Denialism

Category: Health Care

  • Welcome Back to Denialism Blog

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    MarkH
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    Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not dead. Instead I’ve been working hard as a new surgical intern and sadly not finding the time to write for the denialism blog. However, now more than ever, it seems that we need to talk about the problem of denialism. Two major new issues for denialism have…

  • The Obama Plan – Part I

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    MarkH
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    We’re starting to hear about how Obama intends to implement healthcare in this country. President Barack Obama says he’s open to requiring all Americans to buy health insurance, as long as the plan provides a “hardship waiver” to exempt poor people from having to pay. Obama opposed such an individual mandate during his campaign, but…

  • What is health care like in the UK, Canada and New Zealand?

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    MarkH
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    Three systems widely cited as examples of universal health care are the so-called single-payer systems in the UK, Canada and New Zealand. These systems I would describe as “socialized”, and rely for the most part on taxation for funding. The system in Canada for instance, uses taxes to pay for health care administered by the…

  • What is the cause of excess costs in US healthcare?

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    MarkH
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    The question has come up again and again in our discussions on health care in the US and around the world, why does it cost so much more in the US when we get so much less? The drug companies and their lobbyists are already out in force trying to make sure their pocketbooks aren’t…

  • What is health care like in France?

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    MarkH
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    Here it comes. How dare I suggest the US could learn anything from France? By most assessments France provides the best health care in the world, with excellent life expectancy, low rates of health-care amenable disease, and again, despite providing excellent universal care, they spend less per capita than the US. Using about 10.7% of…

  • What is healthcare like in Germany?

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    MarkH
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    What better argument for universal health care can you make than that of Germany? By far one of the most successful systems, it has had some form of universal health care for almost 130 years, and is currently one of the most successful health care systems in the world. It is again, a mixture of…

  • What is healthcare like in the Netherlands?

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    MarkH
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    The Dutch really have it together on health care, they have a system that has been proposed as a model for the US to emulate. In stark contrast to many other European systems, it’s actually based entirely on private insurers, rather than a single-payer or entirely national system. Yet the Dutch system is universal, has…

  • What’s health care like in Australia?

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    MarkH
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    To start off some balanced discussions of what universal health care looks like around the world, I thought I would begin with Australia, a system that we could learn a great deal from. In the US system, we do not have universal healthcare, we have mostly employer-subsidized healthcare, private insurance and medicare covering people’s health…

  • Are Patients in Universal Healthcare Countries Less Satisfied?

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    MarkH
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    A dishonest campaign has started against healthcare reform in this country and the first shot has come from Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR), a group purporting to show that patients in universal health systems suffer from government interference in health care. To bolster their argument, they have a pile of anecdotes from people around the…

  • What should a national health care system look like?

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    MarkH
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    I was pleased to see president Obama deliver this address yesterday: Click To Play I was even more pleased because he has gathered the traditional opponents of healthcare reform around him and has convinced them to commit to reform in the US system. This is a positive sign. However, I’m concerned because, as with all…