World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[Jmustang1968]

Thats the problem. You said the healthcare quality wasn't good, which is untrue. Commonwealth fund said it ranked best in some areas.

We admit the cost is high, but had some reasons why it was so, and I said it has inefficiences.

The Bloomberg one seems to weigh life expectancy and cost as the major factors. Well, we already established cost was high. Life expectancy is also a big product of lifestyle such as diet and physical activity which has been a problem for the US.

[Ack]

Dude, you refer to us as barbaric and have more than once declared you are terrified we will all murder each other with our guns and are scared of our outlooks. You go out of your way to criticize us, like in your game review of This War of Mine, where you made sure to include a dig against the US. You single us out, more so than any other country, and more so than any other member of this forum. If I bring up a good point about my country, you throw "exceptionalism" at me and blast my worldview, even when I have evidence otherwise. This isn't healthcare, it's everything.

[Erik_Twice]

Dude, you refer to us as barbaric

No, I have referred to the American healthcare system as barbaric because it leaves millions of people, specially the poor and disefranchised without appropiate care because they cannot afford treatment.

Looking back, I see that you refer to America as "us", so it may have seen to you that I equate a country with the people that live in it. If it has seemed so to you, I'm sorry, it was not my intention.

and have more than once declared you are terrified we will all murder each other with our guns and are scared of our outlooks.

I have never said that. I may have said that people walking around with guns is something scary and that makes me feel uneasy but nothing resembling that Americans will all murder each other.

You go out of your way to criticize us, like in your game review of This War of Mine, where you made sure to include a dig against the US.

What? I just said that the developers listed a " paranoid, “survivalist” article encouraging Americans to stock up on guns and ammo to prepare for the inevitable societal collapse as an influence".

Which makes sense, because the article is titled "Bosnia war survivor warns of things to come in collapse of America" and does indeed encourage Americans to stock up on guns and ammo.

You single us out, more so than any other country, and more so than any other member of this forum. If I bring up a good point about my country, you throw "exceptionalism" at me and blast my worldview, even when I have evidence otherwise. This isn't healthcare, it's everything.

It's hard not to talk about the United States more than any other country because it's the major geopolitical power in the planet as well as leader in a huge array of industries including entertainment and including video games. It has a bigger influence on my life than any other foreign country has and I'm entitled to singling it out for that reason.

I have also posted a lot about other countries, specially my own and also about the EU but this is an American forum and nobody ever commented on those so I stopped.

Thats the problem. You said the healthcare quality wasn't good, which is untrue. Commonwealth fund said it ranked best in some areas.

I just don't think it's good. People are not dying on the streets, but for a rich country like the US it's not at all good.

Consider this, right now most people think that Spanish healthcare is in shambles because of budget cuts which is reflected in Bloomberg's data as a drop from 5th place to 14th. The US is 44th, so I cannot consider it to be good because I don't even consider the 14th place to be.

[Jmustang1968]

The ranking is meaningless without context. Just like many of top x games threads we get on here. The Bloomberg ranking is efficiency, not quality of care. It ranks life expectancy vs cost of healthcare basically.

[marurun]

It should also be noted that because of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986, healthcare facilities receiving any form of funding under the Medicare program(virtually all US hospitals) cannot refuse or turn away any patient needing emergency treatment regardless of their ability to pay.

The problem is that emergency care is the most expensive kind of care, and those costs are typically borne by increased costs for other services. The fact that folks cannot be turned away for emergency services, but often cannot afford preventive care and medication, means that preventable or manageable conditions are allowed to deteriorate to the level of an emergency care situation, at which point people go to the emergency room, increasing delays for emergency care, increasing costs for everyone, and in some cases bankrupting public or charitable hospitals. The simplest solution is to subsidize more kinds of basic health care. If basic care were more readily available and affordable, that could dramatically reduce costs in other areas as well.

The ranking is meaningless without context. Just like many of top x games threads we get on here. The Bloomberg ranking is efficiency, not quality of care. It ranks life expectancy vs cost of healthcare basically.

Efficiency is an important quality for health care. If the American system is not efficient, that means there's quite a bit more work to do to discover why and how to change it.

[Jmustang1968]

Sure being efficient is important. But isnt necessarily an indication of the quality of care, but I am just repeating myself.

[BoringSupreez]

Trust me, as someone who currently receives free government healthcare as a military member, you don't want the government to start providing healthcare for private citizens.

Do you want to receive a prescription for painkillers and a pat on the back for every ailment? Do you want to go through ridiculous amounts of justification before you can receive specialty (ie, expensive or uncommon) treatments? Do you want to wait a month to get an appointment to tell the doctor you need a tooth pulled, then another month for an appointment to actually get it pulled? Do you really want the same government that runs our sub-par public schools, decrepit VA hospitals, and money-bleeding DoD acquisitions process to start meddling with everyone else's healthcare?

I know people who have gone ahead and payed out of pocket for private healthcare despite having access to free military healthcare, just because it sucks so much.

The ranking is meaningless without context. Just like many of top x games threads we get on here. The Bloomberg ranking is efficiency, not quality of care. It ranks life expectancy vs cost of healthcare basically.

And as Americans, any ranking that utilizes cost vs life expectancy is going to present a skewed result, due to our large number of immigrants (who spent large portions of their lives in who-knows-what country with bad healthcare) and fat people. Even with good healthcare those people will bring down the average life expectancy of the general population.

