community.
Click to expand...
It really is that simple.
Click to expand...


It's that simple for many illnesses and injuries. However, clearly many illnesses and injuries are the result of "indulgences", meaning willful choices to act or fail to act in a manner known to cause such negative outcomes but done anyway out of short-term hedonistic motives. This includes eating poorly despite having the means to do otherwise, smoking, and "accidents" caused by reckless risk taking. Although, the people who can afford their own good health insurance are those most like to be able to afford the activities that contribute to such self-inflicted illness and injury.
Click to expand...
I am a health care worker and somehow I have managed to never make any distinctions between medically needy persons based on whether they caused their condition. They are medically needy, that's it. The need is there and has to be met. Medical needs will be better met in a nation with a single payer system where financially based discrimination has been eliminated. The more medically needy, the more access.
 
Sabine Grant said:
coloradoatheist said:
Sorry had to laugh at one line in the article, and I'm not sure the author intended it that way, but it said, 'The only black mark against the NHS is keeping people alive"
Click to expand...
There are insurmontable limitations which will reduce survival rates among cancer patients. Those limitations are not to be confused for a deficiency in the health care system "in keeping people alive". There are :

1) Which type of cancer.

2) Under each type of cancer, what is the prognosis for aggressive metastatic types and indolent metastatic ones?

3) What is the refractory rate factor affecting patients with chronic and incurable cancer types? Refractory meaning patients developing resistance to one or several oncology designed pharma protocols.

4) What is the incidence of chemo based treatments causing (due to their high toxicity) a secondary morbidity factor?

Now, falling under the category of factors affecting survival rates, factors resulting from a health care system which restricts access to health care based on the individual's ability to afford the cost of treatments/procedures and testing :

1) Poor access to early detection : I have said it before and will say it again, when it comes to cancer, early stages respond much better to treatments than late stages. There is a variety of asymptomatic cancers known as "silent killers" who can only be detected in early stages via medical tests. Without access to imaging and highly specialized blood tests, the incidence of late stage cancers is bound to increase and result in lowering survival rates.

2) Poor access to preventative medicine : I can think of several ailments which can be managed and controlled on a long term basis, to prevent their reaching the status of emergent or acute, by relying on prophylactic treatments/procedures. Nowadays a colonoscopy meets both goals of early detection and prevention. Polyps will be removed as part of the procedure.

3) Poor access to rehabilitative care such as PT, OT, RT.

4) Poor access to treating chronic and degenerative conditions.

the list can certainly be longer but what is undeniable is that any health care system which will deliver based only on the medically needy person's ability to afford the cost of treatments/procedures/testing is bound to FAIL to keep " people alive".
Click to expand...

But it brings up the very issue of deciding how affective a health system is when you have to judge it by what the medical system can or can't do. If Americans are less healthy than their counter parts than a lot of the rates quoted don't matter. And a large percentage of health care costs don't even get measured when comparing systems.
 
West said:
I have used the NHS several times and I am glad it exists.

Its not socialism and I am not a socialist, its just being smart about health care.
Click to expand...

It is socialism. There is nothing wrong with a little socialism. It is time to take that word back. Socialized healthcare, roads, fire department, garbage, military, all makes sense. Capitalism and socialism are both good when kept in a healthy balance.
 
Sorry folks, too many folks with anti-US system meme glasses filtering out the obvious:

The report is claiming that the NHS is better than all the other 30 (plus) health care systems - that alone makes the report very, very suspect. Having much familiarity with actual health care statistics and outcomes, the NHS scores poorly against far better systems. France beats the crap out the NHS in results, as does Canada. In fact, the NHS is normally considered a middle of the pack contender, behind 1/3rd to 1/2 of Europe.

One need not be a US booster to question a report that unfairly disses far better systems. I MUCH rather be treated in France or Canada than the UK.
 
maxparrish said:
Sorry folks, too many folks with anti-US system meme glasses filtering out the obvious:

The report is claiming that the NHS is better than all the other 30 (plus) health care systems - that alone makes the report very, very suspect. Having much familiarity with actual health care statistics and outcomes, the NHS scores poorly against far better systems. France beats the crap out the NHS in results, as does Canada. In fact, the NHS is normally considered a middle of the pack contender, behind 1/3rd to 1/2 of Europe.

One need not be a US booster to question a report that unfairly disses far better systems. I MUCH rather be treated in France or Canada than the UK.
Click to expand...

Yeah, why won't those US-haters acknowledge that France and Canada have better systems?!
 
Sabine Grant said:
doubtingt said:
bilby said:
Aneurin Bevan (UK Minister for Health between 1945 and 1951) summed the whole debate up nicely when he said:
Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community.
Click to expand...
It really is that simple.
Click to expand...



It's that simple for many illnesses and injuries. However, clearly many illnesses and injuries are the result of "indulgences", meaning willful choices to act or fail to act in a manner known to cause such negative outcomes but done anyway out of short-term hedonistic motives. This includes eating poorly despite having the means to do otherwise, smoking, and "accidents" caused by reckless risk taking. Although, the people who can afford their own good health insurance are those most like to be able to afford the activities that contribute to such self-inflicted illness and injury.
Click to expand...
I am a health care worker and somehow I have managed to never make any distinctions between medically needy persons based on whether they caused their condition. They are medically needy, that's it. The need is there and has to be met. Medical needs will be better met in a nation with a single payer system where financially based discrimination has been eliminated. The more medically needy, the more access.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you are paid to treat people, regardless of whether their problem is misfortune or self-inflicted via indulgence. So, I would hope you would do your paid job and treat them all. If you also want to be the one who pays for that treatment, no matter how needlessly reckless a person was in causing their own problems, then you are quite free to be so generous. I am just pointing out that your pithy quote is objectively wrong in claiming that healthcare treats only "misfortunes" which implies random bad luck, and that no health problems are the result of chosen and highly avoidable indulgences. By any sane definition, paying for these self-inflicted indulgent consequences is an act of generosity. It is quite rational, ethical, and even generous for other people to question the rightness of such generosity, particularly since generosity is very much a zero-sum game and uses highly finite resources such that one act of generosity precludes the possibility of other acts. People who question whether our communal generosity should be used in other ways are not less generous or ethical than you.
 
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