Putting it Simply
A pleasingly elementary cartoon about why we need government-run health care.
[thanks to Louy]
Labels: cartoon, health care
posted by dubjay at 10:30 PM
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
About Me
- Name: dubjay
- Location: New Mexico, United States
I'm an author, game designer, black belt, and scuba guy. This is a journal of my confrontations with existence, the life of the writer, and the occasional wicked adverb. There also seems to be a lot about food. Bon appetit.
Previous Posts
- Inglourious
- Standing On Her Head
- Creamy
- I'm Marvel/I'm DC
- Sadness in Space
- Canadian Scientists Prepare for Zombie Attack
- Bias in the News
- Happy 119th!
- More Childhood Nightmates
- Privacy Violations
6 Comments:
That's all very well but it doesn't provide any opportunities for the insanely greedy mega-rich to get even richer, does it? Isn't that, after all, the whole point of living and why we're all here?
Two thoughts.
One: I'm not too happy about having my health care deteriorate to the level of current government services. As mentioned, mail, police, education, etc, etc.
Two: Wouldn't a better solution be to make health care cheaper? Used to be computers were very expensive. Hell, used to be microwave ovens were very expensive. Why not apply the same logic to healthcare?
I'm sure some bright folks who were government educated could come up with a way.
Right?
Your health care has =already= deteriorated well beyond the state of the post office, and that's without government interference.
When I took my mother to the emergency room for what turned out to be her final illness, she was 92, emaciated, and unable to walk. She had insurance with the hospital to which I took her. It =still= took 11 hours to get her admitted to the hospital, and that's because she jumped the line ahead others who had been waiting for =two days.=
When I went to the emergency room complaining of appendicitis, it took 12.5 hours to get into the operating room, by which time my appendix had burst and I was at death's door.
I was saved by, basically, a miracle, not by the Genius of Capitalism.
Besides, who do you think pays for the medical care of poor people now? The taxpayer. The elderly? The taxpayer. The disabled? The taxpayer.
They get their care, but in a hideously inefficient and mangled way that kills--- what is it?--- 22,000 per year? All unnecessarily? How many 9/11s is that every single year?
What I'd like to see is a medical system that runs with the efficiency of our army. Our army kills people so efficiently that we can conquer a medium-sized country in 10 days.
Except that we =care= about the army, and put effort into making it run well. If only we cared that much about saving lives.
Government run health care would have killed my wife in the prime of her earning years (face it that's what the gov't would judge care costs by).
Had I not been able to go to the Mayo Clinic to get help with the assistance of my private insurance plan my wife would have been given zoloft for depression or hormone treatment for menopause (two different doctor's prescribed treatments).
All the while a malignant G.I.S.T. cancer was growing inside my wife. It would have eventually spread and killed her.
Being able to select the doctor's saved my wife's life.
Check the survival rates of U.S. sufferers from breast cancer versus that of the U.K.. It is a simple barometer.
Ron, while I feel your pain (having been the victim of misdiagnosis myself), I don't see how government-run medicine could have been any worse than what actually happened to you.
In countries with government-run health care, there isn't a man with a gun telling you that you can't get a second opinion. Or a third.
Likewise, most countries with government health care also have private insurance, so there would be nothing against your private insurance company paying for a Mayo Clinic visit if the government did not.
You're much more likely to see private insurance refuse to cover an expensive procedure than, say, Medicare.
Your cancer survival rate depends strongly on which cancer and which country. White Americans have the highest survival rate for prostate and breast cancers, in large part because it's normal for Americans to be regularly scanned for these problems. (Black Americans don't fare nearly so well. Nor do white Americans in poor, rual parts of the country.)
But Evil Socialist Japan does better than the US with men's colorectal cancers, and Evil Socialist France did better among women.
For the state, see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7510121.stm, or http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2008/07/17/cancer-survival-depends-on-where-you-live.html
The UK doesn't do nearly so well as other First World countries with cancer, but that has less to do with government-run health care than with British medical culture. British MDs just don't seem to consider cancer worth fighting--- or a lot of anything else.
I had a Brit doctor once, and it was amazing how many things he wouldn't treat me for. "They're normal," he said. "Not for me," I said, and got a new doctor (which was difficult, by the way, because I live in poor, rural New Mexico, and doctors were abandoning the state in droves, all for good capitalist reasons).
Cancer aside, longetivity statistics show that other countries--- =all= of them with government-run health are--- are doing better by their citizens than we are. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity.
(This leaves out very small countries like Andorra, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore, all of which also have higher longevity stats than the US. Statistically speaking, if you want a long life, you want to get born in a city-state.)
Likewise, if you're a baby who wants to survive to see your first birthday, it's better to be born in Portugal, Anguilla, Slovenia, or Cuba than in the USA. See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html
I'd like to share my personal experience with evil-socialized French health care (previously unmentioned I believe).
It was July 13th a few years ago. Why is this important? Well...that is the eve of Bastille Day. The French version of our Forth of July.
We were staying in a hotel in Paris outside the Ring in anticipation of seeing the military parade the next day.
At 1 am I woke up delirious and called for help because I seriously thought I had just assassinated the French premier (I try not to dwell on what this says about my psyche). My roomates determined that I had a very high fever and went to the desk to inquire where the nearest hospital was and how to get there. The night manager said that he would call a doctor that would be there in an hour.
The Dr. actually arrived 1:15 later and apologized for being late as he was the only English fluent physician on call that night.
I had a 104F fever and he quickly determined that I had a bacterial infection and immediately gave me a loading dose of 4 GRAMS(!!!) of antibiotic. He also provided a prescription and direction to a 24 hour pharmacy (in France??!??).
His charge? $50 USD and he apologized. It would have been $15 if I could have come to him in the morning.
I was feeling well enough 12 hours later to go walking.
Please, oh please give me 'socialized' medicine.
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