Could the recent Pew Center survey on meaning help us interpret some controversies?

_{Denyse O'Leary

November 25, 2018

Atheism, Culture, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Religion, Science, Society}

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What do Americans think matters in life?

Americans with high levels of household income and educational attainment are more likely to mention friendship, good health, stability and travel. A quarter of Americans who earn at least $75,000 a year mention their friends when asked to describe, in their own words, what makes life meaningful, compared with 14% of Americans who earn less than $30,000 each year. Similarly, 23% of higher-income U.S. adults mention being in good health, compared with 10% of lower-income Americans. And among those with a college degree, 11% mention travel and a sense of security as things that make their lives fulfilling, compared with 3% and 2%, respectively, who name these sources of meaning among those with a high school degree or less.

Many evangelicals find meaning in faith, while atheists often find it in activities and finances. Spirituality and religious faith are particularly meaningful for evangelical Protestants, 43% of whom mention religion-related topics in the open-ended question. Among members of the historically black Protestant tradition, 32% mention faith and spirituality, as do 18% of mainline Protestants and 16% of Catholics. Evangelical Protestants’ focus on religious faith also emerges in the closed-ended survey: 65% say it provides “a great deal” of meaning in their lives, compared with 36% for the full sample. At the other end of the spectrum, atheists are more likely than Christians to mention finances (37%), and activities and hobbies (32%), including travel (13%), as things that make their lives meaningful. Atheists tend to have relatively high levels of education and income, but these patterns hold even when controlling for socioeconomic status.

Politically conservative Americans are more likely than liberals to find meaning in religion, while liberals find more meaning in creativity and causes than do conservatives. Spirituality and faith are commonly mentioned by very conservative Americans as imbuing their lives with meaning and fulfillment; 38% cite it in response to the open-ended question, compared with just 8% of very liberal Americans – a difference that holds even when controlling for religious affiliation. By contrast, the closed-ended question finds that very liberal Americans are especially likely to derive “a great deal” of meaning from arts or crafts (34%) and social and political causes (30%), compared with rates of 20% and 12% among very conservative Americans. “Where Americans Find Meaning in Life” at Pew Forum

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See also: Skeptic asks, why do people who abandon religion embrace superstition? Belief in God is declining and belief in ghosts and witches is rising (keeping it real about what people really believe… )

Comments

OldAndrew, interesting thoughts. But where health care is different than most other services is that for most other services (buying a car, a house, a TV, a barber), we plan for it. Health care is often something that, when we need it, we need it quickly. Because of this, we are not likely to shop around. In a system that is completely private, with little oversite, is it any surprise that people get ripped off?Ed George_{November 28, 2018
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This is obviously part of the problem, but with real competition, this shouldn’t be a problem.
I wonder if the benefit of competition is outweighed by the cost of competition (sales and marketing) + the profits. But it's impossible to know without having all three figures to do the math. Here's a hypothetical, and this is quite likely some sort of ignorance on my part: What if a health care provider stopped marketing, and didn't pay salespeople to actively push their product, and they passed through the savings to customers? Wouldn't that be a form of competition? Wouldn't customers automatically gravitate toward that insurer? My guess is that they wouldn't, because if they would, insurers would already do that. That means that part of the problem is us. When we purchase the service, we willingly pay the provider for the expense of convincing us to buy it. Perhaps part of it is that for so many people insurance is linked to their employer, something else that makes no sense. If it wasn't, hopefully we'd all be smart enough to buy our insurance from the provider that saves the most money. It would still cost us more because our employer wouldn't subsidize it, but it wouldn't matter because our employer could pay us the money they used to spend on the health insurance subsidy. We get insurance through our employers because it creates an insurable group, which means a group that wasn't created for the purpose of purchasing insurance and therefore has a balanced mix of healthy and sick people. But the entire population of the country is also such a group, so if they all received "insurance" through a single provider we wouldn't need groups comprised of employees of particular companies.OldAndrew_{November 28, 2018
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OldAndrew, it's hard to argue with what you have said. The primary responsibility of the Board of any publicly owned company is to maximize the profits of its shareholders. This is obviously part of the problem, but with real competition, this shouldn't be a problem. Add to this the practice of pharmaceutical and supply houses providing incentives (either direct financial or indirect perks) to physicians to prescribe their drugs or use their equipment. Somebody is paying for the profits of the insurance companies and hospitals, and the perks provided to health care professionals. I'm not opposed to profit, but the profits should be reasonable, not excessive; especially in relation to health care, a basic human need. I don't know the answer to the problem, which is huge, but the knee jerk reaction of refusing to look at how other countries manage it is just being remarkably short-sighted.Ed George_{November 28, 2018
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I see health care as sort of a shell game designed to make it impossible to tell where the money goes. Why do health care costs keep going up? What costs more? Whose profits are increasing? It feels to me like a big smokescreen. As long as we can't tell what's going on, all we can do is pay what we're told and maybe complain when the cost goes up. As was mentioned earlier, a big part of the problem is that we don't know how much anything costs, especially since we're just paying insurance premiums. Insurance companies negotiate lower prices for everything. Does that really mean something, or is it just a scam where the prices are inflated and the only way to get something closer to the "real" price is to purchase the same services and medications through the middleman, giving it the appearance of value? It sounds too convenient. If you cut out the middleman by self-insuring, then suddenly everything costs more. All roads lead to buying health insurance. It's labyrinthine. Who can follow it? All I know is that as long as there's money in it, people will find a way to skim as much as they can get away with. This gets cast as a left vs. right issue, but I think that's all just theater. Create two sides that reflexively oppose each other on every issue and it becomes easier to manipulate both.OldAndrew_{November 28, 2018
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It would be very nice if a compromise could be worked out in congress where health care costs can be brought under control and yet the government stays out of our personal health care decisions, i.e Obama's famous lie "You can keep your doctor",,,, . Unfortunately, I see little 'reaching across the aisle' in Congress these days,,, and with the insane vitriol on the left towards all things Trump, I see little room for any reasonable compromise from democrats in Congress in the future. Which is a crying shame, because Trump literally wrote the book "The Art of the Deal"...bornagain77_{November 28, 2018
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BA77 citing a paper
As Alice Chen, Emily Oster and Heidi Williams mention in a recent and very comprehensive study article that appeared in American Economics Journal, cross-county comparisons of aggregate infant mortality data rates provide very limited insight. One of the reasons is that countries vary in their reporting of births.
