Posted on 02/23/2010 9:18:23 AM PST by AtlasStalled
An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a "minimally invasive" surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago, based on the advice of his doctors.
"This was my heart, my choice and my health," Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.
"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Interesting. I just grabbed the first blog that referenced the debunked WHO report— but here is Stossel’s article that this blog was referring to:
http://jewishworldreview.com/0807/stossel082207.php3
I saw Stossel’s healthcare show over a year ago I believe, I doubt if it’s planning on being re-aired but if you’re so inclined look on youtube or google video and I’m sure you’ll find it.
Methinks it doth protest too much. It took me a total of 30 seconds to find the criteria for the study at the link you provided. You could have, too.
I haven't protested on anything. LOL... I've been asking for further information... :-) And as we all know there is always someone around who already has the information...
When confronted, suddenly you play dumb, as if you don't know if the data is valid or if there are issues with it. Sorry, you brought the data to the party, so you have to dance with it. And the data stinks:
It's not my data and I gave the reference for it... and if you've got the good analysis of it, I would like that reference to it, too... so I could gather up that info in a good format -- and post it here, too...
So, please do give me that analysis of it ... that someone has done. In other words, I'm wanting someone who has looked over the data, shown what was wrong with it and then comes up with either corrected data and/or a reconfiguring of the list according to something that was overlooked.
That's what I would like to see...
Talk about skewed criteria. Which you should have known with a little due diligence...
I still haven't seen a new list with the corrected data and that's what I would like to see -- somewhere...
I haven't seen an analysis done of it and I can't imagine that in the ten years that has passed that it doesn't exist somewhere in some report. That's what Free Republic is all about -- in that someone here would know about that report and point us to it...
http://smartgirlnation.com/2009/06/popular-ranking-unfairly-misrepresents-the-us-health-care-system/
Interesting. I just grabbed the first blog that referenced the debunked WHO report— but here is Stossel’s article that this blog was referring to:
I'm going over to it and see what it says... and I'll post what I can here (depending on what is allowed from that site...).
I saw Stossel’s healthcare show over a year ago I believe, I doubt if it’s planning on being re-aired but if you’re so inclined look on youtube or google video and I’m sure you’ll find it.
Oh..., I see... from the language of the post, it sounded like it was being aired right now. I'll see if I can find it.
June 1, 2009 by Dawn
By: Richard G. Fessler, MD, PhD
The media and political community have made a big deal out of the fact that the U.S. ranks 37 out of 191 countries on the World Health Organization’s Health Care Ranking System. Is this tool a credible way to compare quality health care delivered in the U.S. vs the rest of the world?
Let’s be perfectly clear about this, the United States Health Care is second to none! Ask the tens of thousands of patients who travel internationally to the US every year for their health care. As an example of the quality of health care delivered in the US, Americans have a higher survival rate than any other country on earth for 13 of 16 of the most common cancers. Perhaps that is why Belinda Stronach, former liberal member of the Canadian Parliament and Cabinet member (one of the health care systems touted as “superior” to the US) abandoned the Canadian Health Care system to undergo her cancer treatment in California.1
But to understand how WHO derives this misleading statistic, which has been ballyhooed widely by both the media and politicians alike, you need to understand how it is created. WHO’s health care rankings are constructed from five factors each weighted according to a formula derived by WHO. These are:
1. Health Level: 25 percent
2. Health Distribution: 25 percent
3. Responsiveness: 12.5 percent
4. Responsiveness Distribution: 12.5 percent
5. Financial Fairness: 25 percent
“Health level” is a measure of a countries “disability adjusted life expectancy”. This factor makes sense, since it is a direct measure of the health of a country’s residents. However, even “life expectancy” can be affected by many factors not related to health care per se, such as poverty, homicide rate, dietary habits, accident rate, tobacco use, etc. In fact, if you remove the homicide rate and accidental death rate from MVA’s from this statistic, citizens of the US have a longer life expectancy than any other country on earth.2
“Responsiveness” measures a variety of factors such as speed of service, choice of doctors, and amenities (e.g. quality of linens). Some of these make sense to include (speed of service) but some have no direct relationship to health care (quality of linens). These two factors at least make some sense in a ranking of health care, but each is problematic as well.
The other three factors are even worse. “Financial fairness” measures the percentage of household income spent on health care. It can be expected that the “percentage” of income spent on health care decreases with increasing income, just as is true for food purchases and housing. Thus, this factor does not measure the quality or delivery of health care, but the value judgment that everyone should pay the same “percentage” of their income on health care even regardless of their income or use of the system. This factor is biased to make countries that rely on free market incentives look inferior. It rewards countries that spend the same percentage of household income on health care, and punishes those that spend either a higher or lower percentage, regardless of the impact on health. In the extreme then, a country in which all health care is paid for by the government (with money derived from a progressive tax system), but delivers horrible health care, will score perfectly in this ranking, whereas a country where the amount paid for health care is based on use of the system, but delivers excellent health care will rank poorly. To use this factor to justify more government involvement in health care, therefore, is using circular reasoning since this factor is designed to favor government intervention.
