With the system the way it is in the US, if you need an operation for something you can get it quickly.
I read that in Great Britain 30% of the people with curable colon cancer are dying from colon cancer, because, by the time the operation is scheduled it is no longer curable. You can bet that these delays do not apply to the political leaders. Top of the line medical insurance is over $12,000 per yr now in the US. I pay a fraction of that for $5000 deductible disaster insurance. The money I save in a year easily pays that deductible. The only problem I have is that I don't get the tests done that I should have done. As one example, I can't bring myself to pay $1200 out of pocket for a colonoscopy. If all these tests were "free" I would get them but, the waiting list would be months or years long, and the tax burden to pay for it all would be overwhelming. Medical technology has become a curse. Most of us feel like we have the right to any million dollar procedure that will extend our life a few more years as long as someone else pays for it, but ultimately that someone is you and me. We cannot afford to finance every impractical procedure that some researcher comes up with. We must put a lid on medical madness before we are all bankrupt. We will all die from something sometime. At some point we will have to let death happen. Jeff -----Original Message----- From: Edmund Storms [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 11:38 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC A friend without health insurance Yes Jeff, that is an argument that is always raised when some form of socialized medicine is suggested. The fact is that under no successful system is the service completely free. For example, I'm one of the lucky people who has good insurance. Nevertheless, I have to pay part of the service and I have to actually be sick to want to endure the process of seeing a doctor. However, I don't have to worry about emergencies nor not being able to afford to get well. Of course, if everyone had such insurance, more doctors would be needed to handle the increased load. Simply making more low-interest loan money available to attend medical school would eventually solve this problem. Again, this money would have to be provided by a government program because we now see what happens when the process is turned over to private companies. After all, an advancing society needs to make getting a higher education in any field much easier, so why not encourage an education in medicine along with the other options? Meanwhile, the government would be free of the influence being applied by the combination of powerful insurance and medical providers. Influence in the government would be more evenly balanced through the efforts of employers and voters. Gradually, a single payer, government run system will be created simply because all other options have obviously failed. Eventually, we will have a process similar to Social Security, but in health instead of income. Why not start sooner rather than later? How much more suffering must occur before the conclusion becomes obvious? Ed No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.3/1390 - Release Date: 4/21/2008 4:23 PM