And further from BA77:
Furthermore, the Liu-Moon-Chawla study points out that in infant mortality reporting, mechanisms vary greatly among the countries compared with the U.S.
But you failed to actually read the Chen, Oster and Williams paper. Chen, Oster and Williams examined this and concluded:
The US has higher infant mortality than peer countries. In this paper, we combine micro-data from the US with similar data from four European countries to investigate this US infant mortality disadvantage. The US disadvantage persists after adjusting for potential differential reporting of births near the threshold of viability. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4856058/
This is nicely visualized in the plot linked from the same paper. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4856058/bin/nihms-717273-f0002.jpg
“These rates,” the authors mention, “are affected by the socioeconomic status of mothers and their children.”
I don't have an argument with this. But given that people at the poverty level can't afford health insurance in the US, they are not able to avail themselves of the same level of health care as the affluent. This is not the case in most other OECD countries. BA77 citing another paper:
For one thing, even our system’s captious critics admit that it is far easier to manage health outcomes in smaller and more homogeneous countries. The U.S., with a population of 323 million, is far larger than any of the other countries mentioned in the sample.
I find this argument difficult to accept. In any other venture, economies of scale and competition result in lower costs. As well, in countries with smaller populations, the number of doctors and specialists will be lower, resulting in less choice by the patient. We should expect this to result in poorer health outcomes in the smaller countries, but we are not seeing this. However, to be fair, on some important health issues, like heart attacks and cancer, the US health outcome is marginally better than those of other countries. I am not suggesting that the government should own and operate the health care system. Only that it be set up such that everyone in the country has access to the same quality of health care, regardless of their socio-economic status. There is plenty of room for the private sector to be involved in the delivery of these services, just as they are in many countries that have a single payer system. But I do feel sorry for that single payer that has to pay for everyone's health care. :)Ed George_{November 28, 2018
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You entirely missed the point Bob (and weave) O'Hara. The main point is that the parents were denied their right to decide what treatment might give their child the best chance to live. It is the height of hypocrisy that Darwinists, although their own worldview denies the reality of free will, are all for the right for parents to choose, i.e. pro-choice, to kill an unborn baby in the womb no matter what the government may say to the contrary. But when it comes to parents actually trying to save their child's life from death, all of the sudden the parent's right to choose the fate of their child must be denied by the government. Hypocrisy is too mild of a word for such a contradiction in logic.bornagain77_{November 28, 2018
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ba77 - that comment about Alfie Evans is rather one-sided. For example, it ignores the advice of the Vatican hospital (§40:
It is therefore possible that a prolonged ventilator support, with surgical tracheostomy should be performed. Feeding and hydration are artificially provided through a nasogastric tube since several months, a clear indication for a gastrostomy is evident. Renal and liver functions seemed normal. Alfie appeared to be very well cared and despite eight months of ICU admission he did not present skin lesions due to posture During clinical evaluation there were epileptic seizures induced by propreoseptiv stimuli and associated with neurovegetative symptoms as cardiac rhythm and blood pressure disfunctions. This finding might affect a possible commute. A hypothetical transfer might be done from t he patients bed to ambulance, to airport and subsequent ambulance or helicopter to the final destination. It is possible that during the travel Alfie may present continuous seizures due to stimulations related to the transportation and flight; those seizures might induce further damage to brain, being the whole procedure of transportation at risk.
In other words, transferring him to the Vatican wouldn't lead to an improvement in quality of life, and it might kill him.Bob O'H_{November 28, 2018
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Seversky, it is humorous that you, of all people, the most dogmatic Darwinian atheist on UD, would be the only one to defend Ed G.'s claim that socialized medicine is the way for America to go. It is also humorous that you, of all people, the most dogmatic Darwinian atheist on UD, want me to cite specific evidence for these claims. Over the years I have literally cited hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of evidence that have directly refuted your Darwinian worldview. Yet, despite me citing mountains of evidence against your position, you still refuse to ever reasonably concede that your Darwinian worldview is unmitigated hogwash. Shoot, I don't ever recall you honestly conceding even a single false claim that you have made. Even when shown, by peer reviewed empirical evidence, that your claim was false. Your track record for scientific integrity towards the evidence itself is abysmal to put it mildly. You are a shining example of dogmatism. And since you steadfastly refuse to accept the steady stream of empirical evidence that has been presented against your atheistic position, I have very little hope that you will ever believe some of the nightmare stories about socialized medicine, even if they are corroborated by hundreds of witnesses. But anyways hope springs eternal, and despite the fact that you are, IMHO, completely impervious to any evidence that contradicts what you want to believe beforehand, (no matter how strong that evidence is), here are a few recent well known nightmare stories of socialized medicine that received national headlines
Single Payer And The Alfie Evans Nightmare Go Hand In Hand 4/30/2018 Health Care Denial: Bernie Sanders and many of his fellow Democrats pushing single payer endlessly claim that health care is a "basic human right." What they never mention is that gaining that one means sacrificing many other rights. Just ask the parents of Alfie Evans. Alfie died this week in a British hospital after a series of events that, if they'd happened here, would be a serious breakdown in our nation's health care system and of parental rights. Back in December 2016, British doctors diagnosed Alfie Evans as having a degenerative neurological condition that they couldn't identify. As Alfie's conditioned worsened, officials at the National Health Service decided that Alfie's condition had deteriorated to the point where he was in a "semi-vegetative state" and would never recover. The doctors at the Alder Hey Children's Hospital decreed that the best course of action was to pull the plug and let Alfie die. His parents believed otherwise. And they fought in court for months for the right to take Alfie Evans to a Vatican hospital, where he could remain on life support, and receive care and comfort until his final days. The Italian government even granted Alfie Italian citizenship, hoping it would allow an "immediate transfer to Italy." Too bad. The British courts sided with the doctors. Alfie had to stay put, no