OK, first things first - what do you put as the extent of primary healthcare coverage in the US (and how much of that is state funded)?

The next question: what is the proof that primary coverage is a waste of time and money?

And let’s have some personal info - what is your access to primary healthcare?

What value do we the patient/consumer “get” for the value we put into it?

You just have a hunch? Just don’t agree with the anecdotal evidence otherwise? Don’t agree with the various outcomes-based measures that show you’d be better getting procedure x or disease y elsewhere? Is it a conspiracy of socialists who have no financial motive but just want to control everyone and limit their freedom?

Basically, why do you think that?

Metric or hunch? What other systems have you worked in?

All, including ours, are in need of repair. I think deregulation and some free market reforms would help all of them.

Do you think our system is better?

Yep. I think it’s far better than it gets credit for being. And I think it’s better than most other countries.

On a side note, you CAN actually compare these numbers within the same group/system over time to avoid many of the confounds of which you and other Dave often speak, and what we see is that healthcare is getting much costlier yet not much more effective.

QUESTION(S):

On the Catron coefficient of SUCKINESS scale, how would you rate our healthcare with that of the UK, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and France for example?

Do you think our system is better?

Would you be willing to make the claim that our “system” is really pretty-darn-not-sucky?

[We will ignore the fact that it is metaphysically impossible for you to statistically compare the US with other countries . . . eventhough there are some populations where the confounds can be minimized and controlled to get statistically significant/powerful variables for cross-cultural and cross-nation analysis.]

So you’ve proven that all these measurements are wrong or ill conceived. And. . . ? What’s next? You’ve done the easy part, so where do we go from here?

Matt, my goal is to show that most critics of U.S. health care use invalid metrics to support their claims. Since THEY are making the claims, it is up to THEM to provide proof. It isn’t my responsibility to do their (or your) research.

No, Morris, my point about Hurley’s comment was that life expectancy and infant mortality don’t prove anything about U.S. health care. I also explained why. You have yet to give me a sensible reason (or any credible stats) to change my position.

The only substantive position I’ve ever seen you take with regard to improving healthcare was that Medicare/Medicaid should raise reimbursement rates, and we should make the tax credits for health insurance higher. No explanation of how any of this is paid for, of course. Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, insurance lobbyists also should get to set the value of cases. That’s your other “libertarian” reform. Pretty light stuff.

What was it Teddy Roosevelt said about the critic? I think he was talking to you.

So in that case I will just assert that U.S. health care scores a ten on my suckiness metric (10 being suckiest), and other developed countries score between 3s and 6s.

Disprove it. Show me any factor where the U.S. is less sucky? If you have no factors, you can’t so I guess that is not fair.

What I’ll do then is offer you the chance to show that American health care is less sucky.

Go . . . I’ll be waiting. Any metric? Can you offer one where we are top 10 that doesn’t fall victim to the exact same post-modernist (”there is no abstarct truth”) BS that you keep spouting.

This is getting ridiculous. You’re backed into a logical corner where you either have to put up or admit that you just don’t think comparing health care on any metric - outcome, financial, etc. - across nations is possible.

This is just an obstructionist/absurdist position if I’ve ever seen one, akin to “you can’t prove to me that sky is not really red and you and I just don’t perceive it the same.”

Do you honestly think health care in the U.S. is “better” in any measurable sense than elsewhere and if so, how? If you can not answer this (and don’t just point to something you’ve written that no one else can understand . . . explain yourself) then you ought to be relegated to complete irrelevance because you are clearly not a serious policy wonk . . . you’re an ideological hack. I am sorry but this is just ridiculous.