[Blu]

Trust me, as someone who currently receives free government healthcare as a military member, you don't want the government to start providing healthcare for private citizens.

Do you want to receive a prescription for painkillers and a pat on the back for every ailment? Do you want to go through ridiculous amounts of justification before you can receive specialty (ie, expensive or uncommon) treatments? Do you want to wait a month to get an appointment to tell the doctor you need a tooth pulled, then another month for an appointment to actually get it pulled? Do you really want the same government that runs our sub-par public schools, decrepit VA hospitals, and money-bleeding DoD acquisitions process to start meddling with everyone else's healthcare?

I know people who have gone ahead and payed out of pocket for private healthcare despite having access to free military healthcare, just because it sucks so much.

Can't say I agree with you. I had TriCare Prime for the first 25 years of my life and never had an issue until I left for college, where I had to find a Primary Care Manager and/or get a new ID for living in the middle of nowhere. Then it was just a little different regarding the insurance billing not being in a military hospital. I'd say the facilities on base were usually always better than what I got out in town.

If you're going to paint with broad strokes, at least consider the nuance that there's still tiers of coverage within the military's own health insurance programs. Standard/Extra/Prime, etc, there's all tons of varying coverage and associated cost.

For me, I had an almost emergent appendectomy, kidney stones, some severe shin splints/stress fractures. I never worried about getting responsive service and treatment. I also had Naval clinics looking after me, so it's not accounting for difference of quality inter-service, either.

Now, I can't even make a visit to my doctor for an annual physical without having to pay something, and I work at an institution with a world-class hospital system. I pay out of my paycheck for this coverage, but I feel like I get less quality service now than I used to.

An aside, I've watched dentists money grab to try and bring me in for appointments, sending me a blatant letter about how I haven't used my annual insurance premium for the year and that I should come back in to take advantage. I don't know what I could possibly need when I'm cavity free, floss regularly, and don't have any other issues related to my dental health. That's just another side of the coin regarding private health or dental insurance. I feel like that almost crosses into fraudulent territory, which I think is another issue entirely.

[BoringSupreez]

Trust me, as someone who currently receives free government healthcare as a military member, you don't want the government to start providing healthcare for private citizens.

Do you want to receive a prescription for painkillers and a pat on the back for every ailment? Do you want to go through ridiculous amounts of justification before you can receive specialty (ie, expensive or uncommon) treatments? Do you want to wait a month to get an appointment to tell the doctor you need a tooth pulled, then another month for an appointment to actually get it pulled? Do you really want the same government that runs our sub-par public schools, decrepit VA hospitals, and money-bleeding DoD acquisitions process to start meddling with everyone else's healthcare?

I know people who have gone ahead and payed out of pocket for private healthcare despite having access to free military healthcare, just because it sucks so much.

Can't say I agree with you. I had TriCare Prime for the first 25 years of my life and never had an issue until I left for college, where I had to find a Primary Care Manager and/or get a new ID for living in the middle of nowhere. Then it was just a little different regarding the insurance billing not being in a military hospital. I'd say the facilities on base were usually always better than what I got out in town.

If you're going to paint with broad strokes, at least consider the nuance that there's still tiers of coverage within the military's own health insurance programs. Standard/Extra/Prime, etc, there's all tons of varying coverage and associated cost.

For me, I had an almost emergent appendectomy, kidney stones, some severe shin splints/stress fractures. I never worried about getting responsive service and treatment. I also had Naval clinics looking after me, so it's not accounting for difference of quality inter-service, either.

Now, I can't even make a visit to my doctor for an annual physical without having to pay something, and I work at an institution with a world-class hospital system. I pay out of my paycheck for this coverage, but I feel like I get less quality service now than I used to.

An aside, I've watched dentists money grab to try and bring me in for appointments, sending me a blatant letter about how I haven't used my annual insurance premium for the year and that I should come back in to take advantage. I don't know what I could possibly need when I'm cavity free, floss regularly, and don't have any other issues related to my dental health. That's just another side of the coin regarding private health or dental insurance. I feel like that almost crosses into fraudulent territory, which I think is another issue entirely.

People who are members of the military only have access to Tricare Prime (meaning uniformed doctors), and the Navy is the only branch with decent doctors for whatever reason. The Army, Air Force, and VA don't get the same quality of doctors you did.

But speaking of teeth, I'm here in Japan where the government runs the healthcare, and even mediocre Air Force dental service kicks Japan's nationalized dental care's butt. A friend of mine recently married a local national, and spent literally 3 months clearing her dental work with our dentists before they would allow her to fall under Tricare. Apparently, Japan's NHS's idea of treating cavities is to basically just drill the bare minimum on any cavity, then layer filling over it. So what they do is trap the cavity under a filling, where it can continue to worsen. Trust me, when people here talk about dating local girls their poor teeth is a frequent subject of conversation.

[marurun]

Sure being efficient is important. But isnt necessarily an indication of the quality of care, but I am just repeating myself.

Well, I also want to address that quality of care issue... We clearly have some of the highest quality medical institutions in the world, but not all of our hospitals and facilities are good. Some areas of the US are dead zones for quality care. In addition, many folks find their insurance doesn't cover those highest-quality institutions, assuming they even live within reasonable proximity to one. I can only state that regardless of how good care in American can be, the overall quality of care in the US in inconsistent and the best care is often out of reach. I fail to see rich foreigners flying in for care in US facilities as a compliment if many of our own citizens cannot get that same level of care.