matter what his parents wanted or what other more humane alternatives were available. This is the second such vulgar childhood death in the U.K. that captured worldwide attention. Last the parents of Charlie Gard, who suffered a rare genetic disorder, fought the British government for the right to take their son to the U.S. for an experimental treatment. The U.S. hospital offered the treatment for free, and the parents had raised enough money on their own for travel costs. No dice. The medical professionals at Great Ormond Street Hospital told them no. His condition was too far gone, and they wanted to switch off Charlie's life support. Single Payer Myth How are such horrors possible? They are possible because decades ago the British bought into the "single-payer" health care myth. It's the very same myth that leading Democrats are now insisting we import into the U.S. The promise was that every British citizen would have the "right" to health care, at no cost to them. What they didn't know, or understand, was that by putting government in control of paying for health care and dispensing this right also gave the government bureaucrats the ability to decide what care gets provides, who can get it, and under what circumstances. In gaining the "right" to free health care, the British gave up more fundamental rights — among them, life, liberty, and for parents to make life-or-death decisions about their own children. Worse, decades of government mismanagement have left the British with a sclerotic health care system, one rife with shortages, waste and endless pressure to deny or delay treatments wherever possible. Just this winter, for example, the NHS ordered hospitals to cancel all nonemergency surgeries while the country dealt with … wait for it … the seasonal flu. Patients routinely wait hours in the emergency room, if they're lucky, while others die on gurneys left in hallways. An Illusory Right The British, and the Canadians, and those living in other countries cited as models of socialized medicine, might have a "right" to health care. But the government has no obligation to provide it. This is always the case when you define a right as something given to you by government — a fact the left never explains. Yet every time one of these single-payer health care tragedies occurs, we're told how the British revere their National Health Service, and that the alternative — an American system that relies heavily on the free market — would be far worse. We don't know who the pollsters are surveying about the quality of care in Britain, or in any other country with government-run health care. But we doubt they're asking the people who actually need care that the NHS keeps denying them. And don't believe the claims that the British get better health care than Americans. When you look at actual outcomes of various treatments — rather than faulty comparisons of life expectancy or infant mortality — the NHS falls way down the list. The children of the poorest parents in America would have received far better care here than Charlie or Alfie did. The next time Bernie Sanders or some other prominent Democrat starts talking about how health care is a right and how we need a single payer system to deliver it, ask them what actual rights we'll have to give up to gain that ephemeral one. Chances are, they won't have a satisfactory answer. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/alfie-evans-national-health-service-life-support-charlie-gard-socialized-medicine-single-payer/
Let's quote that one more time to drive the point home:
And don't believe the claims that the British get better health care than Americans. When you look at actual outcomes of various treatments — rather than faulty comparisons of life expectancy or infant mortality — the NHS falls way down the list. The children of the poorest parents in America would have received far better care here than Charlie or Alfie did.
Of course, these nightmare stories are in all likelihood just the tip of the ice berg. And it is such nightmare stories as these that certainly make me extremely hesitant to accept any of the 'pie in the sky' claims coming from the left wing fake news media concerning socialized medicine. In fact, I was kind of shocked that Ed G. actually defended CNN and MSNBC when I pointed out, via his site, how biased against conservatives they were. In my book, that is like defending the integrity of the National Enquirer. But for me personally, from my own unique perspective in dealing with Seversky for several years now, and then having Seversky whole heartedly endorsing socialized medicine, for me at least, that is a sure sign that it must the completely wrong path for America to take. Like the old joke goes,
“Everyone in life has a purpose, even if it's to serve as a bad example” - Carroll Bryant
:)bornagain77_{November 27, 2018
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bornagain77 @ 41
To counterbalance the leftist propaganda you are trying to push.
... you are pushing right-wing propaganda/fake news? Okay, let's take a look:
Socialized medicine and one-payer system is great if you don’t mind: Being left blind because you have to wait three years for a twenty-minute surgery
Did someone actually go blind because they had to wait three years for a twenty-minute surgery or is this just a jab at long waiting-lists? What is more likely is that someone without health insurance in the US will die before they get a twenty-minute procedure they can't afford.
Pulling your own teeth because you are in so much pain and there is no dentist available due to severe shortage of dentists; there is a good explanation why Brits have such bad teeth
It's true there's been a shortage of NHS dentists because of relatively low fees. But, again, if you were one of the 45m without health insurance before Obamacare, you'd be pulling your own teeth because you wouldn't have been able to pay a dentist to do it.
Waiting 18 months to get a hearing aid
Uninsured and not able to afford a hearing-aid at all?
Being denied a cancer drug because it’s too expensive and you are too old
That's a judgment call that is made under both systems. You think health insurance companies will pay out for anything you want?
Delivering your baby in a hospital bathroom with your mom helping you
Really? You have examples? What's certain is that, without health insurance, you'll be delivering the baby in your own bathroom. You won't be able to afford hospital services so you won't get as far as one of their bathrooms.
Your baby being born in the hospital parking lot because there is a severe shortage of nurses
Evidence? Or is this another example of fake news? Why would a baby be born in a parking-lot because there is a nursing shortage?
There are no beds in the hospital so whatever emergency you have, burns, delivery, stroke, heart attack, broken limbs, you must wait
This is such bullshit. If you are having an emergency, you get taken to a hospital that has an A&E department, not to one that doesn't.
“12-minute ambulance ride takes nearly three hours—every time”
Ambulances can get caught up in traffic but a 12 minute ride taking three hours every time? I call BS again.
Having your cancer undetected after 50 hospital visits
Some cancers are difficult to detect. This has nothing to do with the healthcare system running the hospitals. You know that a Johns Hopkins study in 2016 estimated that 250,000 Americans die each year from medical errors in your wonderful private healthcare system?
Hospital telling you that you must “come back when you are blind
Cite, or I call BS again
Being penalized for paying for your own treatment or drugs
Doesn't happen under the NHS. Anyone who says it does is a liar.
