I Thought Healthcare Was Awful In This Country?

[MrsSmith]

This is not very complex. We have an excellent and expensive health care system for people who are able to afford it, however, for people who can't afford it, it's not so great. It's our lack of universal care and high prices that gives us a low ranking. RIch people who travel to the US for high-priced healthcare are going to get a very different healthcare experience than unemployed citizens.

The WHO ranking isn't looking at how good the healthcare system is for a millionaire, it's looking at how good it is overall.

That's like comparing the entire education system to a select few private schools.


Think about Soviet Russia. If you were in a small town and you didn't have any connections, you might go to a shitty filthy hospital without running water. However, if you had connections in the Party and had the right job, you could get some of the best healthcare in the world.

Hospitals are not perfect, but you're unlikely to find any US hospitals that are "shitty filthy." US healthcare isn't perfect, but it's better than any of the "free" healthcare. The government is working hard to write enough regulations to make it worse than the "free" stuff, but they haven't managed it yet.

Strangely enough, the patients most likely to get lousy treatment are those on government "insurance,' like Medicare and Medicaid. This is because the government reimburses only 65% of the cost of the treatments. Self-pay and insured people both frequently get better treatment.

As more and more people end up on government "insurance," our healthcare system will become as poor as other countries, with many smaller clinics and hospitals being forced out of business, and those remaining open becoming more and more overcrowded and having to use cheaper labor and fewer trained personnel. Eventually, we may actually end up with "shitty filthy" places as hospitals struggle to treat more and more people on less and less money.

[Rockntractor]

works against those who are who would like to be self employed and in small business.

I can't argue with that statement.
Something needs to give in the insurance industry. I am apposed to any government system.

[Novaheart]

Right, I remember hearing this before too, and I looked it up:

I'm sure you know that I support universal healthcare. However, I don't think we need to prove a need for it by comparing life expectancy or infant mortality with other countries. While this might be changing somewhat, there are huge players who either don't report, or who can't be trusted in what they report.

Moreover, the US is somewhat unique in that we have large populations which are not native to this country or culture even if some or most of them were born here. We have 12 million or so illegal aliens in this country. That's almost 5% of our population. We have a huge African and Afro-Caribbean immigrant and minority population- a group of people who have racial dynamics pertaining to births, ie shorter gestation periods which skew our numbers. Do these countries you are comparing us to have the ethnic diversity that we do?

It takes a while for immigrant populations to catch up. Some minority populations generate their own discrepancies through diet, living conditions, violence. I feel certain that if you compared an ethnically homogenous WASPy area the size of the Switzerland to Switzerland, there wouldn't be a huge difference in the stats.

[noonwitch]

Hospitals are not perfect, but you're unlikely to find any US hospitals that are "shitty filthy." US healthcare isn't perfect, but it's better than any of the "free" healthcare. The government is working hard to write enough regulations to make it worse than the "free" stuff, but they haven't managed it yet.

Strangely enough, the patients most likely to get lousy treatment are those on government "insurance,' like Medicare and Medicaid. This is because the government reimburses only 65% of the cost of the treatments. Self-pay and insured people both frequently get better treatment.

As more and more people end up on government "insurance," our healthcare system will become as poor as other countries, with many smaller clinics and hospitals being forced out of business, and those remaining open becoming more and more overcrowded and having to use cheaper labor and fewer trained personnel. Eventually, we may actually end up with "shitty filthy" places as hospitals struggle to treat more and more people on less and less money.

The Detroit Medical Center, located in downtown, is a very decent place. They were on the verge of bankruptcy a few years back, but they are back on track and expanding. We keep telling the kids we work with that medical technology and nursing are good fields for future employment.

But even Detroit Receiving Hospital, which is the emergency hospital for the city, is a clean and good place. They deal with filthy junkies, along with gunshot victims, people having heart attacks at work in downtown offices and every other thing a big-city ER deals with.

[Starbuck]

Ranked by life expectancy, the US of A is 36th in the world.

Can anyone here guess what the 35 countries ahead of us all have in common...........

They have little or no black population.

[AmPat]

Ranked by life expectancy, the US of A is 36th in the world.

Can anyone here guess what the 35 countries ahead of us all have in common?



Also, the World Health Organization ranks us at 37th in the world in terms of health care systems, again, can anyone guess what the nations ahead of us have in common?

A quality of life that restricts their intake of massive amounts of food that is bad for them and cultures that eat healthier foods. Facts suck to liberals don't they?

[Novaheart]

Ranked by life expectancy, the US of A is 36th in the world.

Can anyone here guess what the 35 countries ahead of us all have in common?



Also, the World Health Organization ranks us at 37th in the world in terms of health care systems, again, can anyone guess what the nations ahead of us have in common?

Japan and Chinese Hong Kong are #1 and #2. Neither of these states has Single Payer healthcare, and China does not (to my surprise) have universal healthcare.

Just the other day I was reading about the plight of some Chinese kidney patients, who because they could not afford Chinese health insurance or dialysis at a commercial center, they bought some used machines from a private hospital and started a dialysis collective. The press got wind of it, the government got wind of it and shut it down because it made the country's healthcare system look bad. In a rather Republican fashion, they gave the patients one year of free dialysis while they "save up for treatment".

"I'll be dead within two years." said one of the co-op owners.

[AmPat]

Japan and Chinese Hong Kong are #1 and #2. Neither of these states has Single Payer healthcare, and China does not (to my surprise) have universal healthcare.

Just the other day I was reading about the plight of some Chinese kidney patients, who because they could not afford Chinese health insurance or dialysis at a commercial center, they bought some used machines from a private hospital and started a dialysis collective. The press got wind of it, the government got wind of it and shut it down because it made the country's healthcare system look bad. In a rather Republican fashion, they gave the patients one year of free dialysis while they "save up for treatment".

"I'll be dead within two years." said one of the co-op owners.

Who paid for the "free" dialysis?

[Novaheart]

Who paid for the "free" dialysis?

The "Republican fashion" referred to was the notion that people who can't afford health insurance can somehow "save up" for actual health care. Don't roll your eyes like that, it makes you look stupid

[AmPat]

The "Republican fashion" referred to was the notion that people who can't afford health insurance can somehow "save up" for actual health care. Don't roll your eyes like that, it makes you look stupid

I can't help it, If I stare at you I'll puke. Staring at stupid too long makes me sick.