Re: Productivity - Norway leads the table.

MooseFET wrote:

On Sep 7, 9:09 am, Joerg <notthisjoerg...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

MooseFET wrote:

[...]




Overall, people actually tend to live longer lives in Europe.

Any links? But you may be right, many people in the US have a problem
with obesity and lack of exercise.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9053-2/index1.html

Quote "They developed specific standards, or quality indicators, ...".
Hmm, pretty vague here. For me, outcome is more important. For example
if someone gets cancer, what the survival rate is.


Things like survival rates also have problems. Do you include
everyone who got cancer or do you only take those who had it
detected. Do you look at the average life after cancer or the
percentage of people still alive one year later.


In the medical world they have pretty good worldwide standards. Professionally I only know them for ultrasound and mostly coronary stuff but AFAIK for cancer it is cases who have been detected and had to be treated (surgery, chemo, radiation, the works), then five-year survival (when you are officially declared cancer free for most cases, whatever that really means).



http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_centre/press_release/en/index.html

I was hoping to find a list of average life expectancies by country but
I am sure it exists somewhere ;-)


It may exist but I didn't find clean numbers.


Someone posted numbers, don't remember the source though. However, they are not very indicative of HMO quality because, for example, the eating habits in many poor countries are actually quite good while more and more people in Western countries flock to fast food places. And we all know where that leads.





So, what's your life expectancy in the USA if you get seriously sick and don't have a private medical insurance policy ?
That's something like 25% of the US population.

The serioulsy sick are always treated, whether they are covered or not.
It's the law and hospitals stick to that law.

Hospitals skirt the law a lot:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5298034

Yes, that story went around the nation. It does happen, once even in our
neck of the woods, but it's not that widespread.


Where is your neck of the woods? It is obviously spread as wide as
the distance between the necks of woods. We only know about the cases
that made the news. Someone brought the tape to the news folk so it
took no great effort to get the story. The "news" programs are profit
centers these days. If a story about Paris Hilton gets more eyeballs
for the advertizers, that is the story we will see on the "news".

At least the Daily Show admits they are fake.


I don't watch that kind of stuff. We live near Sacramento and we also had one case where a hospital dumped a patient, paid for a cab from somewhere near Tahoe to wherever skid row is in Sacramento. However, hospitals are not hotels so they won't tolerate if people "hang out". If you don't have a place to go home to it's your problem, usually.



Also, I gather that your popular HMO policies restrict the treatment available to you.

Mine does not.

Read the fine print. I have never seen one that didn'tplace some sort
of limitations on care. Often it is int heform of extra delays.

Sure, there will always be limits or a system will be abused.


Yes health care always ends up rationed somehow. I wouldn't call much
of the reason "abuse" however. Most people do not consider the cost
when they are in pain or fear for their life. Like the old joke
goes : "How much for fixing my tooth ache" "About half what you would
have paid when you walked in".


I know lots and lots of people who scream for the doctor the millisecond they have a fart that doesn't come out. There is abuse, beaucoups of it. Then I have seen cradle-to-grave covered folks (courtesy of us taxpayers, of course) whose pill cabinet is exploding.


But
looking around the neighborhood (we care a lot for sick or disabled
folks) I must say that care is pretty good. Just yesterday a friend who
was diganosed with cancer was pushed to start (expensive) treatment
right now, by their HMO.


That would be because it is likely a lot better to attack the cancer
now than to wait. The outcome is better for sure. I'd bet that the
cost is actually lower too in most cases.



When friends told us that their HMO paid the full tab for an in-vitro
fertilization I could not believe it at first. This stuff is really
expensive. The proof showed up two weeks ago in the form of two tiny and
seemingly always hungry girls.


In-vitro is a high profit sort of health care. I think part of the
high cost is because nobody dies without it. The providers use part
of the profit to pay for the cases without insurance.


They didn't have to pay those $20k+ but they did. So they can't be super greedy.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
.