Perhaps Michael Moore Should Run a Taxi Service
I don't know which of the following statements is more surprising. From the AP:
A 35-year-old Canadian woman has given birth to rare identical quadruplets, officials at a Great Falls hospital said Thursday. Karen Jepp of Calgary, Alberta, delivered Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia by Caesarian section Sunday afternoon at Benefis Healthcare, said Amy Astin, the hospital's director of community and government relations.Wonderful. And this part:
The four girls were breathing without ventilators and listed in good condition Thursday, she said.
The Jepps drove 325 miles to Great Falls for the births because hospitals in Calgary were at capacity, Key said.For those of you unclear on the geography, their trip looked something like this and would take about five hours at the posted speed limits. About halfway through the trip, they would pass through Lethbridge, which is home to Chinook Regional Hospital, which claims to offer a "high level neonatal intensive care unit." Not good enough? No beds there either? When they were in Lethbridge, they were about an hour away from Medicine Hat, home to this fine institution and its NICU, or two and a half hours plus a border crossing away from Great Falls. They chose the latter.
"The difficulty is that Calgary continues to grow at such a rapid rate. ... The population has increased a lot faster than the number of hospital beds," he said.
UPDATE (8/20): At the prompting of a commenter, I found that the doctor's statement about them driving the 325 miles is incorrect, and so too is my travelogue in the last paragraph of the original post (now italicized). Here is a report from the BBC that explains:
A medical team and space for the babies had been organised for the Jepp family at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary but several other babies were born unexpectedly early, filling the neonatal intensive care unit.
Health officials said they checked every other neonatal intensive care unit in Canada but none had space.
The Jepps, a nurse and a respiratory technician were flown 500km (310 miles) to the Montana hospital, the closest in the US, where the quadruplets were born on Sunday.
My apologies for the hasty and incorrect post, though this notion that "every other neonatal intensive care unit in Canada" had no space is more of an indictment of the system than my original remarks.
43 comments:
Wow, that is some story.
For what it's worth, though, clogged hospitals are not unique to Canada. I had to have an emergency appendectomy a little under 2 wks ago. I got to the hospital at noon (after seeing an offsite urgent-care doctor, who I mistakenly believed would be able to move me up the queue with a referral). Because they had no beds available in the ER, the nice ER intake folks made me wait--sitting up--for 7 hours.
After they finally took me to a bed in the ER trauma area, I waited nearly another hour for a doctor to do the 1-minute exam needed to discern that there was a 90% chance I had appendicitis. Interestingly, the exam was as best as I could tell identical to the one that the urgent-care doc did.
The surgery started at 2am (the surgeon insisted on a CT scan, given that I have a pre-existing condition, which decision I won't argue with).
So to recap, I presented at noon with an obvious case of appendicitis. Any doc looking at my chart would know that at a minimum they would be admitting me for observation to rule out appendicitis (that's the medical term, which I know because I had to go through it once years ago). Since they had no bed in the ER, they made me wait for seven hours with nothing but vitals checks every 2 hours. The end result was "emergency" surgery 14 hours after I presented.
Now, you might say that I just got unlucky and picked the wrong hospital (there are sth like 8 in Tucson, where I live). But, around hour 4 I asked the vital signs-checking nurse whether I would be better off going elsewhere. He told me that all hospitals in Tucson had the same situation that day.
And since then, at least a couple of people have told me similar and worse stories. Two of them had their appendixes burst while they were sitting--also for hours--in ER waiting rooms. It may be tempting to dismiss my case as minor--mine didn't rupture and as such I was never (yet) in any sort of grave danger--by comparison to a woman giving birth to quads. But those other people who told me their stories were conceivably in serious jeopardy.
So as long as we are using anecdotes to compare health care systems, let me just say that my recent experience in the US makes me think the "you-have-to-wait-there" criticism of other systems involves a certain amount of glass housing.
None of that is to say that my experience was necessarily typical, or that other systems, like Canada, are flawless. But our system seems to share some if not all of those flaws.
One other thing. After the ER doc finally examined me and made the call to admit me, a nurse mercifully gave me a few ccs of morphine.
Shortly thereafter, a nice man from the hospital finance department came to my gurney with a clipboard. He explained that my health insurance had a $250 copay for an admission and $750 for my annual deductible (none of which I'd used so far this year). I said, ok, figuring that's the way it goes. I thought it was nice of the nice man to come tell me these things so that I wouldn't be surprised when I got the bill.