Being turned away while in labor
Bit like being left to die on the floor in an ER while people step over you.
Flying 5,000 miles to escape National Health System’s wait
Being flown 5000 miles to a European country because the procedure you need - including a convalescent stay in a hotel - can be done at a fraction of the cost in the US.
Suffer mixed-sex ward misery while terminally ill
Suffering alone from a terminal illness because you can't afford to pay for a palliative care facility
Being threatened that your health care will be taken away if you pay for supplemental care yourself
Flat out lie. Doesn't happen under the NHS
Drowning in hospital bathtub while in labor and left unattended
Cite, or again I call bullshit.
Spending all night on a hospital gurney and ignored
I've read of one or two cases where that has happened - and there's been a huge uproar about it. But no way is it typical and you can find similar incidents in the US.
Being left on a cold hospital floor in your old age
Cite, or again I call bullshit.
Having transportation refused to and from hospital because you are in a wheelchair
Cite, or again I call bullshit I will tell you I have experienced the health care systems in both the US and the UK. I found that the quality of private healthcare in the US is excellent - if you can afford it. Not so good if you can't. In the UK, the NHS has problems because it has been underfunded for years. But the standard of treatment is still high and you don't have to worry about paying for it. And that's the bottom line, in the UK nobody - but nobody - goes bankrupt because of medical bills they can't pay. Good healthcare is regarded as a right for all, not a privilege of the wealthy.Seversky_{November 27, 2018
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Infant mortality? I addressed that point in post 44 yet you mindlessly repeated it again.
Of course, one of the big “knocks” on America’s healthcare system is our infant mortality rate, especially when compared to the other countries. Experts all agree that there is a lack of consistent and reliable data out there in which to make truly valid comparisons. But they are made anyway! As Alice Chen, Emily Oster and Heidi Williams mention in a recent and very comprehensive study article that appeared in American Economics Journal, cross-county comparisons of aggregate infant mortality data rates provide very limited insight. One of the reasons is that countries vary in their reporting of births. Another serious study, performed by Korbin Liu, Marilyn Moon and Juki Chawla for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, entitled: International Infant Mortality Rankings: A Look Behind the Numbers, sheds more light on the subject. “These rates,” the authors mention, “are affected by the socioeconomic status of mothers and their children.” Unfortunately, the U.S. poverty rate is higher than all of the countries, and considerably higher than half of them. Furthermore, the Liu-Moon-Chawla study points out that in infant mortality reporting, mechanisms vary greatly among the countries compared with the U.S. For example, in France, “a baby has to be alive at the time of registration, which could be 24-48 hours after delivery. If the infant does not survive at that point, it is recorded as a false stillbirth.” On the other hand, if a newly born infant in the U.S. takes one breath and dies, it is recorded in the infant mortality stats. “Germany requires evidence of the function of both the heart and the lungs before it is reported. Russia excluded from their report of live births, infants of less than 1000 grams in weight or less than 28 weeks of gestation – if they die within seven days of birth.” The reporting differences are such that it is impossible and unfair to make valid comparisons on infant mortality. But people continue to make them. ,,, We do not intend to make light of infant mortality, because it is important and needs to be continuously monitored. But clearly, it is not fair or accurate to compare problem apples with problem oranges.
Since you are now apparently down to just mindlessly repeating false talking points no matter what I say, I am done.bornagain77_{November 27, 2018
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BA77
My opinion remains unchanged on Socialized medicine. I do not support it.
I am fine with that. But I prefer longer life spans, lower infant mortality, lower rates of medical, medication and lab errors, and much lower health care costs. And, of course, the ability of everyone, regardless of the size of their bank account, getting high quality health care. But maybe that is just my Christian values poking through.Ed George_{November 27, 2018
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Whatever Ed. You have certainly not persuaded me of your position. From my examination of the evidence thus far, your argument falls apart upon even minor examination. The only exception being health care cost. Yet even there many common sense 'conservative' solutions are available. My opinion remains unchanged on Socialized medicine. I do not support it.bornagain77_{November 27, 2018
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BA77, I agree that there is much that can be done to reduce health care costs, but why are you so averse to government being involved? I am not talking about government running health care. In fact, in many countries where there is single payer health care, the actual health care is provided by the private sector. Doctors, testing, physio, specialists, etc. are all private. Where the single payer comes into play is that the bills are paid centrally, regardless of s patient’s ability to pay. The only sector that doesn’t make a very good living is the insurance companies. There are certainly huge challenges (ie, setting the fees for various procedures and services). But there is plenty of room for efficiencies, personal initiatives and entrepreneurship. What drives me crazy is the uninformed knee jerk reaction to even the suggestion of public health care. What is very telling, however, is that the populations in countries with public health care, in spite of all of its problems, would rebel against adopting a completely private system.Ed George_{November 27, 2018
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I agree that healthcare costs are way too high. I strongly disagree that socialized, single payer, healthcare is the solution. Here are a few common sense solutions: all of which involve solutions that avoid the government becoming directly involved in our personal healthcare decisions:
