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I am baffled by how Dread drew the conclusions he did from the article. And given that it's India we're talking about, one should be seriously careful about comparing to pretty much any other country, with the possible but not too plausible exception of China.
If it's tough to scale a program to a billion people, will it really be that much easier to scale something to 300 million? The problem of the private clinics is complex, but simple: the state apparatus is so large it can't police itself, but it also can't establish a simple system of incentives to prevent this kind of corruption. Doctors just leech off the state for referrals before slinking off to their private practice.
Is it an extreme? Yes. But it's also a routine nightmare that exists for a billion people. That's one billion too many.
Sound like you're working backward with your pre-conceived dislike of national healthcare initiatives, in an attempt to use that as proof it wouldn't work for the US. With "just" 300 million people.Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Indeed. Their health system hasn't been able to deal with a pressing-but-treatable widespread infection that is afflicting their society. And theirs is a system that has had generations to break down to this.
Partly related to their huge population, partly related to uncoordinated "sectors". Would think healthcare experts could get across the importance of prevention, and social programs related to education, housing, nutrition and sanitation....by looking at the American mistake of reaction instead of pro-action, as our society became more savvy and civilized. It's not just India, you know.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...hers-find.html
Diabetes Costs China $26 Billion a Year, Researchers Find
By Jason Gale
Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- China’s diabetes-related medical costs, estimated at 173.4 billion yuan ($26 billion) annually, will skyrocket in 10 to 20 years as 100 million sufferers seek treatment and care for related ailments such as kidney failure, stroke and blindness, health officials said.
Diabetes accounts for about 13 percent of medical expenditures in China, the International Diabetes Federation said in a statement distributed before a media briefing in Beijing today to mark World Diabetes Day. The finding is based on preliminary data from a nationwide survey completed in August.
China’s diabetics report three to four times more hospitalizations, out-patient and emergency-room visits than people without the condition, scientists from the Brussels-based federation and the Chinese Diabetes Society said. Their research follows a March study that showed China has 92.4 million people with diabetes, more than twice as many as previously estimated, and the most in the world.
“Diabetes prevalence is skyrocketing in China and people are getting diabetes at a younger age,” the federation said. “China has a window of real opportunity to prevent an epidemic of serious diabetes complications, which will increase spending dramatically.”
China will have lost $558 billion of national income to diabetes and heart disease between 2005 and 2015, the World Health Organization and World Economic Forum said in a 2008 report. Smoking, dietary changes and sedentary lifestyles are stoking a surge in heart disease and stroke in China that will kill an additional 7.7 million people over the next two decades, researchers at New York’s Columbia University said in May.
In effect, you can't take a medical system which isn't even able to take care of relatively simple problems like TBC and draw broad and sweeping conclusions from it. It's dysfunctional and would always be, irregardless of the system behind it.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tb isn't so simple. Now there are medication resistant mutations. Remember that guy who flew from the US to Europe and set off an international air borne-contagion frenzy?
ps, "irregardless" isn't really a kosher English word. Maybe you're thinking of "irrespective"?
The system is dysfunctional regardless of what the system actually is? That's sort of a rigid indictment of the Indian people, isn't it?
Where in here did I say that the problem was scale based?
Scale might be a problem, but the real issue is India's spectacular poverty and endless slums, plus their spectacular corruption levels. Neither apply to the US.
Besides, I and most moderate reform advocates have never advocated for government-run health care, a common straw man set up by the Right in defense of the status quo. Single payer is not government run. That's a total red herring (polite language for lying).
Throwing this in here, because I don't know where else it would belong.
GOP frosh: Where's my health care?
Republican Andy Harris demanded to know why his health care plan takes a month to kick in. | AP Photo Close
By GLENN THRUSH | 11/15/10 9:54 PM EST Updated: 11/16/10 7:59 PM EST
A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in.
Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.
“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. The benefits session, held behind closed doors, drew about 250 freshman members, staffers and family members to the Capitol Visitors Center auditorium late Monday morning,”.
“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.
Harris, a Maryland state senator who works at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and several hospitals on the Eastern Shore, also told the audience, “This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed,” his spokeswoman Anna Nix told POLITICO.
Under COBRA law, Harris can pay a premium to extend his current health insurance an additional month.
Nix said Harris, who is the father of five, wasn’t being hypocritical – he was just pointing out the inefficiency of government-run health care.
Harris hammered Kratovil on health care throughout a bitter fall campaign, despite the fact that the conservative Democrat voted twice against the reform package backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), a close Kratovil ally.
“Although he voted against Obamacare, Mr. Kratovil refuses to commit to its repeal. Dr. Harris understands that the Obama-Pelosi-Hoyer agenda threatens to pull the plug on America's long-term health," Harris said in an Oct. 30 statement. “"In Washington, I will never vote to raise taxes, I will fight to repeal health-care reform, and I will work to balance the budget."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz15Vf5rQlE
Walmart + Humana for Medicare Rx. I suppose that could save Medicare part D millions? Gee, wish I could get a Rx plan like that! $15/month premiums and co-pays as low as $2. Walmart's non-member generic list has tons of meds already selling for $3.
http://health.walmart.com/RxPlanEnroll/
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