And then the nice man asked me, very nicely, if there was any way I could pay some or all of the money upfront, right that moment. Of course I started to laugh--here I am, in pain for many hours, finally having been given some painkillers, and the finance guy comes to shake me down for cash while I'm doped up on morphine (great stuff, btw, though I recommend that if you get 4ccs, don't take it all at once).
So I start laughing, explaining the morphine bit. He looks surprised and says sth like "You look fine to me." Right. I'm fine. I'm just high on painkillers and waiting for "emergency" surgery, but why not conduct some business? I start to say I'll pay, but then in my dopey confusion (please hold back on the snarky comments), I can't explain to him where my credit card is (by now I'm wearing the hospital gown instead of my civvies). So I just mumble incoherently (again, no comments) for a while.
At this point he gets back to brass tacks and tells me that if I can pay the whole thing right then, he'll give me 10% off. He's *bargaining* with me! Well, I like a negotiation, even a drug-addled one. So I said I'd do it if he gave me 20% off. He gives me a very serious look and says he'll have to check with his supervisor. I tell him fine, my wife will be there soon (she'd had to go home to walk the dog) and he can discuss with her. End of the story is that I was in the CT scan machine when he came back, at which point he told my wife no dice on the 20% discount. So we paid 90%.
I bet you don't have that sort of interaction in too many other health care systems.
(As an aside, while I'm grateful to have insurance, my insurance policy's design seems pretty stupid to me. The $250 copay seems dumb, since I'm guessing that patient moral hazard is at most a minor problem with admissions decisions. And applying my entire annual copay to "emergency" surgery also is silly, since it's clearly not elective and since now all my care--including elective care--for the rest of the year comes with no deductible. Finally, no, I didn't have a choice over health insurance policies, because this is the only one the state of Florida, my previous employer, allows people to use once they move out of state, and my U of Arizona insurance doesn't take hold til Sep 1.)
And another thing. The AP story goes on to say
Two of the girls were to be transferred to a Calgary hospital later Thursday. The other two could be moved Friday if their conditions remain favorable, Key said.
They will likely remain hospitalized for four to six weeks, he said.
So whatever capacity problems there are in Calgary appear to have been short-lived. I wonder whether the real reason that the parents drove so far was to see specialists, or a doc they preferred for some other reason?
Finally, the article says that the parents refused to speak to the press. The person who says they drove to the US due to capacity issues was their US doc.
Yes, this couple would have been much better off in the US; for example, my wife had trouble conceiving, and the only thing the HMO would cover were hormone shots. In addition, there was a gag order preventing the doctor from informing us that there were other alternatives.
After 3 years of bogus hormone treatments, we moved to Massachusetts, which had (gasp!) a state requirement that HMO's offer a broad array of reproductive services.
My wife had a diagnostic laparoscopy; the literature shows that this simple diagnostic procedure results in successful conception in 25% of the time.
We were one of the 25%.
So if any Canadian couples had shared our circumstances and lived in the US, the US HMO system could have certainly relieved them of the inconvenience of their 350 mile drive.
If they delivered these quads in the ER, then you and I are paying for it via higher insurance premiums.
We *already have* socialized medicine. Just ask any illegal alien.
You just need to acknowledge that fact and point out a more efficient mechanism to transfer the cost from the uninsured to the insured.
Of course, driving into the U.S. makes the children American citizens as well.
Unfortunately, nobody has yet pointed out that what Mr. Samwick has written is complete and utter nonsense. The Jepps did NOT drive to Montana. They were flown (at government expense, of course).
I know that it suits Mr. Samwick's prejudices to believe that socialized medicine would stick a 9 months pregnant woman carrying quads into a car and ask her to drive five hours.... but that's not how it is.
Spud: "If they delivered these quads in the ER, then you and I are paying for it via higher insurance premiums."
Bull****. The Calgary Health Region (ie Alberta govt) paid Montana, in full, for the births. $200k CDN.
Is this the quality of your research? You don't talk to the parents, but you believe the report of their US doctor without doing any further inquiry?
Perhaps they knew they had quints and had been told Great Falls was the place to go? Perhaps they wanted their kids to be US Citizens? Perhaps they didn't want to pay?
