--- In [email protected], anonymousff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Like you, I am quite dissatisfied with the healthcare options / > pricing in the US. My main point is that a majority of doctors > (those working for HMOs) don't have that much discretion over > the time they spend with patients, nor on what fees are charged. > The ones I talk to are frustrated at the system.
As well they should be. Many of them were altruistic before they became doctors, and now are not permitted to give the kind of care they hoped to. The bottom line with American health care is, sadly, the "bottom line." It's all about money -- money made by the drug companies, by the hospitals and HMOs, by the insurance companies (*especially* the insurance companies), by the pharmacists, and by the doctors themselves. The one hope I have for American health care is that supposedly Michael Moore's next film is going to be on this subject. If he does his normal good job of "pulling back the covers," it should reveal much to Americans about the fact that lobbyists determine both the quality of their health care (low) and how much it costs (high). What to DO about it is another question entirely. I worked as a consultant for years within insurance companies that specialize in health care. The extent they are willing to go to in order to maximize profit is shocking and unconscionable. I am pretty certain that the HMOs and the drug companies are similarly ruthless. The chances of an American administration and/or an American Congress being able to resist the pressure and often outright bribes made by these companies is, in my opinion, slight. It's almost as if it'll require junking the entire system and start- ing over to fix it. And how likely is that? > As your example points out, health care is a lot more expensive to > obtain in the US. But then again, so are the services of a software > engineer. Just as a lot of software companies are outsourcing > programmers to less expensive sources (than those "greedy" US > programmers -- well they are as "greedy" as HMO doctors are), > more and more Americans are availing themselves of foreign > healthcare. Wow. Isn't that a "wakeup call" for the American Dream? <snip> > I saw a news segment the other day on the Bumrungrad in Thailand. > Ultra modern facility. A guy went for a heart bypass -- $50,000 > in the US, $6000 at the Bumrungrad, with a surgeon who practiced > in the US for 15 years, state of the art medical equipment, a > hotel quality private room, and higher quality post-op care, a > team of RNs were assigned to him, no lower trained, short-staffed > attendants common in US hospitals. Here's an interesting recent article from Common Dreams. It's by a political conservative who lives in France and who had occasion to see the difference -- both in care and in cost -- between the two systems: http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0309-03.htm Unc To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
