Which of the above is easier to emotionally handle? At the moment millions of Americans do not receive healthcare. I've always been a strong advocate of free health care and believed it a disgrace that the USA with all its wealth did not provide healthcare. However, despite this belief I do not believe that the USA health care system should be changed at this current time. I believe you could give free health care but you would soon be taking it back. Just as in the UK, we will I'm sure lose much of out health service due to public debt. So my question is, is Privation better than Deprivation?
The question I would ask you is thus, do we have a privatized healthcare system today in The United States? What constitutes a privatized healthcare system in your view? Do Canada, Germany or France have a privatized healthcare system? In those countries healthcare delivery is run by private enterprises but government is the single purchaser of healthcare services. So does that make their system privatized or socialized in your view? I would also ask why is that now is not the time to reform the US healthcare system? If not now when? There are really three issues here, one is the moral issue which you raised. The second and more important in my view is an issue of healthcare quality. And the most important issue is the one that those against healthcare reform would like to pretend does not exist. It is the issue of cost. The United States healthcare system is the most expensive in the world - more than twice as expensive as that of any other industrial nation in the world. One might make an arguement that the quality of healthcare is better in The United States, but the evidence to support that notion is not there. In fact the evidence shows the qualtiy of US healthcare is declining. The traditional approach to rising heatlhcare costs in The United States has been to "cost shift" - transfer the cost form one party to another, most notably federal and state government. And now since the federal government can no longer afford the cost of healthcare Republicans want to shift the cost again to the very people that could not pay for it back in the 60's when they created Medicare to provide healthcare for seniors. Instead of playing tricks with our current healthcare we really need to address the factors that make our healthcare system so expensive and inefficient. And that should not be difficult to do. We have good models - every other industrial country in the world. So it is not like we have to reinvent the wheel.
Seems like the UK could start charging copays now for those of means... in effect, a sliding scale system, and drastically reducing the cost thereby. Thus not lose much if at all... I dunno...my Mom's friend of 14 years died because she couldn't afford readily available meds to keep her blood sugar under control, and when the doctor recommended she go to an ER, she refused because it would have meant more debt...so she went home and died later. ...OTOH she could have been eating rationally, she ate a lot of junk. If I had had access to treatment, it might not have taken me six years to get sinus disease diagnosed, but I was paying out of pocket, and x-rays were $150... A friend of mine went to a hospital as a charity case...they were wondering whether to treat him, and were actually arguing against it based on the fact that he's finishing out a degree in literature, so he'll never be worth a lot... My biology professor in 2009 talked about her brother dying in the same county health system that I use. He had colon cancer surgery-that part went well, but they forgot to give him antibiotics, so he died of sepsis. The county is where the docs do their residencies-and screwups-before they move on to the paying customers. I guess each country puts a social price on your life in a different way. In the US, if you are worth more, so is your life.
actually in the UK all health care workers are either goverment employees or goverment contractors (in the case of GPs). Why would you have a sliding scale for a goverment provided service? Does the US have a sliding scale for fire fighters or police? When you tell them your house is on fire do they ask for your credit card info?
In some places in The United States they do. If you don't pay the bill for their services they will let your house burn.
Well they might not get a health care insurance policy but they can receive free, depending upon their income levels, or greatly reduced costs at a community hospital if they ever need medical help. Don't forget that millions of people do receive Medicare and Medicaid for free as well so there are millions getting health care insurance now. You want everyone to have it, fine, how do you pay for it? :shrug:
You can get emergency care and some care a free clinics if you are in an area that has free clinics. However, you may not be able to get appropriate care for particular chronic ailments especially those requiring expensive treatments. Under the new heatlhcare law, everyone pays what they can afford for their heatlhcare whereas today some pay and some do not.
The county hospital district I go to does...because I make $10.25 an hour I get a $10 copay for everything. So it's what I'm used to. :shrug: Oh, and there's a lot of meds they don't carry. I have been having panic attacks in public, but the county system does not carry benzodiazepines. I just get to shake rattle and roll, and if I start shaking too hard to stand, I have to find a bench. And they aren't carrying singulair/montelukast, they are substituting...some other leucast, perforce. Hope it works as well, or it's Indian-copy time.... The ambulance and fire department out here is volunteer...if you aren't paying the $10 a month fee and you need an ambulance or have a fire, they will send you a $900 bill after they haul your butt or put out what's left of your house. Since I lived out here when I spectacularly totalled my first car and busted myself all up, I did indeed get one of those, and it has scrolled off my credit rating because I had no real job and could not pay. Man, it was really embarrassing to have guys from my high school hauling my lard a$$ out of that totalled car with my eyebrow on my cheek...
Please be specific about what you are talking about. Where I live there are many fine state run hospitals that treat everything from a splinter to a heart transplant for free to those who have nothing. They have even taken in citizens from other countries with medical problems and treated them for months for free as well. Where does any other country do that for other citizens of other countries?
Hey Cosmic... Could you provide a link to one of those hospitals? If the county people keep letting my sinuses languish....it's a thought. I can fricken take a Greyhound to Florida to get surgery. Texas. This state is really run by right-wing ideologues whose attitude about the poor is something like "Let 'em die, we can get more." Oh, and only the counties with major cities here have public health systems. Most of the rural counties don't have anything.
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&xhr=t&...gc.r_pw.&fp=4f5d99df8e6c9a1d&biw=1120&bih=622 They do frown upon citizens from another state coming to them and might turn you away however. Since I'm not privy to their standards you'll have to inquire about whatever it is you need to know before coming here.
then how does that have anything to do with UK doctors being public servants or goverment contractors?
