@GreatJustice: I DID NOT present a strawman at all - i directly challenged your assertion that those countries were "less socialized". Underlining the very assertion i challenged and calling what i wrote a strawman is a non-sequiter.
Switzerland does in fact have a doctors association (like the AMA) and a regulatory body for pharmaceuticals (like the FDA). So unless you have some citations explaining that they work radically differently to the American versions, i'll assume they perform equivalent functions. The AMA is a private enterprise btw.
While Switzerland has mandated that citizens must purchase private health insurance, they also regulate what the plans must contain and force the insurers to run as
non-profit organizations. While they have one of the lowest government spending on health, their total per capita spending on health is the
third highest in the world. Considering that they're proud that a 25 year old pays the same as an 80 year old (by law), this implies it's not such a great system in terms of cost-effectiveness. Might as well just tax all the people equally, and have a single managed fund, like Singapore does.
Switzerland would only be the "American Model" if Obamacare is fully implemented, and then American health insurers were banned from making a profit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Singapore- In Singapore it is correct that the private health system is not heavily regulated, but like many countries, 70-80% of citizens are in the public health system. And the MediSave system demands workers put aside 6.5-9.0% of their income into a government-managed health fund. That's quite a large chunk of change, there, which explains why the public health system is so well-funded.
As for the situation in Hong Kong, my point about the land taxes was relevant to how "From its revenues, the government has built roads, schools,
hospitals, and other public infrastructure facilities and services".
It also happens to be the ONLY example of major interventionism you seem to find worth mentioning.
I quoted two entire paragraphs detailing a complex set of health regulation authorities in Hong Kong, so that's just not true at all. For your benefit i'll reprint the whole thing. Considering that Hong Kong is only
ONE CITY, that's quite an extensive bureaucracy for health care:
The Department of Health, under the Food and Health Bureau, is the health adviser of Hong Kong government and an executive arm in health legislation and policy. Its main role is to safeguard the health of the community through promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative services in Hong Kong. The main function of the department includes child assessment service, immunisation programmes, dental service, forensic pathology service, registration of healthcare professionals etc., though boards and councils (i.e. Medical Council of Hong Kong, Pharmacy and Poisons Board of Hong Kong) are independent statutory bodies established under the relevant ordinances that operate independently to discharge their statutory functions.
Hospital Authority
The Hospital Authority is a statutory body established [...] to manage all 38 public hospitals and institutions in Hong Kong. It is mainly responsible for delivering a comprehensive range of secondary and tertiary specialist care and medical rehabilitation through its network of health care facilities. The Authority also provides some primary medical services in 74 primary care clinics.
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It seems to me, you want to cherry-pick specific details from totally different health systems like Switzerland and Singapore, whilst ignoring other stuff going on there, and that strict government legislation exists in each country to make all that happen.
What about the health systems in Japan, Iceland and Australia - all 3 with universal health coverage, and all in the top 10 of life expectancy?
Or can you explain your criteria for effectiveness?
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Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread (Read 1290986 times)