Here's a great dissection of the prevarications and dissembling of BO at the Portsmouth, NH, 'town hall' this past week.

Good one, anymore jokes? It is against the law to sue the government except in very rare ocasions. You can sue for information but not damages. As a vet I can't sue because of malpractice which is why if a doctor is close to losing their license they go to work for the VA. What makes you think that the government is going to open itself up to litigation after spending huge wads of our money to provide us with healthcare? If a government employee is injured on the job and it is the governments fault you can sue. if you win they give you compensation but they do not pay lawyers fees. That is why there are only three lawyers in my state that even do federal damage suits. The system is designed to discourage law suits. There is no money in it for the lawyers so they don't do that kind of law.

Interesting little tidbit from this article in the WSJ:

This is consistent with my contention that the 'free-er' healthcare gets for the individual, the more expensive it becomes for society.

taltamir, you know a wealthy person who would like to jump the Canadian queue for her health care by spending more money in the US? Shocker. If she wants to do so, that's her call. For all I know, it was for plastic surgery. I was merely pointing out one case of an American taking advantage of the Canadian system. There are plenty of Americans who have moved to the UK, France and northern Europe (Sweden, Norway, etc.) for better social services. Yes, they have higher taxation. But it's not like the US is a tax haven as it is.

The life expectancy graph was just one piece of the puzzle. It's a starting point. Since you're spending the highest % of your GDP on health care, you should logically be the best in virtually every category. Life expectancy, infant mortality, various cancers – these are just a few of the many things the US is not the best in the world at combatting. Since your government spends the most on health care, though, than virtually any other nation in the world, we can conclude that this money is being poorly spent, and has been for quite some time (similar comparisons over the past decade have come to the same conclusion). Therefore, it's probably time to try something different.

I was always taught that a business is not a charity. To business owners, this is a given – they need to make a decent profit to keep going. That's the comparison. I see it another way, too. Charities should not become a business. The insurance providers in the US are trying to please both shareholders, who would like to see increased profits, and their customers, who would like to make insurance claims. And you know what? Insurance companies can't meet both demands. It's a broken system.

Daiwa: there was very little information in that article as a comparison to UHC programs outside of that paragraph. Even within that paragraph, there are only two pieces of data. For all I know, Canada's per-capita out of pocket expenses could be 10.1%.

Oh, and for those who want to read it, here's the full text of the bill.

Such a conclusion requires that %GDP spent on healthcare be the sole determinant of life expectancy & infant mortality, which it clearly is not.  It's also clear that you're not up to speed on cancer survival rates in the US vs., say, Canada and the UK - they're better here.  And were my wife to give birth to a seriously premature infant (not possible, just hypothetically speaking), there's nowhere else that child's chances of survival would be as good as here, let alone better.  Sorry, but %GDP is an intellectually lazy argument.

Well, it seems there is another healthcare system being described as 'unsustainable' - by its own doctors.

Care to guess?  This is rich, really rich.  And the timing is exquisite.

Wait, your contention is that because we spend more we should be the best? We have a higher population of old folks that is what the country spends most of its healthcare dollars on. A nation of 300 million and almost a third of that is my age group 50's and higher, medicare and medicaid is government run, and partially government funded the rest of us pay our own way. So yes, we pay more per person treated because we treat everyone regardless of their ability to pay and bill them later. If you are poor the government picks up the tab, if you are old the government picks up the tab unless you have the money to pay out of pocket. Healthcare is not rationed as it is in other countries. waiting three to five years for a hip replacement is unheard of in America. As I pointed out before Japan ranks second in the world for life expectancy but how many old people do they have to take care of compaired to America? Don't forget the difference of six years. All this arguing is over the average difference of six years. Eat fish and rice as your staples and you live maybe 6 years longer than the person that eats at McDonalds.

Better insufficient evidence than no evidence at all

Ceteris paribus it should be. Hence if it isn't that unless there are other factors that can be shown to explain away all of the difference, there is likely (more) inefficiency in how that money is used.

If anything you'd expect that to be beneficial due to economies of scale.

One possible explanation - how do the demographics compare with other countries though?

Well since you've not provided any comparative figures, I decided I'd get some instead.

US 2009 est: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Age_structure:

65 years and over: 12.8%

UK 2008 est: http://www.indexmundi.com/united_kingdom/demographics_profile.html

65 years and over: 16% (and increasing, so the 2009 est would be expected to be the same or higher, not lower)

You'd probably have more luck if you went with the 'bashing the fat' factor

I don't know about you, but 6 years is a long time to me. It's also the arguing over trillions of dollars worth of spending, since if the 6 years is in any way down to the healthcare system of the country in question, and it is spending less, then you could save lots of money by adopting their system, spending less, and without having life expectancy take a hit, assuming you're able to effectively emulate their system.

In case you missed it.

This is even worse than what we have now... it is better to have expensive but safe medical care due to crazy lawsuits than abolish lawsuits alltogether. We need payout LIMITS (say, 1/4th of a million dollars), not the elimination of compensation.

why is everyone ignoring this?

How about one of you intelligently respond to this instead of skirting the issue with hyperboles (is hyperbole the right name for it?) likes "Better insufficient evidence than no evidence at all"

Hard to have an intelligent conversation when you come out with stuff like this:

If healthcare has no affect on life expectancy, what is the point of having any healthcare at all?

Can anybody tell me why some people should be forced to pay for expensive treatment for other people while so many more lives could be saved for less money?

The fact is that there are many places in the world where some very little, compared to Obama's or any public health care plan, money would be enough to raise public healthcare standards considerably. Instead the money is used for patients who already have a chance.

Once we have decided that we can take people's money and spend it on other people's health (which I understand is a moral thing to do and I won't argue it), can we not also decide that the number of lives saved and people covered by basic health care is the metric we should go for?

Tax Americans and use the money to bring African healthcare systems to the standard of the current American system for poor people.

I understand conservatives will tell me that doing so would be wrong because it is wrong to take people's money to give it to others, even in the form of free healthcare.

But can liberals tell me what's wrong about my alternative to Obama's healthcare system and why Obama's healthcare plan is morally superior to my proposal?

And this is what it comes down to. Once we decide that taking money from one group to provide something to another, we have to figure out which other, and why not others still.

A conservative is here someone who refuses to give except voluntarily. A liberal is someone who takes and then uses an arbitrary system to determine who should receive.

It's not the most needy who will benefit from this system. It is not the most needy at all. The most needy are not even part of the discussion because they don't live in America. And yet, we are told, it is the American system that needs repairing. How can that be?

I'd be darned, I was sure it was "healcare SPENDING" ... in context, it WAS money spent on health care being a direct link to expectancy.

And you are still cowardly avoiding an answer; you attack me because there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to counter my argument. "oh boohoo the evil man is mean and disrespectful of us"

On the other hand, yes I off handedly insulted people who completely ignore facts to concoct their imaginary little world by calling them stupid. But I only do so after presenting irrefutable evidence. Just as I offhandedly laugh at those who claim the earth is flat. When someone is that delusional or stupid than I have no obligation to respect their opinion. Show me an intelligent counter argument and I will respectfully debate it, until then I am going to point and laugh.