And of course, why does Michael Moore say there is bed capacity here? It's because 40% of the population doesn't have insurance. That is, the quotas occur before you even enter the waiting room.
I followed DeLong's link to get here.
Seriously, is this the state of your research?
Darren,
The article quotes the U.S. doctor as saying that "The Jepps drove 325 miles to Great Falls for the births because hospitals in Calgary were at capacity."
You are correct that they were flown to Great Falls. The doctor misspoke, and I will correct my post with new links.
Thanks,
Andrew
As an economist, I know you're interested in efficiency and reducing wasted resources.
How many NICU beds should have a hospital have? The number of those beds are a function of what?
Lange said local physicians had been closely monitoring Jepp's pregnancy and were anticipating her newborns would require care at Foothills' neonatal intensive care unit.
But when Jepp began experiencing labour symptoms last Friday, the unit at Foothills was over capacity with several unexpected pre-term births.
Karen Jepp gave birth to her girls Sunday at the Benefis Hospital in Great Falls, Montana. They were flown south of the border because Foothills Medical Centre NICU in Calgary was over-capacity with the addition of three more preterm babies Friday.
Maybe you can do a survey of your city and see how many NICU beds are available at each hospital, and how many of them have four available on a moment's notice.
"You are correct that they were flown to Great Falls. The doctor misspoke, and I will correct my post with new links."
That is gracious of you, Mr. Samwick, but I'm not sure what the point of your new post will be. I understand that moving babies around from hospital to hospital in the US due to a shortage of intensive care neonatal beds is not exactly uncommon.. the equivalent act in Canada necessarily involves longer distances due to sparser population.... so what exactly do you think your anecdote will show?
Oh yeah... the Jepp's bill for all this? $0.00.
"though this notion that "every other neonatal intensive care unit in Canada" had no space is more of an indictment of the system than my original remarks."
Why? They needed care, they got care (although, unlike the vast majority, they didn't get it in Canada... flying people to the US is a rare expedient in Canadian health care since it costs the system 3 times as much as it does up here), it didn't cost them anything. So what's the problem exactly?
As I suggested, once your post is stripped of poorly researched fantasies about pregnant women desperately driving from hospital to hospital, it doesn't have a point anymore.
Depending on where you are in the USA, ICU bed, including NICU bed, shortages are hardly unusual and patients bouncing around for open beds is common. At my large university medical Center, we frequently have to turn away requests for ICU transfers because we're at capacity. We also occasionally have post-op patients stacked up overnight in our recovery room and ER patients held overnight in trauma bays because of ICU bed shortages. What Samwick describes is a relatively routine occurrence in many parts of the USA.
One thing that is likely to be different in the USA and Canada is that American hospitals, including mine, will refuse to accept ICU transfers, even when beds are open, for insurance (translation; financial) reasons.
I can't say that it is much of an indictment since it means they are using their resources more efficiently than us, unless it was us you were indicting.
Yes. Note that this was a quad birth. It was necessarily to find a place that had, not one or two free spaces, but four. This is not a common need. I'm not sure why Montana has such facilities... I'd have to wonder at their utilization rate. Mr. Samick appears troubled that Canada does not have vast empty neonatal wards standing by in case of a quad birth like they do in Montana... I personally am not concerned... the people involved got the care they needed and it didn't cost them a dime. I'm really struggling to see any indictment here, unless... (OK, I'll stop there or this comment will get deleted).
Darren,
It is "more of an indictment" because based on the AP story, it appeared that the search was for a NICU in Canada closer than Great Falls. The BBC story indicates that the search could have been for a NICU in all of Canada and would have come to the same result. Bigger search area, more of an indictment.
You are correct that the tone of the post would have been very different if I had read the BBC story before writing it. I probably would not have referred to Michael Moore in the title, as this was not a case of the system disregarding the Jepps and casting them off.
I still do find this episode surprising. Great Falls has a population of about 60,000 and is the third largest city in Montana. If you assigned the hospital a full third of the state's population of one million as its primary service area, then you get a number that is 1 percent of the total population of Canada (about 33 million).
Even acknowledging the selection here (i.e., they wouldn't have flown the Jepps to a hospital that didn't have the NICU they needed), it does suggest the availability of capacity in the U.S. that does not exist in Canada. That has value to some people and should not be ignored in our national debate about health care.
