Poll: Healthcare (Pick Three)

[Seldon2639]

As told to me by a doctor/professor, here's the breakdown:

We can get any three of the following four "goods" in healthcare, but only at the sacrifice of the fourth:

1. Availability
2. Convenience
3. Quality
4. Cost

We can have completely available, totally convenient, and high-quality healthcare, by disregarding cost and spending huge amounts. If we want to save cost, we have to give up one of the others. So, completely available healthcare, high quality, and inexpensive, but it's inconvenient and time consuming (like the reports of huge wait times in Canada). We can have convenience, quality, and cost, by excluding some (or a lot) of people from the system. We can have availability, convenience, and cost, but we have to give up quality.

So, pick your poison. What three do you want?

Edit: okay, the whole convenience thing is this: it doesn't just mean "how far do you drive to get it", but mostly refers to things like the speed at which you can get non-urgent care, the delays in referrals, that kind of thing. Canada has instituted many of those things (like huge lag time for non-emergent care) to try to curb costs while not lowering the quality of medicine once you're in the office, nor the availability of it to all.

 

[sky14kemea]

Availability, Quality, Cost; give up Convenience

as long as its available, good quality and i can afford it, i dont really care about convenience illness isnt convenient anyway unless you've got a really bad week ahead of you...
and i mean reeeeeally bad

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

Whichever one Europe is using.

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

Which ever one Europe is using.

This, cept replace "Europe" with Norway and Sweden.

You should probably go with something like France or Italy.

 

[NeedAUserName]

Which ever one Europe is using.

This, cept replace "Europe" with Norway and Sweden.

You should probably go with something like France or Italy.

And don't stray to the UK, our Healthcare is terrible.

 

[Avaholic03]

Aren't availability and convenience tied together? If healthcare isn't widely available, it isn't very convenient is it?

That being said, cost and quality are the most important. The other two are related, but less important. As long as I get cheap, quality healthcare in a timely manner, it doesn't have to be perfectly convenient. I'll even drive across town, so it doesn't have to be widely available.

 

[Fingerprint]

Well I voted for the last option because I believe in the N.H.S.

 

[chronobreak]

The guy is full of crap, you should never have to "settle", we can have the best of all worlds with a little bit of work and sacrifice on the part of people, not programs. The problem is everyone's pockets go too deep, and there is little accountability for people's lives by people working at an insurance company. So, I choose all four. Call me an optimist, but saying that you HAVE to choose out of those things is just wrong.

But, that doesn't have much to do with our current health care scenario, I suppose, so if things were to not change, I guess I would have to pick convienience. I would travel farther to get care, however what about the people who need an ambulance, or need an appointment quickly? I dunno, man.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

Interesting, though not surprising, as of yet, no one has sacrificed Quality.

 

[ElephantGuts]

I don't know, that's a tough one. For third world countries where medical care is rare for most people, I would say Availability, Convenience, and Cost, but give up Quality. Everyone needs access to basic healthcare before you start getting picky about how good it is.

Personally though, I would say I prefer Availability, Convenience, and Quality but give up Cost because my health is really valuable to me and I want as much as I can get, the best I can get, and as easily as I can get it, regardless of cost.

 

[The Shade]

Interesting, though not surprising, as of yet, no one has sacrificed Quality.

"Oh, you have a skin rash? Well, we'll just get that amputated for you."

 

[Robyrt]

I just sacrificed Quality. I think that the correct number of treatments and specialists is being far overstated in America right now, and we could do with a more streamlined system.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

Interesting, though not surprising, as of yet, no one has sacrificed Quality.

"Oh, you have a skin rash? Well, we'll just get that amputated for you."

Strangely enough, I just had a similar, if not as extreme experience at the doctor. You don't want to know.

 

[Lord George]

Which ever one Europe is using.

This, cept replace "Europe" with Norway and Sweden.

You should probably go with something like France or Italy.

And don't stray to the UK, our Healthcare is terrible.

We have remarkably good healthcare when people actually get given it, its just the overworked and under staffing problems and the bloated bureaucracy its caught up in that stops it from being such a shining example. Though most importantly its free.

 

[Bluebacon]

Interesting, though not surprising, as of yet, no one has sacrificed Quality.

"Oh, you have a skin rash? Well, we'll just get that amputated for you."

Either that or 'oh dear. It's dropped off. Do you want us to put it in a paper bag for you?'

 

[Nuke_em_05]

I just sacrificed Quality. I think that the correct number of treatments and specialists is being far overstated in America right now, and we could do with a more streamlined system.

I don't think you understand the poll, or I don't. To me, it is not "what would you sacrifice or boost of the existing system?". It is "what would you want, in a "tabula rasa" healthcare system where you must sacrifice one of these".

Even so, if the number of correct treatments and specalists is far overstated, then we have much less quality currently, and you would suggest we go even lower.

What you seem to be saying is you would have hospitals on every other block, with no waiting, very cheap, but the doctor doesn't know your heart from your liver.

 

[Seldon2639]

Aren't availability and convenience tied together? If healthcare isn't widely available, it isn't very convenient is it?

That being said, cost and quality are the most important. The other two are related, but less important. As long as I get cheap, quality healthcare in a timely manner, it doesn't have to be perfectly convenient. I'll even drive across town, so it doesn't have to be widely available.

Convenience in this sense refers to convenience for the people within the system. You want cheap, quality, timely, healthcare (so, you want cost, quality, and convenience). But, you then don't want to give up availability, which means you want all four. But, you can't get quality, convenience and availability without spending a lot of money.

The guy is full of crap, you should never have to "settle", we can have the best of all worlds with a little bit of work and sacrifice on the part of people, not programs. The problem is everyone's pockets go too deep, and there is little accountability for people's lives by people working at an insurance company. So, I choose all four. Call me an optimist, but saying that you HAVE to choose out of those things is just wrong.

But, that doesn't have much to do with our current health care scenario, I suppose, so if things were to not change, I guess I would have to pick convienience. I would travel farther to get care, however what about the people who need an ambulance, or need an appointment quickly? I dunno, man.

Okay, convenience doesn't just refer to traveling to get to the doctor, it also refers to wait times, referral delays, and other things they do in Canada to curb costs. But, how would you suggest getting high-quality, universal, and easily-accessed healthcare without spending a lot. If you kick people out of the system, you can save money and provide great results for the people left. The point is that there's no system in the world (past, present, or future) which has been able to provide low-cost, high-quality, universal, and speedy healthcare.

I shudder the day that something bad happens to me because it is more cost effective to leave me for dead than to be treated and charged for the outrageous medical bill and medication. I really hope America starts looking out and follow other nations and their example to provide everyone high quality healthcare not worrying about the cost.

They do worry about cost. Canada instituted wait periods, and really stringent guidelines for services, pay doctors less (thus probably getting fewer high-quality doctors), and set caps on spending (which makes hospitals less likely to use resources for fear of going over their allotted budgets). Germany regulates how, and where, a doctor can practice medicine, but does accept rather significant costs of the system. There's no country that says "costs be damned, people deserve health", it's just different ways of rationing the limited healthcare dollars.

 

[scotth266]

I like the one where convienience is missing. That's the one I like.