The US does not have a model for a successful health service — Richard Murphy

I haven't done the weighted averages on the data, although it would be easy to do. The simple facts stand out. After five years most people who have cancer in the USA are alive. In fact, overall it looks like there might be a near nine in ten chance of that.
And the associated cost is a 40% chance of bankruptcy.

That is no way to run a health service.

And yet this is the model those in office in the UK aspire to.

Tax Research UK
The US does not have a model for a successful health service
Richard Murphy | Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London; Director of Tax Research UK; non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics, and a member of the Progressive Economy Forum

US Healthcare System in Crisis: Spends Doubly More Than Peer Countries, but Falling Behind in Life Expectancy—People Increasingly Hard-Pressed to Pay Medical Bills — Jon Hellevig

More an article than a post. Longish and detailed.

Awara
US Healthcare System in Crisis: Spends Doubly More Than Peer Countries, but Falling Behind in Life Expectancy—People Increasingly Hard-Pressed to Pay Medical Bills

Jon Hellevig

David F. Ruccio — Sciences of inequality

Last month, Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (whose important work I have written about before), issued a tweet about the new poverty and healthcare numbers in the United States along with a challenge to the administration of Donald Trump (which in June decided to voluntarily remove itself from membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council after Alston issued a report on his 2017 mission to the United States).

The numbers for 2017 are indeed stupefying: more than 45 million Americans (13.9 percent of the population) were poor (according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure*), while 28.5 million (or 8.8 percent) did not have health insurance at any point during the year.

But the situation in the United States is even worse than widespread poverty and lack of access to decent healthcare. It’s high economic inequality, which according to a new report in Scientific American “negatively impacts nearly every aspect of human well-being—as well as the health of the biosphere.”...

Occasional Links & Commentary
Sciences of inequality
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

Russell Mokhiber — Study Finds Single Payer Viable in 2018 Elections

Medicare for All is politically viable in 2018.

That’s according to a new report from Alex Panagiotopoulos and Kingston Creative.

The report is titled – Is Medicare for All Politically Viable? A Guide to 561 Congressional Candidates….

Lookin' good. JG getting play, too. Unfortunately, the Democratic Establishment that doles out funds to candidates is against it.

Counterpunch

Study Finds Single Payer Viable in 2018 Elections
Russell Mokhiber | editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.

Jack Peat — Some of the best healthcare systems in the World are publicly funded, the NHS just isn’t one of them

Donald Trump today used the NHS as a reason not to push for Universal Health Care in the US.

The President pointed to demonstrations yesterday in the UK with thousands of Brits taking to the streets to protest the poorly run system.

But even though Trump might have a point about the UK, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on in regards to publicly funded health care systems.

Indeed, many people have pointed out that some of the best healthcare systems in the World are publicly funded....

The London Economic
Some of the best healthcare systems in the World are publicly funded, the NHS just isn’t one of them

Jack Peat

Jon Walker — Democrats Have Given Up on Private Health Care Markets — and for Good Reason

Some Democrats are coming to recognize that since access to health care is a right, health care is a public good, and universal health care cannot be provided efficiently and effectively by the private sector for profit.

Longish, but it goes in to the history and details. A good introduction to the present state.

The Intercept
Democrats Have Given Up on Private Health Care Markets — and for Good Reason
Jon Walker

Sarah Kliff — An astonishing change in how Americans think about government-run health care

Vox
An astonishing change in how Americans think about government-run health care
Sarah Kliff

Bill Mitchell — A government can always afford high-quality health care provision

Must-read on the abysmal state of the American health care system. Disseminate widely.

The only way that these sorts of debates will progress, however, is to take them out of the fiscal policy realm where they are largely inapplicable and start talking about rights and what different interpretations of these rights concepts have for real resources allocations and redistributions.

Whether a nation can afford first-class health care depends only on the real resources that are available to it for that purpose.

If all available real resources are being fully utilised then to expand their use in one area requires another area(s) give up its (their) claim on those resources.

In US politics, affordability of health care provision is only one side of the coin. The other side is the highly contentious "right versus privilege" issue.

