I really appreciate Frontline's "Health Care Around the World" special tonight....

[marmar]

.... and the up-front honesty about the U.S. health care system: "Sick, Sick, Sick" and "A Fourth-rate system" is how the host described it, BUT, there's always a but....

The host is using American propagandized terms for analysis. When talking about Britain's system, he uses "socialized medicine" as a perjorative. And he talks about Blair's attempts to introduce free-market reforms in glowing terms.

But those gripes asie, I hope everyone gets to see this special. The ending thesis is that our system blows chunks.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/?campaign=pbshomefeatures_1_frontlinebrsickaroundtheworld_2008-04-15

[rodeodance]

1. I saw it also--very good reporting. I liked the Tiawan model. Lets go for it!!

[Juche]

2. Taiwan was amazing

And it reminds me of why the US will not be a superpower in 30 years and will be overtaken by South east Asia.

The Taiwanese got together experts to examine the healthcare systems all over the world in the mid 90s, and built a good system based on ideas from a dozen countries that covers everyone for 6.2% of GDP with 2% administrative costs (compared to 16% of GDP and 20-25% administrative costs here). They seemed logical and willing to act on that logic.

In the US we aren't willing to do anything that radical, and all our solutions would be based on stereotypes, heuristics, idealogy, handouts and revenge.

So yeah the Asian countries (Japan, S. Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Vietnam) will kick our asses in the next generation. But maybe the competition will wake us up and force us to act more effectively and efficiently.