I can't remember the last time I deleted a comment, and I certainly don't delete comments that are not profane and that do not attack someone personally. So Please feel free to continue your comment if you like.
Four years ago, my 4-day-old son had a seizure and stopped breathing. Taken by ambulance to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, he spent 8 hours waiting for a bed in the NICU to open up. When it became clear that no NICU beds would be available, he was moved to the Pediatric ICU where he received excellent care. Intensive care capacity is very expensive and the U.S. medical system may have more spare capacity than the Canadian system, but as other commenters have pointed out, it is by no means an unlimited resource south of the border.
"...it does suggest the availability of capacity in the U.S. that does not exist in Canada."
Again, as a Canadian I am not sure why I should feel troubled by our inability to meet this unusual peak need within Canadian borders, or wish to trade our system for one where a man with a clipboard shakes you down while you are on morphine in ER (see above). I'm sure the Jepps would have enjoyed that very much.
Health care infrastructure spending in Canada is likely predicated on the fact that we ARE right next to the US, with vast empty wards untainted by uninsured people. If we know we can meet the top 1% of peak demand by an air ambulance flight to the US (this is a fairly rare occurence), that may be cheaper and smarter for us than to build extra capacity and have it standing by empty. If the US were not there and we were left to our own devices, I would bet that health care infrastructure spending in Canada would be adjusted accordingly.
I would not be surprised if those decisions were made with America's facilities in mind. Some other posts on this topic suggest this outsourcing is not as rare an occurrence as you might have thought:
Wizbang, who links to Bob Liebowitz, who links to The Globe and Mail.
Andrew, I am still awaiting an explanation of why this is a particularly damning indictment of Canada's health care system.
The GM article suggests that "at least five" women have been sent to Montana this year. (and in fact, I would suspect that Montana's spare capacity is not unrelated to its proximity to Alberta and not indicative of what you would find in Alabama). Five women, out of a population of 1.75m women (with the highest birthrate in Canada), does not strike me as a horrifyingly large number. Canada is a large and sparsely populated country, long distance medivac is sometimes necessary.... who cares if it is over a border?
Granted, the US has more spare capacity than Canada. If per capita health spending in Canada were doubled (to equal that in the US), I betcha we'd have lots of spare capacity too.. and not a single uninsured person in sight.
Oh, this post is insufferable.
Here's my little anecdote on the virtues of Republican privatized health care:
The 20 year old son of a friend was experiencing pain and he was temporarily without health insurance. He went to the emergency room and they let him wait 18 hours and he died.
This tragedy is the spew of the contemporary Republican party with its perverse and sadistic fetish for privatization no matter what suffering it causes. This is what happens when 'freedom' is defined as an unregulated market rather than a human value.
The 47 million without health insurance and the tens of thousands who die every year as a result of no health insurance are blood on your hands.
They needed FOUR NICU beds, not just one NICU bed.
Are you sure no one in Canada had ANY beds? Or is it possible that no one had FOUR beds?
Perhaps they decided the kids should stay in the same neonatal care unit and not be sent all around town or province.
Dartmouth is not exactly a major city.
Ir your wife was in a similar situation and had to be helicoptered to a major hospital in Boston would your insurance pay for it?
You probably do not know the answer.
But I challenge you to check with your benefits manager and report the answer on your blog.
Jonah B. Gelbach, I had a pretty obvious case of appendicitis when I was in 3rd grade and it still took 10 hours before surgery. And my father was on the faculty at the teaching hospital where I was admitted, so I imagine that I got preferable treatment at worst.
anonymous--given what I've heard from others, i'm not surprised.
regarding everyone else's discussion and criticism of andy, i'll say this:
1. andy linked to a story that turned out to have some factual errors pertaining to less-than-key facts of the original story's focus (which was on the unusual birth of identical quads).
2. andy chose to focus on the erroneous claims and make an issue out of them as a criticism of both the canadian health care system and michael moore.
3. when it was pointed out to andy that he had relied on erroneous reporting, he forthrightly apologized and posted an update that acknowledged the errors.
4. andy also contended that the corrected story contained information that was, to his thinking, even "more of an indictment of the system than [his] original remarks".