Liberals and progressives generally hold that access to quality healthcare is a right whereas conservatives generally hold that health care is a privilege, although many conservatives would agree that all should have access to emergency treatment. Many conservatives argue that access to emergency rooms, which only treat acute conditions, is sufficient provision.

The abysmal state of health care in the US is a cultural outcome of a highly individualistic framework and a political plutonomy.

On the other hand, polling shows that the public is in favor of universal access to quality health care through something like Medicare for all.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
A government can always afford high-quality health care provision
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

James Kwak — How Markets Work

Argument for single payer based on health care being a public good rather than a private good.

Baseline Scenario
How Markets Work
James Kwak | Associate Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law

Nicolas J S Davies — Duping Americans on Healthcare and War

The American people have been sold a deadly bill of goods both for their lousy healthcare system and for their perpetual war machine – and there’s no end in sight, as Nicolas J S Davies explains.

Consortium News
Duping Americans on Healthcare and War

Nicolas J S Davies

Scott Adams — The Systems President

Interesting proposal. No spoiler.

The Scott Adams Blog
The Systems President

Scott Adams

Matthew Martin — How to design a medicaid buy-in

I think democrats have an unrealistic vision of how medicare buy-in would work in practice. They're confident the buy-in program would fund itself, that the insurance plan would be generous, and the premiums low. None of these things are true....

Interesting analysis and proposal.

It also shows implicitly that the only way to go is single payer with the currency issuer picking up the tab as a public investment and "social dividend." Insurance is never going to be "affordable." What makes health insurance "affordable" now is business including it in employees' compensation package. But this reduces wages and salaries.

As health insurance has increased in cost, employee compensation has become increasingly dominated by health care expenses and wages and salaries have become stagnant as a result. Employees complain about lack of wage and salary increase, while business points to figures that employee compensation has been stable owing to increasing benefits.

Separating Hyperplanes
How to design a medicaid buy-in
Matthew Martin

Caroline F. Pearson — House of Representatives ACA Repeal and Replace Legislation Could Increase Penalties for Failure to Buy Insurance

The bill makes significant changes to the ACA, including replacing the individual mandate penalty with a new penalty for failing to maintain continuous coverage. Both approaches are designed to insure that sick and healthy—as well as old and young—Americans pay into the insurance pool, which promotes affordability.

Under the ACA, the individual mandate imposes penalties on people who are uninsured for more than three months during the course of the year. Those penalties are adjusted based on income and are prorated based on the length of time an individual was uninsured.

As proposed in the AHCA, the continuous coverage requirement would apply a premium penalty for individuals who have a gap in continuous coverage of 63 days or greater over 12 months. The penalty is equal to 30 percent of the monthly premium and would last for 12 months, starting in calendar year 2018.

Because premiums are age adjusted, the penalty would be higher for older people and lower for younger individuals. Additionally, because the AHCA’s penalty is not tied to income, low-income individuals will pay significantly more under the AHCA’s penalty, compared to what they pay for not having insurance under the ACA....

Avalere

House of Representatives ACA Repeal and Replace Legislation Could Increase Penalties for Failure to Buy Insurance
Caroline F. Pearson | Senior Vice President

Ellen Brown — “Ryancare” Dead on Arrival: Can We Please Now Try Single Payer?

The Canadian plan also helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans. . . . We need, as a nation, to reexamine the single-payer plan, as many individual states are doing. — Donald Trump, The America We Deserve (2000)

Web of Debt
“Ryancare” Dead on Arrival: Can We Please Now Try Single Payer?

Ellen Brown

Ryancare in trouble?

RyanCare is being strongly dissed by many Republicans and all Democrats will vote against it.  Opponents say it cannot pass in the House, let alone in the Senate.

Breitbart News
Rep. Dave Brat: RyanCare a Perverse Economic System
Neil W. McCabe

Rush Limbaugh on Obamacare 2.0: ‘Why Do the Republicans Want to Hurt Trump’s Base?’

