From the BBC:
Drug death toll at record levels
Scotland's drug death toll has risen by more than a quarter in the last year, new figures have shown. Statistics from the General Register Office revealed drugs killed ...
OK ... before you read the article, see if you can guess how many cases they are talking about, bearing in mind that Scotland has a population of about five million. Click and highlight to reveal the answer:
574
Wednesday 12 August 2009
Fun with numbers
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13 comments:
So obviously time to adopt the Portuguese approach.
Fears that Portugal would become a haven for drug tourists have not come true and the number of deaths from drugs has decreased.
But then, the puritans would have a seizure, wouldn't they?
Far more people will have died from misapplication of medical drugs by the NHS.
Excellent, I guessed 500; that makes me Drug Death Estimation Guru.
"Far more people will have died from misapplication of medical drugs by the NHS."
What's wrong with 'by doctors'? There's no evidence at all that the funding mechanism for a health system affects levels of medical malpractice, so 'NHS' is a total red herring.
JB, good guess!
You then spoil it by saying there's no evidence at all that the funding mechanism affects malpractice, in which you may well be correct.
You are, afraid making the time-honoured error of confusing the funding side with the provision side! I don't think anybody minds too much if healthcare is largely taxpayer-funded (as it is in most European countries).
The important difference is that in other European countries, there are competing providers who have every incentive not to kill people or else patients will go elsewhere in future.
PS, I am always alert to medical malpractice stories to post at NDS, and I accept that the private healthcare sector in the UK is very small, but in nearly a year of posting there, I can't remember a single non-NHS f***-up story.
Surely the pro-NHS lobby though would tell you that that's because private hospitals do not do emergencies and that even where they have cocked up and caused someone nearly to die they are at that point taken for emergency treatment at the local A&E NHS hospital.
Still a quarter of 400 and something could even all be put down to one extra pure or extra adulterated batch of something I would guess.
The "health care" system in Scotland kills 4 times that number every year just from Hospital Acquired Infections....
> I don't think anybody minds too much if healthcare is largely taxpayer-funded
Oh I do! Health is personal, not collective.
AC1, is there a big difference between a Citizen's Dividend and a Healthcare Voucher?
MW,
Yes. One is allowing you to choose what you spend it on, or even buy it. The other is beurocrats telling people to spend x on healthcare.
AC!, given where we're starting from, that's a small difference, not a big difference.
Sorry, but I'm a pedant (helps in my line of work (computers)).
It's small in some ways, but large in it's cultural tone, i.e. the Government decides for you.
I'd alter the CD Health part based on age and sex, and require people to insure, but I wouldn't "voucherise" it.
"It's small in some ways, but large in it's cultural tone, i.e. the Government decides for you."
Agreed. Once we've got CD and Health Vouchers (each of which is a quite separate battle), then the next obvious step is to merge the two (of course).
"I'd alter the CD Health part based on age and sex, and require people to insure."
You've just completely contradicted yourself.
e.g. in Germany, there is compulsory health insurance (deducted from wages, as it happens, not from CD or funded out of LVT, different topic) and when you go to the doctor the fund pays for it.
Is that more like your idea of "CD and compulsory insurance" or my idea of "CD and Health Vouchers"?
"I'd alter the CD Health part based on age and sex, and require people to insure."
Neither contradict my idea.
Requiring people to insure is there to prevent people demanding treatment they cannot pay for, this always ends up being an externalisation.
Altering the CD based on age and sex to subsidise insurance up to the level for healthy person does not make the government direct you on how to spend that money. It just acts like a (admittedly forced) savings scheme.
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