I know I heard some refutation on TV several months back, but can not remember where. I can understand skewed data when someone else explains it, but I too am not really equipped to pull this stuff apart.
Well..., knowing that this has been around (i.e., the report) for about ten years and knowing that if there was something wrong with it, so that it had to be corrected -- that there would be "people all over it" and correcting it in no time flat... I just knew that there had to be reports written out there somewhere to that effect.
And someone here will be able to produce it, I'm sure... :-)
You betcha, someone here will be able to explain it no doubt. I just hope it happens before bedtime, or I won’t be able to sleep. LOL. Nice talkin’ to ya.
When you posted the list, you did so under the guise that it provided information as if it was useful:
The real irony is him coming to a country that ranks 37th in the world health care systems (according to year 2000 rankings, which may have changed today... somewhat).
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:
Overall Level of Health: A good health system, above all, contributes to good health. To assess overall population health and thus to judge how well the objective of good health is being achieved, WHO has chosen to use the measure of disability- adjusted life expectancy (DALE). This has the advantage of being directly comparable to life expectancy and is readily compared across populations. The report provides estimates for all countries of disability- adjusted life expectancy. DALE is estimated to equal or exceed 70 years in 24 countries, and 60 years in over half the Member States of WHO. At the other extreme are 32 countries where disability- adjusted life expectancy is estimated to be less than 40 years. Many of these are countries characterised by major epidemics of HIV/AIDS, among other causes.
Distribution of Health in the Populations: It is not sufficient to protect or improve the average health of the population, if - at the same time - inequality worsens or remains high because the gain accrues disproportionately to those already enjoying better health. The health system also has the responsibility to try to reduce inequalities by prioritizing actions to improve the health of the worse-off, wherever these inequalities are caused by conditions amenable to intervention. The objective of good health is really twofold: the best attainable average level – goodness – and the smallest feasible differences among individuals and groups – fairness. A gain in either one of these, with no change in the other, constitutes an improvement.
Responsiveness: Responsiveness includes two major components. These are (a) respect for persons (including dignity, confidentiality and autonomy of individuals and families to decide about their own health); and (b) client orientation (including prompt attention, access to social support networks during care, quality of basic amenities and choice of provider).
Distribution of Financing: There are good and bad ways to raise the resources for a health system, but they are more or less good primarily as they affect how fairly the financial burden is shared. Fair financing, as the name suggests, is only concerned with distribution. It is not related to the total resource bill, nor to how the funds are used. The objectives of the health system do not include any particular level of total spending, either absolutely or relative to income. This is because, at all levels of spending there are other possible uses for the resources devoted to health. The level of funding to allocate to the health system is a social choice – with no correct answer. Nonetheless, the report suggests that countries spending less than around 60 dollars per person per year on health find that their populations are unable to access health services from an adequately performing health system.
In order to reflect these attributes, health systems have to carry out certain functions. They build human resources through investment and training, they deliver services, they finance all these activities. They act as the overall stewards of the resources and powers entrusted to them. In focusing on these few universal functions of health systems, the report provides evidence to assist policy-makers as they make choices to improve health system performance.
Talk about skewed criteria. Which you should have known with a little due diligence...