This continues the conversation from http://omegaforums.net/threads/how-the-ukrainians-make-money.4571/page-2#post-53368

If you are in medicine, have you seen this fascinating article from the New Yorker on turning hospitals into chain restaurants....
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/13/120813fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

From my perspective, I think our health and medical research is excellent. Our health system provides relatively cheap, high quality health care (approx half what the US spends as a percentage of GDP, while delivering better health outcomes) probably sees the US healthcare system as one we need to avoid at all costs, and hence doesn't look to it for inspiration/innovation.

 

I feel our physicians and facilities are unmatched, it's our bureaucracy that is undermining the well-being of my country. Physicians spend more time and $ dealing with political mandates and litigous attorneys and insurance companies than they do with patients. While I have no idea if it is good or will work, Obamacare is at least an attempt to try something else (think Monty Python's"and now for something completely different").
I am considering leading a coup d'etat.

Hammurabi said to cut the physicians hand off?

 

I think, as with many things, you do have the absolute best....................... in places. So while some can afford the best, others, not so much.

 

Windy is a specialist nurse in one of the best hospitals in the US. If I'm ever in need of serious medical attention that's where I want to go.

As with every other business, some are good while some are not.

 

I had a friend damage themselves quite badly in Vail. Could not heap more praise on the physicians and nurses there. They were very very good. Very very costly but good.

 

I read your 2nd point and was starting to get worked up, but then I calmed down when I read your final paragraph! That is effectively what we've got in Australia. Universal insurance coverage, with GPs and specialists being small businesses (like in the US - not a fully public system like the NHS in the UK). Have a read of the New Yorker article, I think you'll appreciate it.

 

I agree with you on both counts.. your first point is quite well documented. All you have to do to confirm this, is look at the abundance of high tech equipment most hospitals have, relative to other first world countries. They don't pay for themselves.

I am a huge supporter of Obamacare, (not to be confused with the method used to bring it about which is largely responsible for democrats losing the majority in the house). As a fervent capitalist and banker, you would be hard pressed to get me to say people are entitled to anything, with the exception of a temporary safety net and Health care. Anyone who has worked in community health care can attest to the benefits of preemptive care.

My old roommate often volunteered at community programs and told me one example about a single mother who had to choose between her 30-50? dollar fee for her diabetic medication and keeping the lights on. She ended up in the ER regularly, (frequent flier), costing taxpayers thousands of dollars. Treating this woman before she ended up in the ER is a no-brainier, and just one example.

I agree that Obama care doesn't go far enough for the simple reason that it fails to begin to tackle the cost of healthcare. Obama care at least brings us to that conversation... something law makers have been able to do since the Reagan Administration.

 

Socialism has some good points on paper. Actually, any system of government has at least a few good aspects, and they all have their drawbacks. The basic idea of Communism would work extremely well if it didn't breed sloth and apathy.

 

Because the public sector is so big here, it has the best and worst. All of the most complex and difficult cases are in the public sector here. Transplants, etc. ALL emergency is public here. So at that crisis point, your healthcare isn't determined by your income. Most private hospitals here do fairly mundane, routine (read: profitable) proceedures.

 

Come on Lou - you know how easy it is to get us sidetracked. This is actually the closest-to-subject thread hijack we've had in a long time. As a matter of fact, the line is so blurry I bet most wouldn't even call it a hijack!

 

Hey look!



Awwwww...

Agree with what LouS said, BTW.

 

New thread? Show us your albino ! (Leucistic in the case of hummingbirds)

Dennis, no Edgar Winter shots, please.

 

that is just plain wrong. I had a friend who got the opportunity to hug a koala and she told me they are actually violent little thugs when not drugged up to the eyeballs on eucalyptus, so her photo opportunity was slightly less enjoyable thanks to the oozing missing chunk of ear from its most recent fight with its friends - does this sound right???