Agreed.

My 35 yr old brother in law has two children, is divorced, has no health insurance and has the following assets:

$400 Ford Explorer
$25 accoustic guitar he got for free
$100 electric guitar
$200 amp
Free computer my wife gave him

That's all he has other than a job that allows him to buy beer, pot and pay his rent. In other words he's dirt poor, though he can hold down a job relatively well.

About one year ago, he rushed to a (very repuatable) local hospital complaining of severe chest pains and sporadic blackouts. He was admitted, was treated very well, stayed for almost a week while the hospital performed various test, was given a diagnosis that seemed consistent with his symtoms and was released when they felt he was O.K. to be on his own again.

About a month afterwards, he was handed a bill for about $25,000.

He won't pay a penny of it.

So, yes, he got good health care. But, you and I will be paying for it since the hospital, doctors and staff didn't (and won't) get paid from him.

so isn't it safe to say , that if they know it's a bum that won't cough up the money, that they will at least try to keep the costs at a minimum??
let's be honest here, every hospital has to balance it's books right?

This debate got started on expensive diagnostic tools like MRIs and X-rays. You think they're going to let someone without health insurance into the MRI room? Yeah, right. Emergency service, yes. Non-urgent upper-level care? Not a chance.

True I don't live in the US and don't experience the health care system first hand, but no way in hell do I believe a homeless drug addict will get the same medical attention and care as Bill Gates.

From 'The World Health Organization' pretty good source, here is a list by rank of healthcare systems throughout the world...
1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America
38 Slovenia
39 Cuba
40 Brunei
41 New Zealand
42 Bahrain
43 Croatia
44 Qatar
45 Kuwait
46 Barbados
47 Thailand
48 Czech Republic
49 Malaysia
50 Poland
51 Dominican Republic
52 Tunisia
53 Jamaica
54 Venezuela
55 Albania
56 Seychelles
57 Paraguay
58 South Korea
59 Senegal
60 Philippines
61 Mexico
62 Slovakia
63 Egypt
64 Kazakhstan
65 Uruguay
66 Hungary
67 Trinidad and Tobago
68 Saint Lucia
69 Belize
70 Turkey
71 Nicaragua
72 Belarus
73 Lithuania
74 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
75 Argentina
76 Sri Lanka
77 Estonia
78 Guatemala
79 Ukraine
80 Solomon Islands
81 Algeria
82 Palau
83 Jordan
84 Mauritius
85 Grenada
86 Antigua and Barbuda
87 Libya
88 Bangladesh
89 Macedonia
90 Bosnia-Herzegovina
91 Lebanon
92 Indonesia
93 Iran
94 Bahamas
95 Panama
96 Fiji
97 Benin
98 Nauru
99 Romania
100 Saint Kitts and Nevis
101 Moldova
102 Bulgaria
There are more if you want to check the site. WHO

You can't go to a regular Doctor's visit w/o insurance or pre paying. The homeless and uninsured just wait until it is nearly too late than they go to the ER. ER has to take them.

Yes and Castro had his doc flown in from Spain, what difference?

the fact that the Netherlands list so high points out one flaw with that list : Netherlands has loads of expertise, but to little providers... there are huuuuuuge waiting lists

i know i person with a heart problem he was put on a waiting list for an operation, and died before his turn...

if you call a random dentist, you have a fat chance he'll turn you down, because he has a full pack of patients

call your housedokter because you are feeling sick, fine, appointment only , usually you'll get an appointment between 1 and 2 weeks from calling

my uncle had a kidney stone event,(he was just on a biznezz trip in NL) called the hospital, they told him to just swing by , he was laying flat on his back in the hotel lobby, in the end, they had to take a cab and get him over there, because all his fellow travelers, didn't know where the hospital was

i had some random issues, house dokter (after 2 months of delayed appointments) sent me to the internist... another month and a half, he wanted an echo of my liver, another month and a half till the echo was possible, then another 3 weeks till internist had time to tell me my results

Netherlands high up on that list... well, definately not because of well organized, efficient, available health care

btw, all examples mentioned were fully insured, doesn't matter , NL healthcare is rubbish...

Belgium rates lower on that list
well , Belgium house dokter, same day , dentist, next week
internist, next week, echo , same day, etc etc

that list is not about public health care, it's a bout level of expertise... and ability to do fancy things

and even so , in that list, Cuba is only 2 steps down from US of A..

That's absolutely embarrassing that we're #30 on that list. With the taxes we pay here we should be up in the top 20 with other similarly-taxed European nations.

My LIttle Chihuahua and Christ in CAN are showing their ANTI-American Stripes...

What is the total population of the 37 Countries that are ahead of the US in Health Care...its the SCALE that the American Health Care system has to operate on that places it so low.

scale arguement doesn't matter tabs... Legion felt like dissing Cuba , saying the poor there get no treatment... when that's obviously not true..

And for those who do care about their credit reports, most lenders will ignore medical-related collections on a credit report. They'll still bring your score way down, but after a few years it will go back up. If you owe a court or an ex $5k, you will not get a loan until that judgement is satsified. If you owe a hospital or medical collection agency $5k, the lender will completely ignore it and you'll get your loan.

By that argument some of the tiny countries at the bottom should be at the top. With a higher population base, you've got a larger tax base, which should mean more money for health care.

Free public health care :rolleyes: people need to drop their fake sympathy for others and just let natural selection take it's course. What ever happened to the concept of personal responsibility?

We have known this for years. You are second only to the Crazy Chick to having to be told many, many times about life and things in America. At least it may be possible to reason with you where-as with CC most of us have given up.

Part of the reason why our health care is so backlogged in some areas is that we are taking care of all the illegal immigrants.

Anyone who walks in a hospital will get treatment, period. Hospitals in many areas are treating 60% or higher illegals because they know they will get FREE treatment there, while others like us working folks go to a doctors office for help.

Of course scale matters. Say you were charged with setting up a system of maintaining and repairing all 911s. What would be easier: doing this in Luxembourg or the US?

Is the procedure for rebuilding a 915 somehow different in Luxembourg?

With all due respect, that's a ridiculous argument, because there would be proportionately more 911 wrenches in the US vs. Luxembourg, in equal proportion of population difference. I'm sure there are more hospitals in the US than Luxembourg.

Any system that has to service 300 million people is by nature going to be run inefficiently as the Bureaucracy is going to be a large one. U also have to figure that with such a large population that people are going to fall through the cracks as there isn't time to find every last one, and services will be uneven. Also there is going to be apercentage of the population that is self destructive. So while the US could do better, as every system could US Health Care is better than it shows up statistically.

it doesn't matter if one is comparing different countries and how well they have health care sorted out

we were not talking about if then but, we were comparing countries and the net result

if the scale is the reason why the USA is not higher up on the list then say Belgium , then that still means that the USA as a whole , is ranked lower, period..

a customer would not care why the system for maintaining and repairing is not as good, he just want's his Porsche fixed, no excuses..

Moore outright lies to make his points. Facts are few and far between. For example, he actually did meet with Roger Smith--and did it early on in the filming, but chose to leave it out of 'Roger & Me' because it made GM look worse. No, instead he filmed his repeated requests to get what amounted to a second meeting (implying it was his first attempt) after he'd already spoiled his welcome.