re: Single payer healthcare in Japan with population of 127 million

we could not have that system if we were 100% white wtf

100% Japanese or South Korean? OK

an easy refutation to the "if we were all white, it would work in the US" argument

People of Walmart

They have a different system in a variety of ways. Doctors don't make as much and see more patients per day. Pharmaceuticals are not the same kind of cash cow we have here. Lawyers do not influence costs in the same way. There are not layers of managers in hospitals and insurance companies.

Single payer would probably lower costs in theory here. But only if you could keep all of the stakeholders from protecting their very profitable industries.

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don't many/most Japanese hospitals close on the weekends?

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Dunno about that, but price controls essentially lead to the lengthy wait times seen with rationing.

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For decades, insurance coverage and prices have been set by Chuo Shakai Hoken Iryo Kyogi Kai (the Central Social Insurance Medical Council), better known as Chuikyo, set up under the health ministry. Made up mostly of industry representatives including the JMA, drug industry groups and insurers’ associations, Chuikyo reviews the prices for all medical procedures and drugs available in Japan every two years, and generally works to lower prices for older ones. The government wants to introduce a yearly review from fiscal 2018 to further rein in costs.

But the downside of this long-running system is that, while the government controls the cost of medical goods and services, it doesn’t control the volume of services provided, Tsugawa said. This has fostered a culture in Japan of patients seeking more care than necessary because access is unlimited, he explained.

This high demand serves the interests of hospitals and clinics, who need to increase the amount of services available to make up for the narrowing profit margins resulting from Chuikyo’s price cuts, he said.

This explains why doctors in Japan are always busy, handling dozens of patients daily and sparing little time to communicate with them. It also explains why tests are so commonplace at clinics and hospitals.


“What this cycle of price cuts has caused over the past 50 years is that, Japan has the highest number of MRIs and CT scanners (per 1 million people) in the world and three times more outpatient visits than in the U.S., and the length of hospital stays in Japan is three times longer than in the U.S.,” Tsugawa said. “The sheer volume of medical services consumed in Japan is huge.”

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LINK

Yeah, I edited right after I posted.

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what Japan needs is rationing to combat those issues

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Then hospitals and doctors will be fricked. Price controls force them to go the Wal-Mart method with slim margins on massive amounts of "sales." The unnecessary procedures are insanely inefficient and lead to the wait times you'd see with rationing. I don't see the difference in a wait time three times as long as our's due to legit rationing vs. doctors having a massive backlog due to MRIs on sprained toes. I guess the care is better with the Japanese model while the rationing could be more efficient financially.

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Average health insurance premium of $140 per month for a family of four ($35 per person)

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How often do they go to the ER just for a case of the sniffles?

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Of all the things in China that are corrupt, their healthcare isn't one of them

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Those Chinese cars are also very dependable.

They're all the same to him

Work ethnic , need I say more

Countries with somewhat successful single payer systems have two things in common:

1. They have much higher labor participation rates
2. They spend jack shite on the military because we provide their global security.

When America stops providing global security, and everyone gets off their asses and starts contributing to society, we can talk about single payer.



Oh one more thing....

In a single payer system, a 72 year old with congestive heart failure gets pain meds and sent home to die. In America, we dump $100k+ into prolonging their life a few more years.