These tea party people....

Let's spend more on health and less on global warming, as an example. Let's create jobs here using nationalised companies and let's keep the tax revenue here and use it for health. Let's become a wealthier country, so that we are able to spend more on health. Let's support business and enterprise to generate wealth for the people. Let's vote Tory.

The US medical system is the best in the world for private healthcare providers and insurers.

No maternal death in the US isn't low but Albania might be higher as it depends on how many days past birth a death is counted as maternal. And the figures for the developing world are often estimates as there are no reliable records.

claig - you can't have a more expensive health service without paying more for it.

Claig - x-posted

ISNT - From Wikepedia

"In its 2000 assessment of world health care systems, the World Health Organization found that France provided the "best overall health care" in the world.[1] In 2005, France spent 11.2% of GDP on health care, or US$3,926 per capita, a figure much higher than the average spent by countries in Europe but less than in the US. Approximately 77% of health expenditures are covered by government"

So the French spend less than the US - but achieve more.

I don't know what happens to those who can't pay. Are there any French residents around?

I want more money spent on health, because I think that people count. I am not an expert on the French health system, that's what we supposedly employ our quangos and committees for. We have thousands of rich and famous ex-pats living in France. I wonder how many of them them look forward to coming back to the UK NHS system?

The WHO rankings of world health services, puts France number 1 in the world and the UK at 18. Don't the hardworking British people deserve as good a service as the people 30 miles away across the Channel? Do the progressives want to stop us changing our NHS for the better? Do they lie to us by telling us that we have the best system in the world? Don't we have the best of everything in the world? or have we started not to believe it any longer?

WHO world health ranking

Interesting jackstar. What happens if you can't afford to pay the "tarif" upfront? And/or can't afford to pay 30% of your treatment fees yourself?

Thomas Frank writes good books on why Americans support political movements which promise pitiful public services.

Eldest aunt had a chunk taken out of her nose due to skin cancer and had to wait months for reconstructive surgery.

Last Christmas in California another aunt tiraded that the long wait was typical of what would happen if there were universal socialised medicine (if everyone were on Medical like eldest aunt is).

Then the family tried to drag me into it .

Problem is that Medical is underfunded because of how it's funded, and because it's not universal (most people have good private health insurance, instead). So most people get quick treatment, and the wait for treatment is nothing to do with clinical need. Aunt would have had quick treatment under the NHS... but the system that Obama brought in is more like the previously existing inadequate, under-funded, inefficient and slow-to-deliver safety nets for the working poor :(.

The state pays more per capita in France than in the UK. Most people pay even more on top to "top up" their insurance. If they are doing that, one can only surmise that the "basic" cover afforded to the less wealthy is not brilliant. Otherwise why bother to pay for a top-up.

So what you have is a system more expensive that ours from a tax POV, which still does not do the job, and leads to a two-tier system.

I am interested to know why you think that private hospitals will be better than NHS hospitals, with the same amount of money to run them, less some being siphoned off for profit.

I found this on Frenchtree.com

"Unlike in the UK in France treatment, whether private or public, is not free at the point of delivery.......on seeing a doctor or specialist (specialiste) you first pay the full bill (tarif) and are then reimbursed at a later date (about 10 days). Generally speaking, Sécurité sociale refunds 70 per cent of the cost of a visit to a médecin traitant (a GP or family doctor) and most specialistes."

sorry, error, 26 didn't die, one patient died after 26 days without food

the French system is part insurance based, so it is not all state. I want a greater percentage of our taxes being spent on health and less on the bureaucracy of councils with waste disposal officers and their bin police and all the other regulators that have proliferated under the progressives. Let's cut the waste and spend a higher proportion on health. Let's manage these fatcat bosses better so that they don't get £200,000 to be in charge of hospitals where 26 patients starved to death

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1110054/Starved-death-NHS-hospital-Damning-inquiry-highlights-case-patient-left-food-26-days.html

Who was managing this hospital? Why didn't somebody see what was going on? It is a disgrace.

I don't care if the fatcats are paid £1,000,000 if they do a good job and people get treated and don't catch MRSA and don't spend months on waiting lists. Then £1,000,000 would be worth it. I want competent management and government oversight of what is going on. The people deserve that.

