Well, not to bust your rant, but statistically, it *is*...

So Matthew, should the New England Journal of Medicine publish these goofy findings? Some wag in Liverpool thinks, blah, blah, blah. So that's hard evidence that England's death rate for breast cancer is lower than the USA's, get real Matthew.

Matthew is a Brit here trying to Socialize American health care. Matthew thinks football is played with a round ball.

You can comment to Matthew at "The Health Care Blog." If you can stand all the Socialist there.

But much more importantly, the issues on which they are asked are NOT generally relevant to just sick people. Problems with coordination of care, medical errors, poor communication from physicians, etc, etc, are likely to happen to everyone....they just happen more to the sick because they have more interactions with the system.

And you managed to avoid the major finding of the survey on costs--which has now been repeated in eight years of research covering many different groups of respondents. The answer is of course that costs here are much higher and are concentrated much more among the sick.

If you really think you know what you're talking about, write Health Affairs a letter in protest, and prepared to get your face ripped off in a very nice academic way.

But stop pretending that the whole body of work on international health findings that this study represents is wrong because you think you found a little statistical trick they missed.

You said:

The truth is, 50% of americans pay for health care, 50% get it for free (its paid for by those enrolled in HC programs).

Fifty plus fifty equals one hundred, or "everybody."

"I’m not the one selling absolutes here (“all people” or “no people”)." Who then?

"Now, when you say everybody gets health care in the US, where does that come from?" WHO is YOU?

I said that if you show up bleeding at the doorstep of the ER, it is "highly unlikely they will be turned away".

Criticize that and you criticize the care-givers, not the system. Maybe you can rebut with an article from a surfing magazine this time?

Americans pay more when they get sick than people in other Western nations and get more confused, error-prone treatment, according to the largest survey to compare U.S. health care with other nations.

Now, when you say everybody gets health care in the US, where does that come from?

I think James is correct that factors in the survey could shift the numbers a bit ... but I don't think he is saying there is not room for improvement. He and I might just disagree about how to achieve that improvement.

To use a software analogy, how many times to you patch a system before a rewrite?

More than half went without needed care because of cost and more than one-third endured mistakes and disorganized care when they did get treated.

I get the idea that you are willing to help care for people who need it, but that you are unsure we need to do more ... that survey tells me we need to do more.

Unless you can prove, with some actual data, that everybody is getting the care they need.

My earlier point being, if some one IS critically injured, it is highly unlikely they will be turned away. They will receive care, and you and I have to pay for it.

How do you insure those who have the opportunity, but have chosen NOT to pay?

At what point can we stop taking responsibility for the failure of others to avail themselves of the opportunities we provide them?

Well if they are "unable" to figure things out, and take care of themselves, that kind of puts them in the "needs help" category.

I know a lot of government aid is (absurdly) for people who already take care of themsleves, but that is not the normal purpose of assistence.

We know it does, sometimes. That is our system.

The real question should be, if we want the policy to be that someone hurt in front of a hospital gets to go inside, how do we do it?

I understand of course that there probably is a program somewhere they could take advantage of … but we are talking about the many slips between cup and lip.

At what point can we stop taking responsibility for the failure of others to avail themselves of the opportunities we provide them?

Let me guess? I'll guess apocryphal.

I mean, a story in a bicycling magazine, about healthcare, where some undicsclosed person "heard" about this story, where a guy got hit, and later died...

Any indication that there would not have been complications, and that he would have lived? Or would he just have died after receiveing care in a different hospital?

Could the biker, perhaps have requested transport to county, knowing that he did not have insurance?

Can't you do any better than this?