How to Lower Health Care Costs in America 5 recommendations from experts at a West Health summit By Holly LawrenceFebruary 27, 2018 1. Give Patients and Health Care Consumers More Information Several panelists talked about the wide variation in price for the same medical treatment in the same metropolitan area. In Atlanta, Gaynor said, it can cost 600 percent more to have a colonoscopy in one location than another. The problem is that patients usually don’t know about local price variations because they’re generally not given cost information by health care providers or insurers. That’s not true in other countries. “There are prices on walls in doctors’ offices in France. In Australia, people are entitled to binding estimates before they go in for elective surgery,” said Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, editor-in-chief of Kaiser Health News. Carol Raphael, senior adviser, Manatt Health Solutions and former board chair of AARP said, “I think we shouldn’t only talk about cost, because if you just tell people to go to the lowest cost option, that can be frightening. We have to talk about value. And where are you going to get the best results, the most effective outcomes for the lowest costs? And we have to enable people to figure that out.” Dr. Mark Smith, clinical professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco and co-chair of the Guiding Committee of the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network, said that in order for health care consumers to make smarter choices and save money, the health care system needs a “greater availability of usable data on cost and quality than we have now.” One recent example of this kind of usable data: Kaiser Health News and NPR just began offering a new feature, Bill of the Month. Its dissection of real medical bills educates consumers (and shames some providers.) 2. Give Patients and Health Care Consumers More Power “Most patients I speak to in this system feel powerless,” said Rosenthal. “And that’s what I think we have to change.” Smith told the audience: “It is important for patients and consumers to vote with their feet and with their wallets for high-value plans and providers, because that creates an incentive for plans and providers to create greater value.” He also said he’d like to see more “self-care,” and thinks we will, with improved health care technology. Referring to patients on dialysis, Smith said: “There’s a whole world of possibilities of how we could substitute patient-driven care for expensive, professionally-driven care.” Dr. Mark McClellan, director of the Robert J. Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University and a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration said “there are programs not only outside the U.S., but in the U.S., that are doing self-administered dialysis at home. That leads to better control of the progression of the disease, is more convenient for the patient and is less costly.” 3. Lower the Number of Medical Tests for Patients Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon, writer, public health researcher and Next Avenue’s 2015 Influencer of the Year, mentioned a study of more than 1 million Medicare patients asking how often they received one of the 26 tests or treatments that were “widely recognized to be of no benefit or to, in fact, be of outright harm.” Up to 42 percent of patients received unnecessary tests in one year, Gawande said. His mother was one of them. Rosenthal said doctors must convince patients not to expect, or feel they need, to get a test during every medical visit. That could be difficult. Raphael called the current culture of medicine “the rescue culture,” saying: “You come in and you have an infection. You don’t want to hear that it’s a viral infection, go home and rest. You want it to be fixed.” But, Raphael added, “if we have the space, the reimbursement system and to some extent, the technique to have conversations with patients that explain what the risks are, the potential benefits, the dangers with unnecessary radiation, they would make different choices.” 4. Increase Competition Among Health Care Providers Gaynor explained that physician practices have been consolidating and the number of hospital mergers has been high. A recent study by two Federal Trade Commission economists, he said, looked at the merger of six physician practices in Pennsylvania a few years ago “and they found price increases of up to 25 percent and 15 percent for different insurers.” Gaynor estimated that about 1,700 hospital mergers have occurred over the past 20 years; most urban areas now have just one to three dominant hospital systems. The “lack of competition has a large part to do with” why health care costs are high and rising, Gaynor said. If hospitals have no local competition, he added, research has found that prices are 12.5 percent higher, on average. “Evidence shows across the board when there’s less potential competition in a market, hospital prices are higher,” Gaynor said. And, he added, “if prices are high, they stay high.” Gaynor also noted that a study of Medicare beneficiaries who had heart attacks discovered that “those treated at a hospital that didn’t face a lot of competition were 1.46 percentage points more likely to die in the year following the heart attack than if they had been treated in a hospital in the area that faced a lot of competition. So monopoly kills.” What’s more, Gaynor said, the largest four health insurers have 76 percent of the fully-funded market nationally and the largest two insurers have more than 70 percent of the market in half of the nation’s metro areas. He said he sees no signs of health care industry consolidation slowing down. “I think the strongest studies show that quality suffers when there’s less competition,” Gaynor said. “More competition leads to better quality of care.” And less competition leads to “substantially worse patient outcomes.” 5. Let Medicare Negotiate Prescription Drug Costs for Consumers Numerous speakers called for allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drugs for Americans 65 and older. That might happen soon. “There is growing consensus to allow Medicare, the largest purchaser of prescription drugs, to negotiate on price,” Lyford told me. “This will help bring prices down tremendously.” https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/reports/2013/06/11/65941/reducing-the-cost-of-defensive-medicine/
I would also suggest stuff like limiting the amount of malpractice liability incurred by Doctors and Hospitals, as well common sense measures to reduce drug prices, like these:
The Prescription Drug Cost Reduction Act CONGRESS By Thomas Sullivan Last Updated May 6, 2018 https://www.policymed.com/2011/11/the-prescription-drug-cost-reduction-act.html
I'm sure there a many more things that can be done 'around the edges' in order to bring healthcare costs back under control. All of which avoid the many pitfalls of 'one size fits all' socialized medicine of liberals. In fact, a quick google search revealed that many smart people have thought long and hard about addressing this problem, all of which involve solutions that avoid the government becoming directly involved in our personal healthcare decisions:, For instance, here is one article that struck me as being comprehensively thought out,,,
Here’s how to reduce healthcare costs: Page 2 of 3 KJ Lee MD FACS May 9, 2017 http://www.medicaleconomics.com/medical-economics-blog/heres-how-reduce-healthcare-costs/page/0/1
bornagain77_{November 27, 2018
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BA77, you are obviously hung up on the word “socialist”. So let’s step back a moment and just talk about the cost of healthcare. I was just on an old scoliosis chat group that was talking about the cost of scoliosis surgery. I only refer to scoliosis because I had that surgery when I was 17. The thread I was following was old (2004) so I am sure that costs have changed since then. There were three comments that caught my attention. The surgery in the US was upwards of $250,000, covered by private insurance. Conducted privately in England and Australia (not under their public health care system) was 10,000 pounds and $10,000 Ausie respectively. What I can’t imagine is what the American patient received that cost an additional $240,000. Better hospital food?Ed George_{November 27, 2018
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So a fake conservative is trying to defend fake liberal news? You just can't make this stuff up! :) Step away from the liberal koolaid Ed!
