That same thing happened to me. When I lived in Houston I had a burst appendix, they did not notice until it was almost too late and I had to have emergency surgery at Texas Children's.
No, it's not. In England and Canada, they spend LESS per capita, cover EVERYONE, and get better results.
I can guarantee you there is more to this story than what the family is saying. In the article it states that they knew the boy had wax in his ear. I bet when they tried to remove it, either the boy or the parents wouldn't let them. Furthermore, it is quite easy to distinguish between a conductive hearing loss (like what the boy had) and a sensoneural hearing loss (permanent). It sounds like the specialists he saw knew he had the conductive hearing loss and either did not treat him or weren't allowed to. I wouldn't indict a whole system from on sensationalized, one-sided news story.
You can say the same thing about our current medical system. It works for me. If you want a taste of American socialized healthcare, take a stroll down to your nearest DMV.
The difference between our health care and say..France's is that if I need a specialist, I can make an appointment and usually see them within a week or sometimes two. In many socialized countries you have to wait several months. Thats why the rich in those countries will pay extra $$ to see a private doctor, or in the case of Canadians, they'll travel to the US for healthcare. Many have claimed that paying extra money to see private specialists has saved their lives. There was one lady who couldn't get an appointment with a specialist for 4 months in France, so she paid out of her own pocket %100 to see a specialist. Found out she had cancer & they told her that if she had waited to see the specialist, it probably would have been too late to save her life.
Yeah except Canada has made it illegal for Canadians to circumvent their wonderful system to seek medical care in the U.S.
U.S. Ranks Last in Preventing Deaths from Treatable Conditions By Caitlin Webber, CQ Staff January 11, 2008 -- Although the United States is the global leader in health care spending, it ranks last among industrialized nations in preventing deaths from treatable conditions, according to a recent study from The Commonwealth Fund. The study also found that the nation lagged behind developed nations in improving avoidable death rates. Between 75,000 and 100,000 lives could be spared annually, the study said, if the United States matched progress made by France, Japan, and Australia—the top-ranked nations. "It is startling to see the U.S. falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance," said Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen. "The fact that other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less, indicates that policy, goals, and efforts to improve health systems make a difference." The study, published in the January/February issue of the journal Health Affairs, examined deaths before age 75 from conditions "amenable to health care" in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and 14 European countries between 1997–1998 and 2002–2003. Researchers Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine focused on more than 30 conditions that could be effectively treated with health care, including appendicitis, bacterial infections, tuberculosis, thyroid disease, measles, epilepsy, diabetes, and certain cancers. The United States placed fourth from the bottom in 1997–1998, but plunged to last place by 2002–2003 with 110 preventable deaths out of 100,000 people. The study reveals an average 16 percent drop in preventable deaths among the 19 nations in the five years studied—the United States had only a 4 percent decline. It's hard to ignore that the slow decline in U.S. preventable deaths "has coincided with an increase in the uninsured population, an issue that is now receiving renewed attention in several states and among presidential candidates from both parties," researchers said in a statement. About 47 million Americans lacked health insurance in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. According to the World Health Organization, America spends more on heath care, nearly $2.1 trillion annually, than any other nation in the world. The United States is the only country in the study without universal medical care. The study found Ireland, where the preventable death rate fell 23 percent, along with Austria and the United Kingdom, to be the most improved countries. France had the lowest preventable morality rate, with 65 deaths per 100,000 people. The study's authors said the rate of preventable deaths "is a valuable indicator of health care system performance" but should not be construed as a definitive measurement, but rather "as an indicator of potential weaknesses in health care that can then be investigated in more depth." Catherine Hoffman, associate director at Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, said in an interview that the study is "consistent with many international comparisons where the U.S. doesn't fare well." While it is fair to compare health among economically developed countries, Hoffman said using averages masks "the racial, socioeconomic, and access disparities the U.S. deals with [that] drive differences in health outcomes." If the study had compared preventable death rates among insured Americans, Hoffman said she expects "the U.S. would have done far better in its ranking." http://www.commonwealthfund.org/healthpolicyweek/healthpolicyweek_show.htm?doc_id=647643
It's funny how many people that have never been in a universal medical system can say what does and does not happen. The nonsense of having to wait months to see a specialist is ridiculous and to compare the DMV to a universal medical system is silly at best. Universal medicine is not perfect, no system is, but at least other countries are trying to do what is right and more often than not they are being successful. You would think that "The Greatest Country On Earth" could learn from these systems and make it even better. Greed and social complacency will not let that happen though.
Thanks for the link. That was hilarious. Some of the topics covered at the site- Leftist Ideologues Advocate a Perverse Health Care System By Stuart Browning 60s Radicals Now in Charge of Universities By Stuart Browning Our short film El Uno De Mayo, casts a light on the left-wing totalitarian groups behind the recent May Day marches. We should definitely give more weight to the ranting of wingnuts, than the analysis done over many years, by multiple organizations like the WHO, when evaluating which countries medical systems are the most effective.
