"Rigid Class System in Europe" Bob Roll Comments



In article
<[email protected]
>,

Howard Kveck <[email protected]> wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>,
> Michael Press <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > The funny deal is Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome; the
> > symptom is paroxysmal atrial tachycardia. Dehydration,
> > stress, overheating, caffeine, and other stimulants
> > increase the likelihood of paroxysms. Allergy medication
> > is a bad thing.

>
> So racing your bike on a hot day without someone to hand up bottles could be
> problematic. Anyway, it's nice to have gotten it figured out and received info on
> how to deal with it properly.


Another doppio espresso, please.

I regularly read another news report of an elite athlete
who is diagnosed as having WPW, or that allows me to make
a provisional diagnosis. The proximal cause is an extra
fiber in the heart beat regulatory network, and these days
is cured by ablating the fiber with radio frequency energy
delivered by way of a catheter to the heart.

--
Michael Press
 
Jack Hollis wrote:
> What's described in this article is the description of a health care
> system that is totally unacceptable in anyones terms. I could never
> tolerate this type of treatment.


> http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1178402006
>
> Here's the hospital admissions waiting time in England (just in case
> you thought it was only in Scotland) provided by the NHS itself.
> Again, this is criminal and I don't understand why the British people
> accept this.
>
> http://www.performance.doh.gov.uk/waitingtimes/2004/q4/kh07_y00.html


The lesson of what you've been posting is that longer average waiting
times (and spending half of what is spent per capita in the US) doesn't
seem to have much effect on population-level health.
 
Jack Hollis wrote:

> Life expectancy is not the measure of health care. It has some
> effect, but there are so many other components that it's hard to tease
> it out. There's a genetic component and diet and nutrition play a
> role. Basically, people with a healthy lifestyle and good genes live
> long lives and don't depend much on health care.


Then look at this study, which reports on comparative health status
adjusted for age, behavioral risk factors, and education and income class:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/295/17/2037
 
Robert Chung wrote:
> Jack Hollis wrote:
>
>> Life expectancy is not the measure of health care. It has some
>> effect, but there are so many other components that it's hard to tease
>> it out. There's a genetic component and diet and nutrition play a
>> role. Basically, people with a healthy lifestyle and good genes live
>> long lives and don't depend much on health care.

>
> Then look at this study, which reports on comparative health status
> adjusted for age, behavioral risk factors, and education and income
> class: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/295/17/2037


Also, http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/26/4/1116
 
Pudd'nhead Wilson wrote:
> But I can give
> you some pointers: (1) Destroy the cartel power of the AMA (eliminate
> monopoly licensing for doctors); (2) Allow free access to any drugs to
> anyone who wants them without perscriptions;


Perhaps, but as I've pointed out before, these suggestions would help if
our problems were related to shortages in physicians or in
pharmaceuticals. I don't think that's the case.
 
Jack Hollis wrote:
> Life expectancy is not the measure of health care. It has some
> effect, but there are so many other components that it's hard to tease
> it out. There's a genetic component and diet and nutrition play a
> role.


Good point! On the diet and nutrition, anyway. The fattening of the US
probably doesn't help. I think you'd have a tough time making a case
that the English are genetically longer lived, though...

> Basically, people with a healthy lifestyle and good genes live
> long lives and don't depend much on health care.


I don't know many people over 70 who have not had some major medical
problem though... and it seems to be getting worse.

The catastrophic insurance I was buying for 15 years took a big jump in
price when I turned 45 (I would assume that they know what they are
doing)... so now I'm another uninsured person in the US.
 
Pudd'nhead Wilson wrote:
> But I can give
> you some pointers: (1) Destroy the cartel power of the AMA (eliminate
> monopoly licensing for doctors); (2) Allow free access to any drugs to
> anyone who wants them without perscriptions; (3) Eliminate any
> government involvement (end all regulation).
>
> Ultimately I think I would say the "whole system" you talk about is
> exactly what needs to be "ruined."


#1 would help a lot, simply because their crazy requirements make it
such an exclusive and high-paid club. It is so divorced from producing
quality doctors... mostly they just make it difficult and expensive.
This goes on in other industries as well (ie lets keep increasing the
standards and requirements for new people, to raise our worth), but it
pretty much sucks universally. It seems to be the worst in the medical
professions, and it certainly raises the cost.

Reduce the number of hoops and expense someone has to go through to be
a doctor, and attract intelligent people who actually care about their
patients! When I was in Australia (80's) I was told that a doctor there
only needed 2 years after college, and then a decently paid
apprenticeship for a few years... and they made a lot less money than
US doctors.
 
Jack Hollis a écrit :
> On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:29:42 GMT, "steve" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>> No, it's not really the private sector. It's a perverse combination of
>> incentives. A free market in health care would solve many of these
>> problems. If only.
>>
>> steve
>>

>
> The insurance industry is highly regulated in the US and it's all done
> on a state level. So it doesn't really answer to the free market.
> People don't call up doctors and ask how much they charge for a
> particular procedure, like they would if they were buying a car.
>

As appropriate to health care as to luxury items : "If you have to ask
the price, you can't afford it."
 
Robert Chung a écrit :
> Pudd'nhead Wilson wrote:
>
>> But I can give
>> you some pointers: (1) Destroy the cartel power of the AMA (eliminate
>> monopoly licensing for doctors); (2) Allow free access to any drugs to
>> anyone who wants them without perscriptions;
>>

>
> Perhaps, but as I've pointed out before, these suggestions would help if
> our problems were related to shortages in physicians or in
> pharmaceuticals. I don't think that's the case.
>
>
>

We finally find disagreement. By the imposition of high tariffs for
health care, physicians and institutions make the services and products
relatively "scarce" in terms of pricing them beyond commonly affordable
provisions. Scarcity of quantity is not the index ; lack of access is.
As you know, France estimates the numerical scarcity at around 15% for
specialists across the board, yet the health care system does not fail
to provide from what is polemically described as a shortage. That also
includes a much lower work rate than in the US.
 
