Sarah Palin: bat****, or howling-at-the-moon bat****?

[Arrian]

Well it has been killing the most onerous aspects of the bill that the CBO says fail to do anything to bend the cost curve in the right direction?

You know, I started to respond to this and it occurred to me that it sounded like me talking to a toddler. Nevermind.

Stray trusting the Daily Mail... heh. The NHS is, no doubt, imperfect. Yet my UK relatives appear to do just fine. I wonder how that can possibly be? Nevermind though, since WE ARE NOT EVEN THINKING ABOUT SETTING UP AN NHS-LIKE SYSTEM HERE.

HR 3200 would place an across the board ban on all hospital expansions, and require hospitals to appeal to the National Health Czar/Death Panel/Tooth Fairy to get permission to expand capacity

Now that does sound like a bad idea. Link?

-Arrian

edit: to be clear about the NHS, I don't want a US version of the NHS. It costs ~40% of what our system costs, but that cost-savings does result in cutting corners where I'd rather they not be cut.

[Guynemer]

Guy, you had your own BAM here:

We know that works: equal (or greater) quality care, for everyone

As stated before, by most measures, including life expectancy, quality-of-life, treatment outcomes for various conditions, etc., as measured by most agencies (including the WHO), the US trails most other industrialized nations.

[KrazyHorse]

Life expectancy (and quality of life, if it's merely an aggregate population measure) is a hopelessly bad measurement of the quality of health care.

In terms of outcomes for specific conditions, can you please cite your sources properly (give a link or a reference to a paper)?

[KrazyHorse]

I've enumerated two conditions for which the US demonstrates significantly better treatment outcomes (breast and prostate cancer) and given the reference to the original source. Which other conditions are you thinking about?

[DinoDoc]

You know, I started to respond to this and it occurred to me that it sounded like me talking to a toddler.

Regardless of your opinion (how would this be any different from your other posts responding to someone with a different opinion than you on this issue), it is killing the public option. That is its greatest accomplishment IMO.

[KrazyHorse]

Whoopdedoo, the statistic I heard and quoted is skewed, yet the central point, that prostate mortality rate is significantly lower in the US, is true.

The statistic you heard is meaningless, but happens to be meaningless in the correct direction.

The two are correlated, at least. Higher screening rates to lower mortality would seem to be a reasonable hypothesis.

[Arrian]

it is killing the public option

Ah, I thought you actually meant the "death panels." [edit: the reference to the CBO should've tipped me off] Which would not have been worth a response. My apologies.

how would this be any different from your other posts responding to someone with a different opinion than you on this issue

Please. You're one of the most partisan (or perhaps ideological is the better word) posters on this site. Cry me a river.

-Arrian

[Drake Tungsten]

Well, the death panels also got removed due to public outcry.

[Guynemer]

I've enumerated two conditions for which the US demonstrates significantly better treatment outcomes (breast and prostate cancer) and given the reference to the original source. Which other conditions are you thinking about?

While this: http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/411...re_quality.pdf is a review article of several different studies, it does enumerate several areas where the US lags: asthma, ESRD (end-stage renal disease), childhood vaccination, patient safety in particular. Other areas, including acute and chronic heart disease care, were a mixed bag. And, yes, in some areas, we do well, notably cancer care.

[Guynemer]

On a tangent:

As I said before, the GOP is right to oppose this bill, but for all the wrong reasons. And their rhetoric is just getting wronger by the minute:

http://columbian.com/article/20090825/NEWS02/708259961/-1/NEWS

GOP fundraising 'survey' outrages some recipients
Monday, August 24 | 11:12 p.m.

BY KATHIE DURBIN
COLUMBIAN STAFF WRITER

Raymond and Louise Denny of La Center were surprised last week to receive a mailing from Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, entitled "2009 Future of American Health Survey."

After reading it, their surprise turned to outrage.

They were especially irked by the following:

"It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person's political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?"

Raymond Denny, a retired insurance underwriter, characterized the question as akin to "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

"It's so blatantly lopsided," he said. "I called them up and said, 'This is ridiculous!' They just said, 'All right.'"

The RNC did not return a call requesting comment.

Raymond Denny's larger concern is that in the volatile political environment surrounding health care reform, those and other survey "questions" in the mailer could quickly gain legitimacy and be accepted as fact, inciting fury at town hall meetings across the country.

