OT Ever see the doccumentary Sicko?

[632 Regal]

Very amazing information

[bigtisas]

Without universal health care, we could be in deep **** if we are out of work. Many countries have universal health cares Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, UK, France...etc. Their health systems are not perfect but at least you don't have to worry about insurance.

[632 Regal]

according to the documentary the US is the ONLY western country to NOT have UHC. Thanks the the pharmaceutical industry and the pay offs they did. Remember Hillary Rod and her push for UHC? she was even paid off to walk away. I usually look at both sides of any documentary but in researching the facts in this I cant find anything skewed about it. We in the US can go to any hospital anywhere besides here, including France and Cuba and get as good of or better care than here...without insurance and not even being a citizen there and not walk out with a single bill...unless you count the 5¢ breather the lady needed that cost 120 here. King George can kiss my ass.

[repenttokyo]

. We in the US can go to any hospital anywhere besides here, including France and Cuba and get as good of or better care than here...without insurance and not even being a citizen there and not walk out with a single bill...unless you count the 5¢ breather the lady needed that cost 120 here. King George can kiss my ass.

That's not true...if you don't have a medicare card in canada (ie, you are not a citizen) it's a minimum of 100 dollars up front before anyone will even register you in emergency, and you will be billed for the entire cost of your visit and for any tests that were performed, etc. We don't give away free healthcare to non-citizens. Even Canadian citizens who don't present a valid health card are in the same boat.

[attack eagle]

according to the documentary the US is the ONLY western country to NOT have UHC. We in the US can go to any hospital anywhere besides here, including France and Cuba and get as good of or better care than here...without insurance and not even being a citizen there and not walk out with a single bill...unless you count the 5¢ breather the lady needed that cost 120 here. King George can kiss my ass.

Well I have been treated in socialized universal health care systems, and I have to say I don't much care for it. The care you get in a hospital here far exceeds what passes for health care in MOST of the world's UHC hospitals. Not to mention that if you think the emergency room waits are long here now, wait until you experience the same kind of wait at every healthcare appointment. Nothing like making an 8am appointment on tuesday and being seen around thursday. When you subtract the cost of insurance from a doctor's salary they make a comfortable, but not fantastic living. Let's get that under control and perhaps we will see our cost of medical care decrease, and then our cost of insurace might decrease as well.

Oh, and I don't have healthcare insurance and I'm STILL against this idiocy.
Socialism is NEVER the answer.
TANSTAAFL is especially true here.

[Macv]

You only hear the bad stuff in the news and movies these days. Maybe it's the reason everyone in America has a bad attitude toward everything.

[Zeuk in Oz]

Very amazing information

Not yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

I must say that Oz has what I consider an excellent health system in that we have Medicare which is a nationalised health scheme and on top of that we have a private system that allows choice of specialist etc.

We can have private insurance but still use the public system.

The other advantage we have is that our doctors practise preventative medicine.

Best of both worlds.

By comparison my sister is working in Sweden as a doctor for a year - that system is totally nationalised and a patient gets no choice at all as to specialist etc. The doctors there have to practise according to a ready reckoner. If you have symptoms a,f & r, treat with X.

They also don't practise preventative medicine.

I have never understood why the US didn't bite the bullet on medicine and social security reform rather than spending trillions in Iraq.

[632 Regal]

Preventative is the answer, my juniors has a cronic disease and the only MD fix is removing his spleen! So i have a chronic headeche removing my brain is the answer???? fukt up here man. US meds and docs are fukt.

Not yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

I must say that Oz has what I consider an excellent health system in that we have Medicare which is a nationalised health scheme and on top of that we have a private system that allows choice of specialist etc.

We can have private insurance but still use the public system.

The other advantage we have is that our doctors practise preventative medicine.

Best of both worlds.

By comparison my sister is working in Sweden as a doctor for a year - that system is totally nationalised and a patient gets no choice at all as to specialist etc. The doctors there have to practise according to a ready reckoner. If you have symptoms a,f & r, treat with X.

They also don't practise preventative medicine.

I have never understood why the US didn't bite the bullet on medicine and social security reform rather than spending trillions in Iraq.

[indierthanthou]

no kidding. i have to pay for my own insurance now, so i cant even go to a doctor or hospital unless i get hit by a bus or something, because i pay everything up to i think 3000 bucks.

[Ferret]

no kidding. i have to pay for my own insurance now, so i cant even go to a doctor or hospital unless i get hit by a bus or something, because i pay everything up to i think 3000 bucks.

In the UK, the NHS is berated a lot because it's generally craptacular... however after reading this, I'm glad that it exists.

Everyone's entitled to be healthy and go and visit their GP for any reason, no matter how small it is. Having an 'excess' on that would drive me with fear about having to visit a doctor etc.

EDIT: Having said that we do pay a second 'tax' to fund it called National Health Insurance. Everyone pays this as tax on their income regardless, upto a certain maximum amount. It's not a huge amount, but it's probably comparable to most private health plans.