STUDY: Over 90% of the Media’s Coverage of Donald Trump Is Negative - Dec. 2017 Since September, 90 percent of national evening broadcast coverage of Trump has been negative. https://ntknetwork.com/study-over-90-of-the-medias-coverage-of-donald-trump-is-negative/ Evan Siegfried: Media bias against conservatives is real, and part of the reason no one trusts the news now https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/media-bias-against-conservatives-real-part-reason-no-one-trusts-ncna895471
bornagain77_{November 27, 2018
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BA77
Ed George according to your own site, both MSNBC and CNN, who’s talking points bashing Trump you have echoed precisely in this thread, also made the list of biased press:
We are not talking about biased press. CNN, MSNBC and FOX were all classified as biased. Canada Free Press was categorized as a questionable source for factual information. Neither CNN nor FOX received that ranking. Your source shares this ranking along with other reputable media outlets such as Bare Naked Isla, Black Genocide and Hang The Bankers.Ed George_{November 27, 2018
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Of supplemental note:
U.S. Health Outcomes Compared to Other Countries Are Misleading - April 2018 Gary Price, MD, and Tim Norbeck Excerpt: Well, here we go again. More new studies that indict the U.S. healthcare system directly and, by inference, America’s physicians have been published. A new report in JAMA published in March comparing U.S. statistics with those of the highest income countries (United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, Japan, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Denmark) indicates that the American healthcare system fares quite poorly. Surprise! ,,, Throughout, the point is made frequently that the U.S. spends far more per capita on healthcare when compared to other countries, but has less in healthcare outcomes to show for it. These conclusions are not so different from other studies previously published. However, there are valid reasons for these differences, and we feel compelled to address them. For one thing, even our system’s captious critics admit that it is far easier to manage health outcomes in smaller and more homogeneous countries. The U.S., with a population of 323 million, is far larger than any of the other countries mentioned in the sample. In fact, the mean population for all of them is a mere 69 million. Recent research, including an insightful book by Dr. Buz Cooper, all suggest that poverty and other social determinants have a significant impact on our health and healthcare costs. Unfortunately, the U.S. poverty rate is higher than the other countries at 12.7 percent of the population. In an accompanying JAMA article also published in March 2018, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, observes that “administrative costs contribute significantly to the cost difference between the U.S. and others used in the comparison.” This is a point on which Papanicolas et al resoundingly agree. Emanuel also mentions that a major driver of cost differences is high-margin, high volume procedures. For example, he points to knee replacements where the U.S. performs nearly twice as many per capita as in the Netherlands. Tim had a knee replacement himself in May and enjoys far greater mobility. He also has a tennis friend in Connecticut who in the past year had both knees replaced and is back to playing tennis three times a week. His age: 90! We suspect that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a 90-year-old to receive two knee replacements in any of the other countries and in a very timely fashion. However, much of America prides itself on physical fitness and quality of life at every age. The price of this is certainly reflected in our higher healthcare costs. Papanicolas et al also call attention to the fact that the U.S. performed the second highest number of MRI scans per capita (behind Japan) and the most CT scans. We don’t find that unusual, given the current medical liability environment that exists in the U.S. The medico-legal Sword of Damocles hangs precariously over every physician for every procedure.,,, Of course, one of the big “knocks” on America’s healthcare system is our infant mortality rate, especially when compared to the other countries. Experts all agree that there is a lack of consistent and reliable data out there in which to make truly valid comparisons. But they are made anyway! As Alice Chen, Emily Oster and Heidi Williams mention in a recent and very comprehensive study article that appeared in American Economics Journal, cross-county comparisons of aggregate infant mortality data rates provide very limited insight. One of the reasons is that countries vary in their reporting of births. Another serious study, performed by Korbin Liu, Marilyn Moon and Juki Chawla for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, entitled: International Infant Mortality Rankings: A Look Behind the Numbers, sheds more light on the subject. “These rates,” the authors mention, “are affected by the socioeconomic status of mothers and their children.” Unfortunately, the U.S. poverty rate is higher than all of the countries, and considerably higher than half of them. Furthermore, the Liu-Moon-Chawla study points out that in infant mortality reporting, mechanisms vary greatly among the countries compared with the U.S. For example, in France, “a baby has to be alive at the time of registration, which could be 24-48 hours after delivery. If the infant does not survive at that point, it is recorded as a false stillbirth.” On the other hand, if a newly born infant in the U.S. takes one breath and dies, it is recorded in the infant mortality stats. “Germany requires evidence of the function of both the heart and the lungs before it is reported. Russia excluded from their report of live births, infants of less than 1000 grams in weight or less than 28 weeks of gestation – if they die within seven days of birth.” The reporting differences are such that it is impossible and unfair to make valid comparisons on infant mortality. But people continue to make them. ,,, We do not intend to make light of infant mortality, because it is important and needs to be continuously monitored. But clearly, it is not fair or accurate to compare problem apples with problem oranges. https://www.forbes.com/sites/physiciansfoundation/2018/04/09/u-s-health-outcomes-compared-to-other-countries-are-misleading/#2c6fa9841232
bornagain77_{November 27, 2018
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Ed George according to your own site, both MSNBC and CNN, who's talking points bashing Trump you have echoed precisely in this thread, also made the list of biased press:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/left/ CNN has a left bias in story selection that often favors the left while being critical of the right. For example, during the 2016 Presidential Election Pew Research concluded that the majority of CNN stories covering President Donald Trump were negative.,,, CNN typically utilizes loaded emotional words in sensational headlines such as this: Trump pounces on Justice Department report findings. CNN usually sources its news properly through credible reporters/journalists and through hyperlinking to credible media sources. However, CNN has failed numerous fact checks from Politifact. It should be noted that these fact checks were almost exclusively from guests on their numerous talk shows and not from the reporting of actual news, which tends to be factual. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/ ,,,, MSNBC These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage liberal causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy. See all Left Bias sources. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/msnbc/
Thanks for the link that refutes your fake news talking points against Trump. And since you do not trust the 'overtly Christian' Canada Free Press, (but apparently trust CNN and MSNBC for your talking points bashing Trump), here are a few more sites that reveal the nightmare of socialized medicine:,,, For instance this caught my eye from American Thinker,,, "Britons’ survival rates for those diagnosed with cancer or heart attacks are little better than those of the former East European Communist countries. A recent study conducted by the University College London and Columbia University revealed that nearly ten percent of British patients died in the hospital as compared to 2.5% in the United States. This disparity is due in great part to post-operative neglect and inadequate care issues.,,,