I don't happen to agree with Andy on that last point, or at least, I am not convinced that he is right. I think the points commenters have made about the rareness of this event and the finding of four beds in the same NICU are at least prima faciae compelling. Moreover I think the Canadian system looks good because of both the fact that there was a pre-arranged plan for the Jepps and then a very reasonable and apparently timely response by the system to the unexpected lack of capacity. So based on what I know, I'd probably draw different conclusions from Andy's given the updated information out there.
But in my book, those commenters who keep accusing Andy of dishonesty are being completely unfair. I don't agree with Andy's politics/policy preferences on plenty of things. But it seems to me that he's done exactly what honest people do: corrected his mistake and engaged others on the merits of the correct facts. The fact that people disagree with his argument doesn't justify the invective and guilt-by-preference insults that folks have been hurling his way.
Frankly I think those folks should be ashamed of themselves. Haven't we had enough years of substituting ad hominems for argument?
Andy, keep up the good blogging. You always make me think, even when I think you're wrong.
1. The correction is at the bottom of the post and not the top.
2. Samwick has a history of dishonesty (infinite horizon estimates to make the soc. security deficit appear more dire) so benefit of the doubt is not warranted.
3. Samwick uses the update to reiterate rather than reevaluate his point that socialized medicine is bad. ("When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?")
4. Samwick has not responded to any of the other criticisms of his argument.
I think this is sufficient to conclude bad faith on his part and more specifically a tendency toward dishonesty.
Elliott
Regarding your first point, I have a hard time getting worked up about it. That's a common approach to corrections in blogs.
Regarding your second point, you are wrong to suggest that appeal to infinite-horizon estimates is somehow a mark of dishonesty. Any economist worth talking to would think that, in the absence of uncertainty, infinite-horizon calculations are the appropriate way to measure both the costs and the benefits of a policy. The relevant criticism of those who have deployed IH calculations to confuse is that they use gianormous-sounding numbers in the absence of context, and they ignore the substantial uncertainties in far-out years.
After I read your comment, I clicked on the "Part I: 10/2004 - 05/2005" of Andy's "Social Security Archives". Here's one example of what I found among his "guidelines that I would recommend for the discussion of Social Security's financial condition":
discuss the projected imbalance in the system over the infinite horizon and express it in a sensible metric, like the 3.5 percent of taxable payroll....
Recognize that there is uncertainty in all projections and that this uncertainty is greater for more distant years.
Now, Andy is proposing reasonable context and awareness of uncertainty. Later he also proposes not to use uncertainty as an excuse to do nothing about large gaps in the system's funding. I'm a big supporter of SS, and I'm not particularly enamored of personal accounts as a reform basis. And I find nothing objectionable in anything Andy writes in those guidelines. In fact, I think there's reason to think that anyone who does disagree with those guidelines is probably involved in dishonest manipulation.
So per your standards, I guess you've just lost the benefit of the doubt, at least in my book.
Regarding your third point, Andy actually makes a reasoned argument for why he reiterates his argument. I happen to disagree with his conclusion, but I think you are being unfair and unreasonable in your characterization. Moreover, you credit him not at all for conceding the factual points, drawing attention to the concession, apologizing, and characterizing his initial post as hasty. And after all, all he did was link to an AP story. That's not much of a sin in my book.
Regarding your fourth point, I don't think it's true that he hasn't responded to any of the other criticisms of his argument; check the comments. He's responded to some but not all. I'd be delighted to hear him respond to the other ones, too. But I won't be too surprised if Andy decides he'd rather do something more productive than give detailed responses to people who unfairly accuse him of dishonesty.
I don't even really know Andy personally. When I started my own now-dormant, decidedly liberal blog, he kindly sent me an email congratulating me on a professional accomplishment. And I know some of his research, which is only tangentially related to mine. That's about it. But on the blog he's always struck me as a class act. I think it's too bad some of his critics, especially those with whom I agree on substance, can't match that standard.
With regards to point #1, I think that the importance of the error renders the post meaningless. In such a case, I have mostly seen corrections at the top or a completly new post acknowledging the error especially when the original post stretches to over a screenful.
With regards to point #2, the amount of uncertainty in the infinite horizon projections are so large that the only reason to use them is to mislead. I'm not a big fan of Annenberg, but your link indicates that is their take as well. That hotbed of iberal activism, the American Academy of Actuaries, has a similar opinion so your disdain for my standards seems a little hasty.