Not all the questions are incendiary. One asks whether it is justified to ration health care, another whether health care decisions should be made by a patient and his or her doctor, not "government bureaucrats in Washington, D.C."

But the survey also asserts that "Rationing of health care in countries with socialized medicine has led to patients dying because they were forced to wait too long for treatment," and asks, "Are you concerned that this would be inevitable in the U.S. under the Democrats' plan?"

The Dennys, transplants to Clark County from Connecticut, aren't sure why they are on GOP mailing lists. They've tried to get their names removed. He describes himself as a liberal Democrat. "Both of us have been social liberals and fiscal and constitutional conservative," he said.

"I wrote insurance policies," Raymond Denny said. "I know how words can be used to make people do what you want them to do. The law allows a lot of latitude with politicians. That I understand. Some of these techniques are used by both parties. But this to me seems way over the edge of normal politics."

Not so, say two professional pollsters.

It's standard practice to use such faux "surveys" to raise money for a variety of causes, said Portland pollster Mike Riley. "It's common, trying to stir the pot to see what kinds of issues get attention."

"Both parties do that," Riley said. "They are using some of the hot-button issues to see what activates the voters. It's politics as usual within the party faithful. No one that I know puts any credibility in these types of polls."

Riley recalled a recent fundraising "survey" sponsored by Democrats that attempted to link issues of child safety and gun ownership. One question asked whether it is important to keep children safe and to keep them away from guns. The implication, he said, was "that guns shouldn't be in homes where children are present."

A tip-off that a survey really is a fundraising tract, Riley said, is when questions cover more than one issue. "It's called a double-barreled question" and would not be used by a professional pollster, he said.

Portland pollster Bob Moore agreed.

"It's a fundraising appeal, is what it is," he said. "Everyone does it — Democrats, anti-tax groups, environmentalists. The audience that receives it has given to that organization at some point in time and is on the list to receive solicitations."

If such tactics "weren't effective, they wouldn't be using them," Moore said.

Denny said his own views on health care reform are straightforward: "I favor any option that extends availability to people."

"My feeling is, we have had erosion in the number of people who are covered," he said. "The amount of health care has diminished. We just can't have that in society. It hurts on a lot of levels."

[Guynemer]

And, finally, as to the original thread topic:

Former Governor Loopy McBat**** is at it again.

Not only has Sarah Palin canceled a speech for the Alaska Family Council, which has been billing her for weeks, but she is claiming that she was never invited in the first place. “This is the first we have ever heard of a speech,” said Palin’s spokeswoman, who added that the former governor is out of state but would not provide details on what she is doing. It is, according to the Anchorage Daily News, “the fourth time in recent months that an anticipated Palin speech has fallen through after Palin and her camp disputed they had ever confirmed it.” The event was expected to be her first public appearance since she resigned as governor in July.

http://www.adn.com/palin/story/912369.html

[Krill]

Life expectancy (and quality of life, if it's merely an aggregate population measure) is a hopelessly bad measurement of the quality of health care.

In terms of outcomes for specific conditions, can you please cite your sources properly (give a link or a reference to a paper)?

BS...quality of life and the cost of providing the necessary health care are the only important measurements of a health care system.

[Krill]

I've enumerated two conditions for which the US demonstrates significantly better treatment outcomes (breast and prostate cancer) and given the reference to the original source. Which other conditions are you thinking about?

IIRC cancer is one of the few areas that the US system is better than the UK at keeping people alive. But as it has no statistics on quality of life...

[KrazyHorse]

While this: http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/411...re_quality.pdf is a review article of several different studies, it does enumerate several areas where the US lags: asthma, ESRD (end-stage renal disease), childhood vaccination, patient safety in particular. Other areas, including acute and chronic heart disease care, were a mixed bag. And, yes, in some areas, we do well, notably cancer care.

Thank you for the link.

I will look it over when I get a chance. I'm eager to have an evidence-based discussion on health economics, because the general political conversation on this is so ridiculously faith-based that it's just so much noise.

[KrazyHorse]

IIRC cancer is one of the few areas that the US system is better than the UK at keeping people alive. But as it has no statistics on quality of life...

As you can see, it's hard enough getting survival rates into a form which is suitable for cross-country comparisons. We'll tackle quality of life once we've got a handle on years of life...