The National Health Care Nightmare Ahead By Steve McCann A recent report by the British Medical Association stated that the NHS has reached its breaking point and that “Pressure on all services is rising and care is increasingly being rationed.” There is a rapidly dwindling supply of nurses and doctors as demand from patients increases. According to this report, the number of district nurses has declined 60% between 2000 and 2016. There is a shortage of doctors throughout the system but it is particularly acute in the Accidents and Emergencies departments of the hospitals as they are 3,000 doctors short in this one area alone. As a result, the NHS is looking at the possibility of conscripting hundreds of doctors from India and Pakistan. A report from the Patients Association found tens of thousands seeking routine surgeries had to wait on the average nearly 5 months and those requiring more major surgery, such as hip replacements, had an average wait time of nearly 4 months. Another study concluded that around 750 patients a month, one in 28, pass away due to inadequate care such as doctors making the wrong diagnosis, being prescribed the wrong medication or mistaken monitoring of a patient’s condition. According to an article in Forbes: Terminally ill patients are incorrectly classified as “close to death” so as to allow the withdrawal of expensive life support. NHS doctors routinely conceal from patients information about innovative new therapies that NHS doesn’t pay for, so as not to distress, upset or confuse them. A quarter of those diagnosed with cancer are barred from receiving the latest drugs proven to extend life; if those people choose to seek those drugs on their own they are banned from any further treatment by the NHS. Britons’ survival rates for those diagnosed with cancer or heart attacks are little better than those of the former East European Communist countries. A recent study conducted by the University College London and Columbia University revealed that nearly ten percent of British patients died in the hospital as compared to 2.5% in the United States. This disparity is due in great part to post-operative neglect and inadequate care issues.,,, https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/03/the_national_health_care_nightmare_ahead.html The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care Socialized medicine has meant rationed care and lack of innovation. Small wonder Canadians are looking to the market. I was once a believer in socialized medicine. I don’t want to overstate my case: growing up in Canada, I didn’t spend much time contemplating the nuances of health economics. I wanted to get into medical school—my mind brimmed with statistics on MCAT scores and admissions rates, not health spending. But as a Canadian, I had soaked up three things from my environment: a love of ice hockey; an ability to convert Celsius into Fahrenheit in my head; and the belief that government-run health care was truly compassionate. What I knew about American health care was unappealing: high expenses and lots of uninsured people. When HillaryCare shook Washington, I remember thinking that the Clintonistas were right. My health-care prejudices crumbled not in the classroom but on the way to one. On a subzero Winnipeg morning in 1997, I cut across the hospital emergency room to shave a few minutes off my frigid commute. Swinging open the door, I stepped into a nightmare: the ER overflowed with elderly people on stretchers, waiting for admission. Some, it turned out, had waited five days. The air stank with sweat and urine. Right then, I began to reconsider everything that I thought I knew about Canadian health care. I soon discovered that the problems went well beyond overcrowded ERs. Patients had to wait for practically any diagnostic test or procedure, such as the man with persistent pain from a hernia operation whom we referred to a pain clinic—with a three-year wait list; or the woman needing a sleep study to diagnose what seemed like sleep apnea, who faced a two-year delay; or the woman with breast cancer who needed to wait four months for radiation therapy, when the standard of care was four weeks.,,, https://www.city-journal.org/html/ugly-truth-about-canadian-health-care-13032.html Socialized Medicine: A Nightmare of Government Control, Rationing and Arbitrary Decisions – Including Crushing Alternative Health Choices CRAIG HUEY AUGUST 31, 2017 A lot of advocates point to Europe as an example of why the U.S. should have socialized medicine. “We are the only country without it,” they say. For good reason. Look at Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) for example. The NHS: Prevents parents from seeking experimental treatments for terminally ill children, as we witnessed with the heartless debacle over baby Charlie Gard. Deem patients close to death, and remove feeding tubes to starve them to death. Cut patients off from all government care if they catch them paying for their own care elsewhere … or using natural healing methods. We’ll talk about that in a moment. Decided obese patients and smokers are not eligible for hip and knee replacements. And now, the NHS is recommending that doctors no longer prescribe herbal and homeopathic treatments to patients. In fact, in a recently released report, the NHS recommends what drugs and medicines doctors should no longer prescribe. Socialized medicine is always shaped by money and powerful influences – the pharmaceutical companies. It locks out choices and locks in the past – no new experts and administrators. How did NHS decide what medicines to trim? Items of low clinical effectiveness, where there is a lack of “robust” evidence of clinical effectiveness or there are significant safety concerns. Items which are clinically effective, but due to the nature of the product are deemed a low priority for NHS funding. In other words, if something works, but has a lower cost alternative, that cutting it is a good way to save money. This one-size-fits-all approach focuses more on the bottom line than on the individual patient. https://www.craighuey.com/socialized-medicine-2/ etc.. etc.. etc..
And again, your claim to be a conservative whilst pushing socialized medicine, as well as pushing CNN and MSNBC fake news talking points, is laughably absurd.bornagain77_{November 27, 2018
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BA77
To counterbalance the leftist propaganda you are trying to push. .... https://canadafreepress.com/article/the-living-nightmare-of-socialized-medicine
And to counterbalance your counterbalance.
The following is an excerpt from Media Bias/Factcheck about the source of your counterbalance: QUESTIONABLE SOURCE A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, overt propaganda, poor or no sourcing to credible information and/or is fake news. ... Canada Free Press is a conservative Canadian news and opinion website. Ironically, they promote American Nationalism through their motto: “Because without America there is no Free World” The website is founded by Judi Ann T. McLeod formerly a reporter for a series of newspapers in Ontario.... Canada Free Press is an overtly Christian, extreme right website that peddles conspiracy theories such as Obama being an Islamic Terrorist and 9/11 as an inside job. They also promote pseudoscience such as Climate Change Denial and Creationism. Canada Free Press routinely uses strong loaded wording that always favor the right such as this: New Poll Results Freaking out Democrats. When it comes to sourcing they favor right biased sources and occasionally use sources that we have rated as Questionable.... A factual search reveals numerous failed fact checks. Overall, we rate Canada Free Press Questionable based on extreme right wing bias, promotion of conspiracies and numerous false claims. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/canada-free-press/
But you have yet to address the facts presented at 31. How does the US reconcile having the highest cost per capita health care system amongst the OECD countries and yet rank amongst the worst for most (but, to be fair, not all) health outcomes.Ed George_{November 27, 2018
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It is an insult to point out the fact that you are in fact a supposed conservative pushing European style socialism? Hmm, it is insulting but certainly not for the reason you think. To counterbalance the leftist propaganda you are trying to push.