On point #3, this is precisely the point that Samwick has not addressed. The actual details of the story show that the availability of beds in the NICU was planned for, but actual events intervened. He has not preseented any data to suggest that the Montana trip was not the most economically efficient solution. He had a preformed opinion which he sticks to even though several commentors indicated that there is also a regional issue here (Calgary being one of the fastest growing areas in Canada).
Finally on the fourth point, I see that Samwick has replied directly 3 times in this thread and in none of them does he support his contention that this story represents a anecdote (not even data) that demonstrates the inferiority of the Canadian system. a. The Jepps didn't have to pay. b. A coordinated well-planned process put together a contingency plan without incident. c. the Great Falls, Montana hospital NICU has enormous excess capacity (cause or effect of the fact of twice the per capita US healthcare spending?)
Sorry, but nothing in your rebuttal suggests to me that characterization of Samwick as dishonest is inaccurate. What constantly comes through whether it be Delong or you is a respect for his professional work and his obvious superior intelligence and economics pedigree. Those things have nothing to do with his honesty. I'm sure you are similarly enamored of Mankiw.
Apparently, traveling to the West Coast rather than responding to comments makes me dishonest in Elliott's eyes. I should begin by thanking Jonah for his spirited if ultimately defense. He's laid out the various issues about blogging and this post in particular clearly enough. Further elaboration shouldn't be necessary. But here goes, starting with Elliott's posts.
First, I corrected the post in the way I did because I believe that the blog should reflect everything that was written in the way it was originally written. To me, that's what the "log" means in "weblog." So I changed the font, made reference to it in the update, and apologized for having posted the AP story's error. If you look at the original webpage I cited, you will see that the SF Gate has not corrected the record. If you can send me other examples of the way people have corrected errors in their blog posts, I'd be happy to adopt them if I think they are better.
Second, and I'm not sure why we're discussing this, the use of the infinite horizon estimates of Social Security's unfunded obligations is preferable to ignoring the period after the first 75 years, which is the leading alternative. If you think that the appropriate way to summarize a trending series (the annual deficit) is to take the mean of a truncated portion of that series, then that's your (and your statistics teacher's) problem, not mine. Tell me your preferred measure of the unfunded obligations, and I'll use it if it's better.
Third, I do not say in the post or any of my comments that "socialized medicine is bad." (I think that is the case, but I would not use this instance as a prominent example.) With the correction appended, I'm noting that I find it surprising that there was no facility in Canada that had 4 spots in the NICU. This is based on what is reported in the Globe and Mail article I linked above. I am also comparing it to the availability of 4 such spaces at the Great Falls hospital, which serves a much smaller region. If you are not surprised by that, then you and I disagree. This is not an uncommon occurrence for me when I read other people's blogs, so I'm hard-pressed to see why it is so distressing to you.
Fourth, I am accused of not supporting my contention that "that this story represents a anecdote (not even data) that demonstrates the inferiority of the Canadian system." Again, I say nothing about such a grand comparison. I don't even say that the Canadian system is inferior. I am pointing out one instance in which Canada's system was wanting and the the U.S. system covered for it. By way of the title, I am contrasting this instance to other portrayals of the two systems. That's it--it's just a blog post. Some commenters have taken it as a point of pride that the Canadian system can operate in such a way. In fact, it's clear from the Globe and Mail article that there is more of a "taxi service" than I had originally thought. How's that for irony?
Returning to Darren's comments, it is not clear that this should be considered a "particular damning indictment." It's an indictment--look at what the family had to go through. Mrs. Jepp says in one of the later articles that they would have preferred to have stayed in Calgary or even Canada.
I was informed by an anonymous commenter that Dartmouth is not exactly in a major city. It is clear from other posts that this is one of my favorite things about it. I live 2.5 miles from a nationally ranked medical center (Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center) and 6.5 miles from the community hospital where my children were born (Alice Peck Day). Given the presence of DHMC nearby, it is doubtful that we would need to be sent to Boston in an emergency of the sort being described here. (We are very fortunate in that regard. We've gotten excellent care at these facilities.) However, if we did, it could fall under any of the three tiers of our POS plan--the HMO, the in-network provider, or the out-of-network provider. In the case of the last one, we'd be subject to a deductible and out-of-pocket maximum.
I think that's everything that's been brought up. Thanks for your comments.