“Health Distribution and Responsiveness Distribution” measure inequality in the other factors. In other words, neither factor actually measures the quality of health care delivery, because “inequality of delivery” is independent of “quality of care”. It is possible, for example, to have great inequality in a health care system where the majority of the population gets “excellent” health care, but a minority only gets “good” health care. This system would rank more poorly on these measures than another country that had “equal”, but poor, health care throughout the system.
In summary, therefore, the WHO ranking system has minimal objectivity in its “ranking” of world health. It more accurately can be described as a ranking system inherently biased to reward the uniformity of “government” delivered (i.e. “socialized”) health care, independent of the care actually delivered. In that regard the relatively low ranking of the US in the WHO system can be viewed as a “positive” testament to at least some residual “free market” influence (also read “personal freedom”) in the American Health Care system. The American health care consumer needs to understand what the WHO ranking does and does not say about American health. Don’t be fooled by “big government” politicians and the liberal media who are attempting to use this statistic to push for socialized medicine in the United States. It says essentially nothing about the delivery of health care or the quality of that delivery in the US. It does say that, so far, the American health care consumer has at least some personal freedom to seek the best health care available, and is not yet relegated to the “one size fits all” philosophy of government sponsored health care systems.
1. Susan Delacourt, “Stronach travels to U.S. for cancer treatment.” The Star, September 14, 2007.
2. Sally C. Pipes, “The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care”. Pacific Research Institute, pp 132-133, 2008.
http://www.healthandsharing.com/21/articledetail
Re-printed with the permission of Carbon12, LLC
Copyright 2009 Carbon 12, LLC
By John Stossel
Jewish World Review
August 22, 2007 / 8 Elul 5767
The New York Times recently declared "the disturbing truth ... that ... the United States is a laggard not a leader in providing good medical care."
As usual, the Times editors get it wrong.
They find evidence in a 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) rating of 191 nations and a Commonwealth Fund study of wealthy nations published last May.
In the WHO rankings, the United States finished 37th, behind nations like Morocco, Cyprus and Costa Rica. Finishing first and second were France and Italy. Michael Moore makes much of this in his movie "Sicko."
The Commonwealth Fund looked at Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States — and ranked the U.S. last or next to last on all but one criterion.
So the verdict is in. The vaunted U.S. medical system is one of the worst.
...
See more at the link ...
From your own link.....
The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems was last produced in 2000, and the WHO no longer produces such a ranking table, because of the complexity of the task.
Stop trolling.
The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems was last produced in 2000, and the WHO no longer produces such a ranking table, because of the complexity of the task.
I said that already, that it was old from 2000, in my post, when I put the list in here... LOL... See paragraph three of my Post #15
That's not what I was asking for... :-)
At least he HAS a choice now, in 10 years, not so much...unless of course the elites will be able to buy whatever health care they wish. According to 0-man that ain’t supposed to happen.
So you post BS, then ask for justification for your post....you are an A@@hole.
Joke list compiled by a bunch of jealous America haters to give other jealous America haters some “ammunition”. You can go to Cypress or Colombia. Good luck.
So you post BS, then ask for justification for your post....you are an A@@hole.
I can tell... you have a knack in persuading people that conservative positions are intelligent viewpoints... LOL ...
For our sakes, you might avoid telling anyone that you are a conservative... that would do far more to help us out... :-)
Joke list compiled by a bunch of jealous America haters to give other jealous America haters some “ammunition”. You can go to Cypress or Colombia. Good luck.
I think I already answered that one, up above... I can't afford it... LOL ...
We know what you mean.
I can’t even get to the point of even considering it, if I can’t afford it... LOL...
I mean, I also hear about people getting their prescription drugs overseas and in Canada or making trips down to Mexico, but that’s also something that I can’t do...
Perhaps there are people who can afford that type of thing and maybe they think about it, but I sure don’t... :-)
Oh... and to follow up on that, and just to give you an example of that... I’ll tell you about this painter friend who was trying to convince me to take a trip to Thailand to get dental work done, if I needed it... LOL...
And although I listened politely to him and didn’t make any kind of snide comments to him about it, I was thinking to myself... “a guy has gotta be crazy to fly off to Thailand to get dental work done...” :-)
But, apparently there are people who do that and this guy claimed that he had enough work done to pay for his trip and save money on his dental work...
I’m sorry, but I must be too dumb to save money or something, because I get my dental work done here... :-)
So if you could afford it you'd go to the U.K. for dental work instead of the U.S.? R-i-i-i-ght.
So if you could afford it you'd go to the U.K. for dental work instead of the U.S.? R-i-i-i-ght.
No, if you'll notice I said that I can't afford those things... and I'm in the practice of not figuring out the "viability" of a whole lot of things (like that) -- that I know I won't be doing... :-) ...
It saves me a lot of time -- not bothering with thinking where I would go on my next yacht trip and what route I'll take in sailing around the world... doncha know... when I don't have a yacht... LOL...
I also don't make elaborate plans in how to spend my 30 million that I'm gonna win in the next lottery either... doncha know...
Translated: "No way in hell would I trust my or my family's health to anyone but the U.S. medical system."
Excellent choice.
Pointing out you are trolling a forum with 10 year old data has nothing to do with conservatism. It simply points out you are a troll. Go live in Greece and let us know how it works out.
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