Socialized medicine and one-payer system is great if you don’t mind: Being left blind because you have to wait three years for a twenty-minute surgery Pulling your own teeth because you are in so much pain and there is no dentist available due to severe shortage of dentists; there is a good explanation why Brits have such bad teeth Waiting 18 months to get a hearing aid Being denied a cancer drug because it’s too expensive and you are too old Delivering your baby in a hospital bathroom with your mom helping you Your baby being born in the hospital parking lot because there is a severe shortage of nurses There are no beds in the hospital so whatever emergency you have, burns, delivery, stroke, heart attack, broken limbs, you must wait “12-minute ambulance ride takes nearly three hours—every time” Having your cancer undetected after 50 hospital visits Hospital telling you that you must “come back when you are blind” Being penalized for paying for your own treatment or drugs Being turned away while in labor Flying 5,000 miles to escape National Health System’s wait Suffer mixed-sex ward misery while terminally ill Being threatened that your health care will be taken away if you pay for supplemental care yourself Drowning in hospital bathtub while in labor and left unattended Spending all night on a hospital gurney and ignored Being left on a cold hospital floor in your old age Having transportation refused to and from hospital because you are in a wheelchair https://canadafreepress.com/article/the-living-nightmare-of-socialized-medicine
Or as Reagan once said:
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help. - Ronald Reagan
bornagain77_{November 26, 2018
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But I have harped on about my personal pet peeve long enough. Thank you to BA77, EDTA and Andrew for listening to me without slapping me upside my head. :)Ed George_{November 26, 2018
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BA77
A conservative pushing European socialism again? I don’t think you know what the word means.
Please don’t insult me. I am well aware of what socialism is. But are you aware that western democracy, amongst other things, is about agreeing on the amount of socialism we accept as being good for society. Equality is a form of socialism. As are many of the freedoms we fight for. Many of our moral values are socialistic in nature. The balancing act is maintaining a society with many socialist values while still rewarding individual initiative and hard work. But health care is simply an equation. Does society benefit more from a pay as you go health care system or from a system where everyone pays a levy, whether you use it or not, so that everyone has access to the same level of health care. And, obviously, it’s not black and white. There can be abused and inefficiencies at either end of the spectrum. I don’t know what the best mix is, but the one thing I know is that the statistics for the US system are poor. But it’s not like we don’t have plenty of examples of other societal benefits that we all pay for regardless of whether or not we use them. Schools, roadways and other infrastructure, national and state parks, libraries, welfare, etc. Maybe if there was empirical evidence showing that the US system of health care produced health outcomes comparable to or better than other systems, at a cost comparable to or lower than the other systems, we would have something to debate. But there isn’t, and we don’t.Ed George_{November 26, 2018
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"No argument. But one of us more than the other." Well seeing as,,,
Luke 7:47 Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
,,, then I have no problem with your insinuation that I need more grace from God than you do. I was truly a despicable man before God saved me. And I still fall exceedingly short of God's perfection. In fact, because of my many imperfections, many times I'm simply glad God has anything whatsoever to do with me even now when I am supposedly already 'saved'.bornagain77_{November 26, 2018
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Ed George @ 27, >But my question is, who determines when a culture is headed in the wrong direction? Only our Creator can tell us that for sure. I know that opens up many other issues that we debate here, but that's my answer in brief. A lot of your later examples (slavery, e.g.) simply suggest turning back the clock. I don't advocate a blind return to the "old days". Let's keep what's good about today (most technology, medical and otherwise; less pollution; lack of world wars at the moment, etc.), but get rid of what is bad that we still have (some racism, abortion, etc.) Life as an experiment? Well, if you call selectively deviating from what our Creator wants of us, and watching the resulting failures mount, then, yes, that's an "experiment". I guess that's fun when things aren't as bad as they could be, for us at least, at the moment.EDTA_{November 26, 2018
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BA77
And may we at least agree on the one point that we both desperately need God’s grace in that area?
No argument. But one of us more than the other. :)Ed George_{November 26, 2018
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A supposed conservative pushing European style socialism? Really???
Why Socialism Is Still Awful Despite Its European Image Makeover - 2017 While conservatives have been busy repudiating outdated communist ideas, the American left has succeeded in selling a new fantasy: the democratic-socialist utopia. Excerpt: Owning a small business in Europe can also be incredibly challenging. When conducting research for my Radio Free Hillsdale mini-series, The Vienna Tapes, I spoke with an Austrian hair salon owner who told me that due to the taxes he pays, his business needs to be open for six months each year before he can even start to earn money from it.,,, “The situation looks good, but behind, it’s a swamp. More and more people don’t want to work, more and more people live on social care,” Schulak said. “The whole thing is a kind of fake scenery, because most of the people live on the cost of the minority who work and work and eventually have heart attacks.” http://thefederalist.com/2017/11/13/socialism-still-awful-despite-european-image-makeover/
bornagain77_{November 26, 2018
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No, thankfully, I'm not, as Jesus said:
Matthew 12:37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."
And may we at least agree on the one point that we both desperately need God's grace in that area?bornagain77_{November 26, 2018
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BA77
Ed George, IMHO, you are a democrat pretending to be a conservative.
Thankfully, you are not the final arbiter of what political ideology people can associate themselves with.
Pushing socialized medicine on top of all that!
No. I am presenting facts about health care in OECD countries. And, sadly, the facts do not paint a pretty picture for health care in the US. Universal health care is not socialized medicine. It is just access to health care regardless of economic status. A very Christian concept.Ed George_{November 26, 2018
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