I'm sorry for your mother's illness, and hope she keeps up the good fight.

With all due respect, my father is a cancer survivor for 13 years now, and I thank God he got to pick his own doctors and feel like he may be dead if he would have been treated through a public health care system.

I read about quite a few Americans who go to India to get treated because they can't afford treatment here.

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1984 300TD

Is it studying a historical model, or is it watching one interview about one country's system as seen through the eyes of one official?
It is always good to study as many systems as you can, and instead of choosing one, try and discover a way to mitigate the downsides of others.

As far as I know, no one here is proposing not being able to choose your own doctor. Except current insurance companies, who can and sometimes do hand you a list of acceptable doctors.

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1984 300TD

1. sanjay gupta is a shill for the drug companies and health insurance industries. do your homework

2. anecdotal evidence is wonderful; it's just anecdotal though. god forbid we actually know the facts.

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Weren't you the one extolling it and how-dare-Obama-mess-with-it-ing it a few months back?

Well let's see, it seems the US spends around $5200 per capita on health care, while Ireland is about $3000, and we spend 15%+ GDP on health care, while they spend 8%+ of their GDP.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/In-the-Literature/2006/May/Health-Care-Spending-and-Use-of-Information-Technology-in-OECD-Countries.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

The wiki cites a survey, which is linked, showing that 90% of the population is satisfied with their healthcare system.

Heck, dude, nevermind India, Texans go down to Mexico all the time to get cheaper healthcare.

No, you've known me long enough to know I have been very critical of how the Republicans have cut VA funding and benefits, despite urban legend Repubs are no friend of Veterans.

England and no it wasn't elective it was necessary.

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"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

The British-UK model strikes me as the least desirable of the existing systems. Fresh Air on NPR had a great piece yesterday from a guy who traveled the world and sampled the various systems:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112172939

The French model is said by many I've heard talk about it to be about the best of the lot.

I'm thinking that some sort of single payer method with major triage and preventive care counseling for the underclass that is now sucking down major $$ by clogging up ERs around the country would be an improvement. We're paying for it now - we could make it more efficient.

People of means could continue to pay for their more luxurious, more rapid care.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Well since we are paying a ton by default now with the ER, and paying for illegals to boot. Their has to be a better way.

I just have zero faith in the government being able to do anything well.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

The guy on the link I posted above to Fresh Air had an old, chronic shoulder pain problem and he was looking for the best relief he could find as part of his odyssey. He said that Indian Ayurvedic treatments actually gave him the best relief he'd found. He had been offered the new titanium shoulder option and rejected it owing to risk. About 2% of joint transplants go bad, resulting in serious downsides up to and including death.

He said part of his treatment in India involved massage by about 8 people at once.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I hear this line way too much. The post office does a good job, their rate increases have about kept pace with inflation. UPS and FedEx only take the cream business. Likewise, HMOs cherry pick the healthiest, lowest risk clients.

We can see what privatization has done to military action. BW, ne Xe is filled with yay-hoo, neo crusaders. H./KBR builds showers that electrocuted 13 GIs and many buildings that private contractors have built in Iraq are junk from opening day.

Before public education in this country, only the elite had anything but the most basic education.

WE are the govt. Abuses such as at Fannie and Freddie should never have happened. We need to put safeguards, watchdogs, and checks and balances in place to stop such nonsense.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Another happy ending.

No plan is going to be good for everyone. It is easy to find fault because there will be fault. It's impossible for there not to be.
My grandmother is French, and my parents are there now taking care of her. There are certain things that are great over there, and certain things that aren't. Some of the things that aren't have to do with the culture. One of the things I don't like is that it's hard for my grandmother to get care because she's over 90. Now the death panelers would salivate over that, but the truth is it's more the French attitude than the French system that causes that.


It's great to look at the good and bad of other systems we may model after. But there are so many factors that can't be judged well. How many people live there, how many doctors, how many hospitals are there, how many ORs, etc.. Wait lists are obviously a true concern in social systems. But so far, most of the social systems are in countries with less of everything than they have here.

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1984 300TD