Could the United States afoord to NOT have medicare/medicaid?

[MRT144]

Whats interesting about that graph is that the large accelerations in health care costs as a percentage of gdp seem to occur or be failrly coniciidental with economic recoveries. The arguement that the US health care costs are attributable to large disposable income availability make sense in this regard.

Kinda sad.

[MikeH]

The Canadian data does not remove poorer demographics. It's for all Canadians.

But that would mean Ben was... WRONG?! WTactualF

[Ben Kenobi]

The Canadian data does not remove poorer demographics. It's for all Canadians.

Which entirely misses the point.

If I have a batter who hits .320 and one who hits .290, who do I pick?

Now if I know that the .320 batter is .330 vs righties and .210 vs lefties, vs . the .290 batter htting 340 vs righties and .250 vs lefties, then who do I pick?

Sample distributions are important. Canada's distributions are very different from America's. In order to answer this question I have to know the full breakdown.

[Ben Kenobi]

Thank you for providing stats for the same year for Canada. By comparing them we can see a gap of 2.2-2.4 years.

Goddamn. Comparing White Americans to all Canadians doesn't work. You have to compare white americans to white canadians.

[Ben Kenobi]

Hispanics have a higher life expectancy than whites, so they couldn't possibly be dragging down the white life expectancy in the data.

There's actually no source for that. ABC claims CDC says this, but doesn't actually provide the data.

[giblets]

Goddamn. Comparing White Americans to all Canadians doesn't work. You have to compare white americans to white canadians.

What is your premise, exactly? Are you saying that white Canadians, who are ~84% of the population, have a life expectancy that is more than two years below the national average so they actually have worse life expectancies than whites in America? That would mean visible minorities have life expectancies of over 90 years. No country on Earth is anywhere near that. It's very implausible that your claim that white Americans live longer than white Canadians could actually be true.

There's actually no soiurce for that. ABC claims CDC says this, but doesn't actually provide the data.

ABC News is a source. If you don't believe them, here's another:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/he...h/19aging.html

[Ben Kenobi]

What is your premise, exactly? Are you saying that white Canadians, who are ~84% of the population, have a life expectancy that is more than two years below the national average so they actually have worse life expectancies than whites in America?

No, I'm suggesting that the 88 percent figure of whites in America includes hispanic people.

ABC News is a source.

I just want to see numbers that confim your position. That is all. The breakdown for everybody, white, black, hispanic, etc.

If it's true that hispanic americans are doing better than hispanic canadians, then that is confirmation that their system is superior.

Funny that! The purported CDC report has been pulled!

Still no data backing up your position.

[rah]

If it's true that hispanic americans are doing better than hispanic canadians, then that is confirmation that their system is superior.

Not necessarily so.

[Lorizael]

You're incredible, BK. Your assertion is that the American healthcare system is better than the Canadian healthcare system because American whites live longer than Canadian whites, unless they don't in which case the stats are being brought down by hispanics so the American healthcare system is still superior, unless American hispanics live longer than Canadian hispanics in which case the American healthcare system is still superior.

[giblets]

No, I'm suggesting that the 88 percent figure of whites in America includes hispanic people.

Possibly, but since Hispanics live for over 80 years, we can infer that non-hispanic whites would have a lower life expectancy than the reported life expectancy of 78.4. In other words, substantially less than white people in Canada. So the claim you made about whites in America living longer than whites in Canada was false.

I just want to see numbers that confim your position. That is all. The breakdown for everybody, white, black, hispanic, etc.

If it's true that hispanic americans are doing better than hispanic canadians, then that is confirmation that their system is superior.

Does Canada collect that information? If they can't tell us how long hispanics in Canada live then we can't make that comparison. However we do have sufficient information to conclude that your claim that white Americans live longer than white Canadians is false.

[Ben Kenobi]

What would be the alternative conclusion?

[Ben Kenobi]

Does Canada collect that information? If they can't tell us how long hispanics in Canada live then we can't make that comparison. However we do have sufficient information to conclude that your claim that white Americans live longer than white Canadians is false.

It also means we can't say the same about white people. Which would be unfortunate.

[Ben Kenobi]

Your assertion is that the American healthcare system is better than the Canadian healthcare system because American whites live longer than Canadian whites, unless they don't in which case the stats are being brought down by hispanics so the American healthcare system is still superior, unless hispanics live longer than whites in which case the American healthcare system is still superior.

This is why we need the splits for everybody. Right now all of us are wrong!

[rah]

What would be the alternative conclusion?

That using a single factor like life expectancy (especially a single ethnicity) to prove who's healthcare delivery system is best when the are probably 100s of factors involved, is just plain stupid. Of course I should not be surprised.

[giblets]

It also means we can't say the same about white people. Which would be unfortunate.

We know that white people in the US live for ≤78.4 years and that it is overwhelmingly likely that white people in Canada live for substantially more than 78.4 years.