I bring up the use of infinite horizon estimates of the deficit that you are so fond of because it is the one irrefutable piece of evidence that you are either dishonest or incompetent. Since I am almost certain you are not incompetent, that leaves dishonest.
1. A statistics professor would ask why a simple mathematical equation is a question for him.
2. The use of truncated series is common. Why the discussion of long tails or fat tails other than the fact that we to the first order truncate most of our series.
3. The statistics professor if he wanted to get involved would probably look at the uncertainty in the underlying numbers in the projection, note the lack of any reasonable distribution and laugh his a** off. The next question by said statistics guru would be are you stupid or dishonest?
4. Let's say that the statistics professor didn't rupture something laughing at you, he might observe that the actual 20 year priors on the accuracy of your 10 year projections (let's not even talk about your longer ones) were so far off and in a systematic direction that you should probably update your model.
In short, your insistence on the use of infinite horizon projections especially when they do not differ in sign from the 75 year projection is simply a game of deception you use to justify your policy prescription. You can't generate enough concern from the suspect (but not totally useless) 75 year deficit so you resort to scare-mongering an infinite horizon estimate with payouts to people who haven't even been born.
In short, I focus on the social security infinite horizon deficit because it is a deliberate lie you will not ever concede designed solely to support your conclusion.
Repeating my previous request:
Tell me your preferred measure of the unfunded obligations, and I'll use it if it's better.
...this notion that "every other neonatal intensive care unit in Canada" had no space is more of an indictment of the system than my original remarks.
I see. More of an indictment of the Canadian system than 250 babies a year being turned away from a single NIC unit in New York is of ours? (The article is cited on Professor Thoma's blog, Economist's View.)
Or what about the 45% lower incidence of low birth weight babies requiring neonatal intensive care in Canada?
Let's see-- longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality, doctors deciding what you need instead of insurance companies, the ability to switch jobs freely without worrying about losing health coverage, no dragging your aching body halfway across town for bloodwork because the lab in the medical center you just left isn't covered by your insurance, no trying to make sense of what your elderly parents' supplementary health insurance has paid or failed to pay or trying to get reimbursed for the payment the doctor demanded up front. Oh-- and, of course, half the cost! Yup, that Canadian system is sure messed up.
The deficit you quote is less than useless. Suggesting to you a "better" measure would be buying into your idea that your use of the infinite horizon number has any value other than going for the emotionally persuasive argument at the expense of logic. Engaging in a political economy discussion with infinite time horizon series is almost always misleading so the "better measure" is nothing; just stop using it. If you can find a "better measure" that does not have the same laughable problems then, be my guest, and use it, but as long as you stick to your infinite horizon crisis mongering, I remain disdainful and that disdain will extend to other areas you comment upon.
We (at least Congress) have shown ourselves able to act in a crisis in less than 4 years (the Greenspan Commission) and able to act incredibly stupidly and in damaging ways ignoring an obvious crisis 15-20 years out (Medicare part D). Therefore I would suggest you concentrate on measures that illuminate the discussion within those timeframes since I think that brackets any relevant discussion for policy purposes.
(Off topic) You will not be surprised then when I tell you that my preferred solution for social security is to do nothing. I am not so sanguine about Medicare or the general fund and think that our Canadian neighbors can teach us a lot.
It's amazing how eager some of us are to leap to the conclusion that a Canadian-style system of care must be inferior to ours. We simply want and need to believe this, apparently. There will always be anecdotes "proving" the point, but anecdotes don't actually prove anything, as you know.
Darren suffers from an acute case of Canadian socialism insecurity syndrome. This case does represent the larger issue of scarcity. While this particular instance would be extremely rare, as the degree of life threatening lessens, the delay for service rises. Americans enjoy on demand healthcare, Canadians don't. Wealth is the main driver of healthcare, we are rich, so we have more of it. The American healthcare system also provides for best product, no socialized system does. In the United States if a drug is available that works in 3 days with no discomfort for $45 vs a $5 substitute that takes 10 days with discomfort, the American will get the 3 day, the Canadian 10 day. What is that value?
The heart of this debate is socialism vs capitalism. Socialists actually believe they create value and will defend any program no matter the facts. Healthcare is not as conducive to market driven cost dynamics as Arnold Kling would advocate. Socialists fail to acknowledge the massive subsidies provided by America's free market healthcare system. If we eliminate the left's use of healthcare as a tool to buy votes, the United States could develop a collaborative approach that provides affordable healthcare and negligible rationing.
