[Azure]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

That's a bizarre list, Azure. It looks like you're comparing two different things: two-tier and single-payer. You need to do an apples-to-apples comparison: based on who pays and who has access--though that would admittedly be a more complicated process, and perhaps not the sort of thing where a quick google search would count as research.

Nice spin.

I'm not comparing anything. I looked at the top 20 health care systems in the world and found out what kind of system each of those countries use. You were the one who said two-tiered health care doesn't work. Well, according to the WHO, it works rather well.

Also--what makes those the "top 10"? How are you defining "two-tier?" What are the costs as a percentage of GDP?

Maybe you should ask the WHO what makes those countries the top 10. Or the top 20.

I mean, if you actually want to argue THOSE points.

Sorry, before you accuse me of being shrill, you'd better find some facts to back up your claim that two-tier health care is efficient.

LOL.

Because when the WHO goes out and ranks the health care system in each country, they don't give a rats ass about efficiency. Hell, what do they care about? Well, if you would actually bother to take a look....

WHO's assessment system was based on five indicators: overall level of population health; health inequalities (or disparities) within the population; overall level of health system responsiveness (a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system acts); distribution of responsiveness within the population (how well people of varying economic status find that they are served by the health system); and the distribution of the health system's financial burden within the population (who pays the costs).

http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_ce.../en/index.html

No, nothing in there about being efficient. Nothing at all. The WHO ranked the best health care systems in the world, and despite saying that 6 out of the top 10 systems were two-tiered in certain ways, they made a huge mistake.

They forgot to measure of efficient those systems were. Better call them. Even despite the article above clearly pointing out just exactly HOW they compiled those rankings.

Oh, and if you don't like my dripping sarcasm, well maybe you should quit trying to spin your away out of admitting that you were 100% wrong when you said two-tiered health care doesn't work. It does, according to the WHO, to the Cato Institute, and to the government of those countries ranked in the top ten that use two-tiered health care.

The report is from 2000, but I wanted to use the WHO one because who would want to listen to the Cato Institution and their findings?

Even if we accept your list (and for the record, I don't... France as a two-tier system? lol! Oman in the "top 10" over Sweden, Norway, and the UK?! What is it they say on the internet? Oh, yes: ROFLMAO!) it still doesn't speak at all to my point,

Uh, what?

My list, or the list I made comes from the last WHO ranking of the worlds best health care systems.

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

http://www.photius.com/rankings/who_...lth_ranks.html

Not to mention the tortured logic of your post: because 6 of the "top 10" health care systems are two-tier, therefore two-tier is better. That just hurts my brain. One part false dilemma, one part begging the question with a sprinkle of "appeal to common practice." You need to find some evidence that actually supports your claim.

Your spinning hurts my brain too.

If 6 of the top 10 ranked systems in the world have two-tiered health care, how does that then not show that two-tiered health care tends to work better, considering 6 of the top 10 health care systems in the world use two-tiered health care?

Until then, you're offering about as much as Cowperson did in his post. A little folksy rhetoric on top, but not a lot of filling in the pie beyond calling your opposition names, I'm afraid.

And you're stuck with your same old spin. Can't admit that you're wrong, so you try to spin your way out of it by accusing the other person of making up lists and creating false dilemmas.

Hey, nobody cares about the WHO, right?

To hell with their list. They don't know what the hell they're talking about.

The damn WHO ranked those countries. Not me. And out of the top 10 health care systems in the WORLD, according to the WHO, 6 of those were in SOME form two-tiered. Each system was obviously different, but by definition they had two-tiered health care.

I did not just assume that either. I looked every system up.

Oh, and a quick update actually. Spain should be considered two-tiered as well.

That would then be 7 out of the top 10 countries in the world have some form of a two-tiered system.

Clearly that isn't enough evidence to show that two-tiered health care tends to work better.

So, spin away...as usual.