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@richardjmurphy really should read a report before he starts frotting over it

Sadly, he doesn\’t.

The truth is that the NHS is actually a stunningly cost-effective supplier of high-quality healthcare,

So let us look at the actual report, from the Commonwealth Fund.

To start, we should note that the Commonwealth Fund is about as independently minded as Compass is. They\’re actively campaigning for \”single payer\” in the US.

So, let\’s look at how they\’re measuring what they\’re measuring.

The first and most obvious measure of how a health care system performs is how well it actually deals with those things that can be dealt with by a health care system. Which they do:

The goal of a well-functioning health care system is to ensure that people lead long, healthy, and productive lives. To measure this dimension, the Commission’s National Scorecard report includes outcome indicators such as mortality amenable to health care—that is, deaths that could have been prevented with timely and effective care;

Excellent, and the NHS\’s position? Second to last. So, at what a health care system is supposed to do, treat those things which are treatable by a health care system, the NHS is crap.

Recall, this report is by people in favour of government health care…….

Let\’s look at cost-efficiency…..which they do.

In the Commission’s first National Scorecard report, efficiency is described in the following way: “An efficient, high-value health care system seeks to maximize the quality of care and outcomes given the resources committed, while ensuring that additional investments yield net value over time.”14 To measure efficiency, this report examines total national expenditures on health as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP), as well as the percent spent on health administration and insurance. An important indicator from the 2007 survey of adults includes whether patients spent any time on paperwork or disputes related to medical bills or health insurance.

Well, lookie at that!

So, we take the amount of GDP that is spent on health care. Then we add the amount spent on insurance. What? But the insurance is what is being spent on health care. This is straight double counting.

It\’s possible that they\’re not actually being that dumb, sure. What they mean is the amount spent on insurance which isn\’t spent directly on health care: the admin, the cost of getting the premiums in etc.

However, if we\’re going to count that then we have to count the costs of getting in the tax money to pay for those not insurance based systems. In the UK this means the costs of collecting national insurance. And if we\’re to include the costs of \”disputes related to health insurance\” then we have to include disputes related to NI. Oh, and the deadweight costs of  system of taxation. At our current marginal rates, figure 35% or so of cash raised.

So, no, it\’s not possible to say that the NHS is cheap, either.

So, err, our NHS is crap and expensive, as we thought.

Ritchie really ought to read these reports before he gets all excited over them.

5 thoughts on “@richardjmurphy really should read a report before he starts frotting over it”

  1. “The truth is that the NHS is actually a stunningly cost-effective supplier of high-quality healthcare,”

    Ritchie owes me a new keyboard. Again.

  2. The best line:

    “And all that for a much, much lower cost per head than the US market based system but also less too than everywhere but New Zealand, which ranks pretty poorly on everything but being patient focused.”

    (NZ came 1st, UK 7th in being patient focused).

    Building a health service to focus on the patient – can’t those stupid Kiwis get anything right?

  3. Ambrose, I think Tim meant ‘frenziedly masturbating’. But that’s just too horrific an image to really be entertained for more than a few picoseconds.

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