Fritz
I'm a big fan of markets. But leaving aside the merits and demerits of the Canadian system -- and it has both -- the notion that "Americans enjoy on demand healthcare" is hard to square with most US residents' actual experience. Even among those insured with what our president calls gold-plated plans, access is quite far from "ondemand". And for the uninsured, of course, access is much worse. There are tradeoffs in any market characterized by severe informational imperfections. Our system happens to pile all sorts of additional bizarre third-party complications on top of those imperfections. It isn't exactly a model of allocative efficiency. Finally, I'm not sure what the use of the characterization "socialized medicine" really is, aside from as a (growingly less effective) political cudgel. Virtually all other wealthy market economies have what folks on the right would call "socialized medicine" if those plans were proposed here. So what?
I live in San Francisco and have Blue Cross health coverage from a major employer. A year ago I broke my hand, I went to an emergency clinic that is part of the University of California - San Francisco medical center. They gave me a cast and told me I should see a orthopedist in two weeks. When I tried to get an appointment with an orthopedist who was part of my preferred provider medical group, I was told there was a six week wait. Only by raising a huge stink was I able to get an appointment after two weeks. (Since breaks heal in six weeks you need to see an orthopedist after two weeks to make sure that the break is healing correctly.)
This isn't unusual. The wait for a dermatologist is two months and you are forced to see a different resident every time.
Now you might say just change preferred providers. Problem is that virtually every doctor in San
Francisco belongs to the same preferred provider. So I have a choice, a convenient doctor with long waits or an inconvenient doctor with shorter waits.
The key here is that it's not just Canadians who have to wait for health care.
Jonah,
Most people don't have dental insurance, yet have very little difficulty acquiring dental care. The uninsured, those that choose not to carry health insurance, have on-demand access to medical care, this trope that they don't go to the doctor because they don't have it is bogus. I have never had a problem seeing my doctor or being referred to a specialist. Right now my policy is in the doughnut portion of my MSA deductible, so in-effect I'm totally uninsured for $2,000 worth of care as defined by advocates of universal coverage, right?
So what? As bad as the current regulation of healthcare insurance is, the last thing I want is the effectiveness of the public delivery system of education model applied to medical. Even Medicare isn't socialized medicine because most seniors opt for supplemental private coverage. The United States is the largest producer of medicine that the world does not pay for. I see no reason that Canadians don't pay full price on drugs, we pay them full price on $50bn for their oil every year.
ANON 2:55 p.m.
You chose this 3rd party rationing policy. In Canada, that isn't even an option. You could have opened the yellow pages and found an orthopedic surgeon to care for you sooner. You would have had to pay outside preferred provider differentials. Same for your dermatologist. The key here is rationing. Your negative experience with rationing is the Canadian model Americans would reject as they did the original HMO's.
Fritz
I'm not going to bother addressing the nonsequitur part of your reply to me (e.g., public education, dental care). Congrats on so far being lucky enough not to have substantial chronic or acute medical costs. I've had both in recent years. So to use your apparent metric, MSAs must be bad -- since I'd be underwater in relative terms if I'd had one of them instead of my highly regulated insurance policy. In case you don't understand my point, by the way, it's that the absolutist pro-market position is just as silly as the absolutist anti-regulation/public-funding position.
just to clarify, that last sentence should have read "the absolutist pro-market position is just as silly as the absolutist pro-regulation/public-funding position."
Fritz's snivelling comments about "socialist inferiority syndrome" are misguided. The bottom line is that the systems of both Canada and the United States are an embarrassment, in different ways. Continental Europe (not so sure about the UK) is full of "socialist" countries with universal coverage (the US is the only advanced country in the world that doesn't have this), no waiting lists for anything, ample private provision of service, and the same per capita spending as Canada (ie substantially less than the US).
One very unfortunate side effect of being right next to the dysfunctional US system is that it paralyzes the health care policy debate in Canada... the system is probably pushed to the left of where it should be.
Fritz, yes, it's true, in the US anyone can whip out the chequebook (if it's big enough) and get treated for anything immediately, but as a rhetorical point, I would argue that "on demand" care that you have to pay for and can't afford isn't really "on demand".
Post a Comment