Health care- which system is better?

[Cheyenne]

Take a look at
http://www.cmwf.org/programs/international/schoen_5nat_charts01_387.asp#chart4

Percentage of the elderly needing non emergency surgery who waited for 5 weeks or more.

Great Brittan, 51%, Canada 40%, New Zealand 34%, Australia 19%, United States 7%.

I've heard national health care is great, as long as you only need preventative care. Just don't get sick and need a doctor NOW.

What do you think?

 

[Closet Desire]

I don't think...

...you've heard anybody in GB say how great the health care is.

However--noticeably absent from the ranking are countries like Spain, France, et. al. who have received high marks for their health care systems.

Sometimes it's those that are quietly missing that should be noticed.

 

[vlvtelvis]

health care

Health care is a right.
Medicine is a right.

If we've got the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," we've got the right to health care. The right to life implies the right to things that keep one alive.

How assorted beurocracies choose to go about it is beside the point. As long as medicine is seen as a comodity, rights are being violated. One can not have a right to life and have that right be commodified at the same time.

 

[shadowsource]

Damned good point

...you've heard anybody in GB say how great the health care is.

However--noticeably absent from the ranking are countries like Spain, France, et. al. who have received high marks for their health care systems.

Sometimes it's those that are quietly missing that should be noticed.

The survey only studies the Anglo-Saxon countries. How about Germany, Sweden, etc?
I had much contact with the UK system in the 80s, when someone close to me was in a coma. The care, dedication, thoughtfulness, technology, were all superb. I was very impressed. I know the combination of budgetary Americanization and the genuine pressures of ever-more expensive, state-of-the-art diagnostics and treatments have fouled up National Health since then.

 

[Myrrdin]

In the UK anyone can go and see a Doctor for free. You just make an appointment. You don't have to worry about the cost of any treatment. Or whether your health insurance will cover the expense. It is a state funded service. It's available equally to all, regardless of income.

I was talking to someone from the US who complained how expensive his coronary bypass was. I told him in the UK he could have had it for free. He almost had another heart attack.

Yes the National Health Service is underfunded. Yes it is better in some other European countries, who tax their citizens more heavily to pay for it. But private health insurance/care is also available for those who want it.

 

[shadowsource]

The horror -

In the UK anyone can go and see a Doctor for free. You just make an appointment. You don't have to worry about the cost of any treatment. Or whether your health insurance will cover the expense. It is a state funded service. It's available equally to all, regardless of income.

I pay almost $350 a month, and that's if I don't get sick.

 

[lobito]

healthcare in the US, depending on where you are pretty much sucks. For all the doctors that come to the US to learn medicine, and then practice, they should probably take more courses so they can, "fix someone up" as I was told by one doctor, right.

two years ago, when I had a massive concussion, I had to have a spinal tap to "fix" me, didn't work. 3 days later, I was back having one done the correct way, by a doctor who obviously knew what he was doing. Withing minutes of the second spinal tap, I felt like I did before my accident, just a little sore from the HUGE needle they both used on me.

It also should NOT take 3 hours to be seen, when someone has head trauma, even the second doctor told me this, after I told him how long I was there in the ER. If I had called an ambulance, it would have cost my insurance company alot of money, BUT, I would have been seen right away, BOTH TIMES. Each time I was at the hospital for 12 hours or more.

If it's something small, that some people would go to the ER for, I go down the street to the public clinic. I pay for that clinic to be open with my tax dollars so by God, I'm gonna use it!

 

[shadowsource]

.

 

[lavender]

 

[shadowsource]

Yes, but...

The one country that is absent from this is Switzerland. They supposedly have THE best health care system in the world.

You have to GO there, and it's about the most boring place in the world, after San Jose in Costa Rica.

 

[Duo]

Heathcare here in the US sucks bigtime! My wife and i are quite lucky her work has such a good health plan. Or else we would be so deep in the red due to the medication she takes.

US neds to stop wasting money on weapons and trying to be top dog and look after thier country men. The US heath system is slowly going down the tubes if things are'nt mended to where a average citzen has basic heathcare coverage.

Peter

 

[vlvtelvis]

For what it's worth . . .

The only nation in the western hemisphere where 100% of babies are born in hospitals and 100% of women recieve pre-natal care is Cuba.

 

[Closet Desire]

Contrary...

...to popular notions--healthcare or going to see a doctor in the UK isn't "free". In fact, the taxes someone earning £50,000 earmarked for healthcare exceed the cost of an insurance policy in the US (yes I used to pay for it there).

I wouldn't question the dedication of any of the professionals administering the care, but at the same time I have a friend who waited three months to see a cardiologist, another three months for an angiogram, and is waiting yet again for another specialist. In the meantime, yes, he has been diagnosed with heart problems.

As bad as some Americans think the US system is you can see a cardiologist and receive an angiogram, treadmill, and many other life saving ops within a matter weeks if not days. If you're older here then there's an even greater chance that health care will, by necessity, be rationed.

It happens and it's no secret.