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highwaystar101 on 23 August 2009
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Kasz216 said:
highwaystar101 said:

That woman was a whole load of crazy. I mean Obama is not directly linked to the genocide of 12 million people, I would be extremely insulted if someone compared me to Hitler in any way... especially one as tenuous as this.

-edit-

This thread has reminded me of how the republicans who are anti-healthcare really are drawing on strawman arguements to win this debate at this point. It's actually really kinda sad, I have a lot of respect for the few free thinking republicans who are for it or are willing to debate real reasons for a better reform.

It's weird.  Since all anyone needs to do to refute a method like the UK is to point to the fact that the US has higher surivival rates for both Cancer and Cardio Vascular Disease.  The two biggest killers and two biggest healthcare problems.

Even with as uneven as it is... the American Healthcare system is just better.


Even in "universal" healthcare countries the poor seem to have lower surivial rates for just about everything for some reason.

But the average life expectancy in the UK is 79.01 years where as in the USA it is only 78.53. Even though the disparity is small statistically you are still more likely to live longer in the UK than in the USA (source). And it's not just the UK national system that beats the US's largely private system, other social systems have much longer life expectancies such as.

  • Hong kong - 81.86
  • Australia - 81.63
  • Canada - 81.23
  • France - 80.98
  • Netherlands - 79.4
  • Germany - 79.26
  • Finland - 78.97

I mean if national healthcare is so bad in rich countries then why are the life expectancies so good? I tell you why, because the rich countries can afford to give a reasonably high standard of medical care to anyone in their country in an even way. Admittedly poorer countries suffer from national health because it is hard to maintain, but USA is not a poor country by any means.

I wouldn't even want to think about what the USAs life expectancy would be without Medicaid and Medicare for 60% of it's population to rely on.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) agrees with me too. They rank the USA at 37th best system in the world, where as the aforementioned are ranked.

  • France - #1
  • Netherlands - #17
  • UK - #18
  • Germany - #25
  • Canada - #30
  • Finland - #31
  • Australia - #32

(The top 30 is pretty much social healthcare systems)

All higher than the USA's ranking, and yet again I don't want to think about what would happen if the USA didn't have medicare and medicaid to support the lower 60% of the population if they require it. The ranking would surely slip even further as millions are left with no access to medical care. 

Face it the USA's system needs reform and that's what Obama wants to do and he has tried to find the best solution for all, and looking at the systems of other developed countries who have adopted a largely social hybrid system (What he suggests) and had success over the US, then I would say he's purely following logic to find what the best reform would be.