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by maerF0x0 1476 days ago
https://fee.org/articles/america-outperforms-canada-in-surge...

Saying America spends more is pretty weak claim because Americans are fatter, more often shot, face worse natural disasters (hurricanes, earth quakes)... Of course they spend more. There are hundreds of variables why healthcare per capital would be cheaper in Canada from CoL to quality of doctors (the ones that remain are ones who cannot compete in the highly paid US Market), to greater public safety net or social goods in all areas resulting in fewer high cost outcomes (eg, Canadians take more PTO)...

Overall i think the main difference between what you're interested in and what I'm interested in -- that which we're calling "superior" differ.

To me a system is superior if it gives better outcomes to those who pay for the service. VS you seem to be claiming that a better outcome is something like the average across all citizens.

To me this is like saying "We all need food, therefore when we go to the grocery store you will be charged the average bill and given what you absolutely need to not die, but not necessarily what you need to thrive. This is how we keep others from starving..."

For me I want to go to the grocery store and receive the best I can get for my money. It's a just system to receive what you pay for and to not receive what you do not pay for. I do also believe in a separate, external to the government, system of charity to cover cases which are truly unfortunate, but also to keep people accountable for their contributions to their own health when able or

Anyways, it seems you're squarely set your values based opinion, and I am on mine. So there's no longer a reason to discuss further.

2 comments

> Saying America spends more is pretty weak claim because Americans are fatter, more often shot, face worse natural disasters (hurricanes, earth quakes)... Of course they spend more.

“Fatter“ and “more often shot” are at least in part due to choices about the focus and distribution of physical and mental health care, not independent factors (in fact, the political faction most defensive of the ways in which the US system differs from the less-expensive, comparable overall outcomes systems in the rest of the developed world also is prone to claiming that the elevated risk of being shot is primarily a product of defects in the health care delivery system, though they tend to lose focus on doing something about those deficiencies quickly after pointing to them.) If you've got evidence that the health impacts of natural disasters are greater—in a way explained by the nature of the disasters alone and not choices in the structure of the health care system—in the US than any, much less all, of the other advanced economies in the OECD, please point it out, because that would be interesting.

I actually do agree that part of the gun violence equation is mental health care. That doesn't mean socialized mental health care is the best solution to healthcare needs. Simply that having a society which does not value mental healthcare at all is suboptimal.
Actually my opinions are data driven.
You cannot apply data without values. If I told you X people die every year from Y, it would be your values that suggest if we should do anything about it.

X could be lots or little, Y could be Covid or the death penalty. Data tells you nothing about the justice of a situation.

I don't know man, all the data I see shows the system costs half as much per capita and has similar or better outcomes - and that wait times exist in both countries. So given outcomes are the same or better, the justice level must therefore be roughly the same for half the cost.

You pull out tired narratives like 'care quotas' as though they only exist in one system but not the other. You pull out tired narratives like 'wait times' as though they exist in one system but not the other. I linked you an interview that explains what the industry has been doing to further this narrative, and you didn't read it because again, it doesn't align with your preconceived notions.

What you're telling me is that you don't want to engage on data because the reality on the ground doesn't align with your values and you've been fed a crock.