So in fact the US maternal birthrate might be really low?

It is widely accepted that the US has a shocking maternal mortality rate, why deny it?

Are you trying to say that the US govt do not track how many women die as a consequence of childbirth?

The maternal deaths figures are both disgraceful and misleading as there are no international figures on how they are recorded.

Well I for one would much rather the decision about what treatment I can have be made with a pro ate company with no interest in me as an individual, than be made by a government commitee with no interest in me as an individual. The thought that the money saved would go to shareholders just gives me warm fuzzies.

The French system would involve more taxpayers money being spent on healthcare than at the moment, + creating a two tier system, that is what you want?

I am also confused as to why you think that private healthcare companies don't have bosses on big salaries. They do, and much more than £200K.

ISNT - I think several countries effectively combine private health with public health provision. I suspect that their success is not just due to the size of total spend - but also the 'free market' impact on efficient allocation of resources.

And, I can understand why some Americans are spooked by the idea that, in the UK, you can 'pay in' to the welfare system all your working life and yet be denied treatment on cost grounds, when you need it.

Not that I think the US system is in anyway better and the tales of insurance running out and the fate of the uninsured are pretty horrible.

I want the French system. I want these quangos and their beanos to study the french system and report on it and implement it here. I bet there are less fatcats there, but if there aren't then let's sort that out and get rid of the fatcats, it's not impossibel, it's our money, we can do it.

There have been tons of scandals in our hospitals. I haven't got time to google all of them, but there isn't a shortage of scandals and £200,000 bosses presiding over them and in some cases being aware of what was going on.

I don't agree with everything the Tea Party says, I don't even know everything they say, but they are an example of a vibrant democracy where millions of people are fed up of not being listened to and represented by their politicians.

I don't live in the United States, so some of those questions have nothing to do with me. They are solely for the people of the United States to decide and are nothing to do with me.

For our society I agree with universal healthcare, I don't agree with execution, I don't believe in gun ownership, I agree with a welfare state, and think that a wealthy country should not have such a high maternal mortality rate. But those are things fior the people of the US to decide. I also think we should take the beam out of our own eye and look at why more women die in pregnancy in the UK than in the much poorer country of Albania.

Erm, with the private sector running healthcare, you think that will be the end of "fatcats"? That's just nuts.

The recent hospital where there was a scandal over many many avoidable deaths due to poor patient care was a foundation hospital. There aren't many of them at the moment. This is the model that the tories have chosen for all of our hospitals.

Claig you never answer questions.

Do you agree with universal healthcare, paid for by the taxpayer (something I can guarantee the tea party does not agree with).

Do you agree with execution?

Do you agree with gun ownership being an inviolable right?

Do you agree that disadvantaged people should be supported by the state, to a minimum standard of living?

Do you believe that it is acceptable for a wealthy country to have such a high maternal mortality rate?

Yes, all of our people want our taxes spent on health and education. But we have seen Labour blow lots of our money and still not achieve results. They also blow money on pet schemes that the people would not back. Sir Philip Green is looking at ways of making our money go further, by getting government to drive better bargains and make our money go further. We are all happy to pay tax, but we object to it being wasted to pay council bosses £200,000 to impose two-weekly bin collections on us, while fining pensioners £100 for not shutting their bin lids. Let's cut the waste and the fatcats and put money into health and manage it effectively so that we don't get £200,000 hospital chiefs presiding over some of the scandals of patients not even being fed and dying of dehydration, when they are supposed to be cared for.

Hassled, you are right. Nothing comes out of nowhere. The movement must be being funded by someone. But it gets less funding than Obama got from Wall Street, for example.

French govt pays higher per capita on health than we do. And on top of that the majority of people buy additional insurance, so even more money spent. And you get a two tier system for the population. I suspect that if the same amount (govt money + insurance money) was spent on the existing NHS we could have what they have.

Short waiting lists + all mod cons and latest treatments costs a lot of money, there's no two ways about it.

I don't want to see that here either. I want the French system, a mix of private and state. Lots of our people go to France to be treated within weeks as opposed to being stuck on our waiting lists.