Simon Brooke wrote:

> It sort of is rationing


Maybe "sort of" but that's "sort of" an odd way to describe rationing. We
typically ration something when there is sufficient capacity to meet
current demand but insufficient capacity to meet long-term demand -- we
artificially limit demand below a certain threshold so we can make the
supply last longer. Also, in typical rationing systems you're pre-assigned
a certain allotment of the good and you can't readily change it (without
bribes, or exchange rights, or a drastic change in situation). In this
case, I'm not sure there's surplus capacity -- if you got your operation
early, someone else would be pushed down the list -- and the "allotment"
isn't fixed -- if you took a turn for the worse, you're not stuck in your
existing slot because they'd push you up the list. Sounds like an
efficient allocation of resources to me, not rationing.
 
Sandy wrote:
> Robert Chung a écrit :
>> Pudd'nhead Wilson wrote:
>>
>>> But I can give
>>> you some pointers: (1) Destroy the cartel power of the AMA (eliminate
>>> monopoly licensing for doctors); (2) Allow free access to any drugs to
>>> anyone who wants them without perscriptions;
>>>

>>
>> Perhaps, but as I've pointed out before, these suggestions would help
>> if our problems were related to shortages in physicians or in
>> pharmaceuticals. I don't think that's the case.
>>
>>

> We finally find disagreement. [...] Scarcity of quantity is not the
> index ; lack of access is.


Well, sorry to disagree, but we don't disagree. Lack of (differential)
access was one of the two things I was thinking of, which is why the crude
quantity of physicians isn't a particularly limiting factor in
population-level health. Another thing I was thinking of was the quality
of care, which also doesn't seem to be closely related to the number of
physicians (at least, in most developed countries -- it certainly matters
in less developed countries where there are fewer than, say, 150
physicians per 100,000 people but this discussion was focused on
healthcare in the US and its peers). And as for pharmaceuticals, the
French are considered to be among the most over-prescribed people on the
planet; "over-prescribed" in the sense that French (and especially
Italian) physicians tend to prescribe "second line" therapies that have no
(or limited) finding of clinical effectiveness.
 
On 23-Aug-2006, smacked up and reeling, "Pudd'nhead Wilson" <[email protected]>
blindly formulated
the following incoherence:

> Well it isn't particularly my problem to find health care for the
> masses I don't know (or pay for it, for that matter). But I can give
> you some pointers: (1) Destroy the cartel power of the AMA (eliminate
> monopoly licensing for doctors); (2) Allow free access to any drugs to
> anyone who wants them without perscriptions; (3) Eliminate any
> government involvement (end all regulation).


Excellent... but you left out:

(4) Return to a rational tort system.

steve
--
"The accused will now make a bogus statement."
James Joyce
 
Robert Chung a écrit :
> Sandy wrote:
>
>> Robert Chung a écrit :
>>
>>> Pudd'nhead Wilson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> But I can give
>>>> you some pointers: (1) Destroy the cartel power of the AMA (eliminate
>>>> monopoly licensing for doctors); (2) Allow free access to any drugs to
>>>> anyone who wants them without perscriptions;
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Perhaps, but as I've pointed out before, these suggestions would help
>>> if our problems were related to shortages in physicians or in
>>> pharmaceuticals. I don't think that's the case.
>>>
>>>
>>>

>> We finally find disagreement. [...] Scarcity of quantity is not the
>> index ; lack of access is.
>>

>
> Well, sorry to disagree, but we don't disagree. Lack of (differential)
> access was one of the two things I was thinking of, which is why the crude
> quantity of physicians isn't a particularly limiting factor in
> population-level health. Another thing I was thinking of was the quality
> of care, which also doesn't seem to be closely related to the number of
> physicians (at least, in most developed countries -- it certainly matters
> in less developed countries where there are fewer than, say, 150
> physicians per 100,000 people but this discussion was focused on
> healthcare in the US and its peers). And as for pharmaceuticals, the
> French are considered to be among the most over-prescribed people on the
> planet; "over-prescribed" in the sense that French (and especially
> Italian) physicians tend to prescribe "second line" therapies that have no
> (or limited) finding of clinical effectiveness.
>
>
>

"Differential access " - nasty - you kept that in your back pocket. Sly.
 
steve wrote:
> On 23-Aug-2006, smacked up and reeling, "Pudd'nhead Wilson" <[email protected]>
> blindly formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
> > Well it isn't particularly my problem to find health care for the
> > masses I don't know (or pay for it, for that matter). But I can give
> > you some pointers: (1) Destroy the cartel power of the AMA (eliminate
> > monopoly licensing for doctors); (2) Allow free access to any drugs to
> > anyone who wants them without perscriptions; (3) Eliminate any
> > government involvement (end all regulation).

>
> Excellent... but you left out:
>
> (4) Return to a rational tort system.


Okay, that is good, but my argument is that #3 is all that is really
necessary. Do #3 and #1,2,4 take care of themselves, because we'll
remove the government from justice (tort) too. Unfortunately for Brian
and Jack, we'll undo the lawyering, judge, and court monopoly cartels
too. No more lawyer club oaths to protect a consititution of no
authority. (http://www.lysanderspooner.org/notreason.htm)

I would also like to rephrase #3: (3) Eliminate any government.

Schwartz will like it because it is more concise.