Prove it. The Republican candidates spouted this ad-infinitum during one of their previous debates, but please provide statistics showing that we have a better healthcare system than those countries. Because the last time I checked, our life expectancy, infant mortality rate and other health indicators were lower than many other nations with socialized health care. You can throw out all of the anecdotes you want about someone who had to wait two weeks to see a doctor, but that isn't proof that our medical system is better.
I watched the GOP Florida debates and laughed everytime they would give us this garbage. We suck at EVERY statistic that you mentioned.
Amazing how the title of this topic turned this from a "hey thats weird" thread into a D&D socialized medicine thread..
National health care will be no different than privatized health care. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/01/28/noindex/nhs127.xml Don't treat the old and unhealthy, say doctors By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 27/01/2008 Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives. Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone. Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state. The findings of a survey conducted by Doctor magazine sparked a fierce row last night, with the British Medical Association and campaign groups describing the recommendations from family and hospital doctors as "out*rageous" and "disgraceful". About one in 10 hospitals already deny some surgery to obese patients and smokers, with restrictions most common in hospitals battling debt. Managers defend the policies because of the higher risk of complications on the operating table for unfit patients. But critics believe that patients are being denied care simply to save money. The Government announced plans last week to offer fat people cash incentives to diet and exercise as part of a desperate strategy to steer Britain off a course that will otherwise see half the population dangerously overweight by 2050. Obesity costs the British taxpayer £7 billion a year. Overweight people are more likely to contract diabetes, cancer and heart disease, and to require replacement joints or stomach-stapling operations. Meanwhile, £1.7 billion is spent treating diseases caused by smoking, such as lung cancer, bronchitis and emphysema, with a similar sum spent by the NHS on alcohol problems. Cases of cirrhosis have tripled over the past decade. Among the survey of 870 family and hospital doctors, almost 60 per cent said the NHS could not provide full healthcare to everyone and that some individuals should pay for services. One in three said that elderly patients should not be given free treatment if it were unlikely to do them good for long. Half thought that smokers should be denied a heart bypass, while a quarter believed that the obese should be denied hip replacements. Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA's ethics committee, said it would be "outrageous" to limit care on age grounds. Age Concern called the doctors' views "disgraceful". Gordon Brown promised this month that a new NHS constitution would set out people's "responsibilities" as well as their rights, a move interpreted as meaning restric*tions on patients who bring health problems on themselves. The only sanction threatened so far, however, is to send patients to the bottom of the waiting list if they miss appointments. The survey found that medical professionals wanted to go much further in denying care to patients who do not look after their bodies. Ninety-four per cent said that an alcoholic who refused to stop drinking should not be allowed a liver transplant, while one in five said taxpayers should not pay for "social abortions" and fertility treatment. Paul Mason, a GP in Portland, Dorset, said there were good clinical reasons for denying surgery to some patients. "The issue is: how much responsibility do people take for their health?" he said. "If an alcoholic is going to drink themselves to death then that is really sad, but if he gets the liver transplant that is denied to someone else who could have got the chance of life then that is a tragedy." He said the case of George Best, who drank himself to death in 2005, three years after a liver transplant, had damaged the argument that drinkers deserved a second chance. However, Roger Williams, who carried out the 2002 transplant on the former footballer, said doctors could never be sure if an alcoholic would return to drinking, although most would expect a detailed psychological assessment of patients, who would be required to abstain for six months before surgery. Prof Williams said: "Less than five per cent of alcoholics who have a transplant return to serious drinking. George was one of them. It is actually a pretty successful rate. I think the judgment these doctors are making is nothing to do with the clinical reasons for limiting such operations and purely a moral decision." Katherine Murphy, from the Patients' Association, said it would be wrong to deny treatment because of a "lifestyle" factor. "The decision taken by the doctor has to be the best clinical one, and it has to be taken individually. It is morally wrong to deny care on any other grounds," she said. Responding to the survey's findings on the treatment of the elderly, Dr Calland, of the BMA, said: "If a patient of 90 needs a hip operation they should get one. Yes, they might peg out any time, but it's not our job to play God."
Oh man that's a totally rad analogy, except it doesn't make any sense because the US, with its private system, spends more per-capita (and specifically, administrative costs) on health care than any other country in the world It's the American exceptionalism argument, except in reverse!
nor does it prove that it is worse. Also, maybe crappy lifestyles (and not medical care) causes low life expectancy? Maybe poor mothers/diet/etc cause low infant mortality, and not dr care? on the flip side...i dont think those examples prove that the current system is worse.
So you do not think that medical care is directly proportional to the general health of people? Doesn't it make you think when you see that there are countries that have a general overal better health, as a country, and the common denominator amoung these countries is that everyone has access to medical care? edit: Excellent quesiton surrender.