Exclusive — Sarah Palin on Paul Ryan’s ‘RINO-Care’: ‘Socialized Medicine’; President Trump Will ‘Step In and Fix It’
Matthew Boyle

Breitbart News Daily: Rand Paul on Ryancare

Reuters — Exclusive: Kremlin plans special clinic for Putin's top officials

The construction of the new block is part of a broader program by the Kremlin's property management department to improve the healthcare infrastructure it manages. Those facilities are primarily for the use of senior state officials.

The department's spending on building or rebuilding health infrastructure within its portfolio increased 200 percent between 2012 and 2016, according to official data. At the same time, spending on the state-provided healthcare used by most ordinary Russians has risen far more slowly, lagging behind inflation.

You are apparently supposed to be outraged by this — which assumes that you are so naive that you don't know how US politicians and high government officials have outsized health perks that distinguish their care from ordinary Americans — because they can.

Reuters — Political Special Reports
Exclusive: Kremlin plans special clinic for Putin's top officials

Xinhua — China issues first white paper on traditional Chinese medicine

The Chinese government published its first white paper on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) on Tuesday, detailing policies and measures on TCM development and highlighting its unique value in the new era.

"TCM has created unique views on life, on fitness, on diseases and on the prevention and treatment of diseases during its long history of absorption and innovation," said the white paper, Traditional Chinese Medicine in China, published by the State Council Information Office.

As ideas on fitness and medical models change and evolve, traditional Chinese medicine has come to underline a more and more profound value, according to the document.

Boasting the establishment of a TCM medical care system covering both urban and rural areas in China, the white paper said there were 3,966 TCM hospitals, 42,528 TCM clinics and 452,000 practitioners and assistant practitioners of TCM across the country by 2015....

Western allopathic medicine is particularly suited to acute conditions, whereas traditional health care approach like TCM are suited to chronic conditions.

However, traditional health approaches emphasize perfection, prevention and treatment in that order.

The objective is maintaining excellent health and preventing ill health from arising. Treatment is the last resort.

According to traditional wellness approaches, the four pillars of health are diet, exercise, rest and life style. Intervention is only needed in the case of accident or imbalance if one adheres to a healthy regime.

In the West this approach is called holistic health.

China.org.cn
China issues first white paper on traditional Chinese medicine

Xinhua

Tobias Konitzer — Obamacare is very popular

This deep dive into our polling data shows that people are demanding the impossible: cheap, comprehensive health insurance that they can purchase only when they need it. Unable to accomplish universal health insurance, Democrats took the unpopular step of mandating health insurance because they recognized it was necessary for the marketplaces to function. To date, Republicans have avoided making explicit how they will negotiate the popular and unpopular provisions of Obamacare, preferring to promise, in Trump’s words, “something terrific”. Now that they have full control of the Presidency and Congress, Republicans have tough choices to make. The majority of Americans might support Trump’s healthcare plan now; do not be surprised if that changes quickly when they find out how much they actually like Obamacare!

Predictwise
Obamacare is very popular
Tobias Konitzer | PhD candidate in communication at Stanford University

Simon Maloy — GOP’s Obamacare trouble: “Repeal and replace” turns out to be tougher than it sounds

Crunch time.

Salon

GOP’s Obamacare trouble: “Repeal and replace” turns out to be tougher than it sounds
Simon Maloy

Also

Another hot potato. Paul Ryan wants to roll the repeal of Obamacare and privatization of Medicare together. Democrats are smiling at the prospect.

Daily Kos
GOP suddenly a wee bit nervous about privatizing Medicare?

Kerry Eleveld



Hullabaloo
They've decided to kill us slowly

digby

Reuters — China healthcare costs forcing patients into crippling debt

Not just the US.

Official data show up to 44 percent of families pushed into poverty were impoverished by illness.

The good news is that modern health care is capable of providing treatment for many conditions that were not treatable previously. The bad news that a lot of it is very costly and only the wealthy can afford the best treatment when care is rationed by price.

Reuters
China healthcare costs forcing patients into crippling debt
Adam Jourdan and Ben Hirschler | Shanghai/London