Unconstitutionalcare

The story says that he was coming to the U.S. for a "Not normally routine procedure".

It doesn't elaborate, but maybe the premier has a rare condition in which Newfoundland doctors don't know about, but U.S. doctors do? Some doctors are experts in a disease or a field, and they're not from the U.S, and vice-versa.

 

I get a kick out of the fact that Canada's life expectancy is so much longer than ours.

"U-S-A! U-S-A! We're number 36! We're number 36!"

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/socind/health.htm#tech

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

 

That is misleading. I actually think if you take gun violence out of that equation, we are right on par. I can dig that up later today.

 

I look forward to seeing it.

Are we going to control for how many Europeans still smoke, as well?

 

No. I did the math.

Average life expectancy for Canadians:
Woman 83
Men 79

USA
Woman 81
Men 76

If you assume Canadian and American life expectancies are the same except for gun violence and the average age of the victim is 31 then five percent of Americans would have to die from gun violence and zero Canadians to make the numbers work. A lot of Americans die from guns but not five percent.

 

I found a study that seemed pretty reliable that said gun violence costs us each about 103 days, on average. That bumps us up from 78.3 years to 78.6 years - only about two spots, from 36th to the 33rd-34th range. So not that huge of an impact.

 

Even though Michelle herself has NOT suggested this, some people are equaling her obesity crusade with the government's desire to regulate what we eat (Michelle wants to shut down every fast-food restaurant in the country!)

Seriously, and I'll state this again. Reform is needed, but it needs to include "tort reform" to bring down the outrageous cost of malpractice insurance. When you include meaningful tort reform in a bill, then we'll see what happens. Most trial lawyers -- who have been Democratic supporters in the past, but not all in a lump -- don't want tort reform because they dream of that big payday.

 

Or doctors can, you know, stop committing so much malpractice.

In all seriousness, have you ever seen the landmark Harvard study from a few years ago about malpractice? It's completely screwed up. Most suits have no merit. But most actual malpractice never draws a lawsuit. People basically sue when things go catastrophically wrong, malpractice or not, and leave the lesser wrongs alone.

Atul Gawande of The New Yorker has done some tremendous journalism on these topics. His "Checklist Manifesto" is must-reading. Basically, most malpractice is institutional, not doctor-specific. Simple institutional checklists can reduce the rate of error to an amazing degree, thus saving the system untold amounts of money if it ever caught on on a large scale.

 

On balance, good doctors have been very, very good to me . . . but the profession lost my unwavering, eternal support when I heard one practitioner's ringtone . . . "We're in the money".

Eat me.

 

I think the ring tone is in poor taste, but I don't begrudge doctors the money they make. They went through four years of college, four years of medical school, and four years of residency.

Again, they aren't overcharging anyone. The market sets the rate. They charge it. We pay it. If they didn't charge market or close to it, they'd be out of business in a heartbeat.

 

Doesn't a "market" assume competition? Competition which arises out of having more than one choice? Ie, if I want to buy a car, I have lots of choices: Ford, Audi, GM, etc.

What are my choices if I need an appendectomy?

 

There was a story a while back (I don't recall where I saw it) which said that hospitals and doctors were getting faster at admitting their mistakes to patients and apologizing for them, and consequently, patients weren't suing as much. The story said that the patients basically wanted the hospital to admit they were wrong, and when they got the apology, were satisfied.