"HeyBub" wrote in message
...


As for MRIs, I know somebody there who just waited over six months to
get one, although it didn't cost her anything when she finally got to
the head of the line. So it's a different set of problems from the
also broken American system, they both need serious adjustments.

I suggest the American system isn't "broken." Everybody fits in somewhere.
At the top is "concierge" medicine - those who get top-notch and immediate
care. There are several categories below that, from Blue Cross, down
through Medicare, all the way to "Canada-lite" (Medicaid)".

Oh it's broken alright. The cost of health care insurance has been doubling
every decade, employers are dropping or cutting back coverage or in some
cases moving production overseas to escape health coverage costs. Medical
tourism is a growing phenomenon as Americans travel to get surgery they
can't afford in the U.S. One in six Americans has no insurance at all which
means when they finally go to the hospital ER *you* and every other
taxpayer/insurance customer pays for it. American health insurance
companies absorb more in "administrative overhead" (including fat executive
salaries) than anywhere in the world, about a fifth of what Americans pay
for insurance never gets past the insurance companies. Look up
pharmaceutical industry scandals sometime, it's a horror show of companies
concealing dangers of their products, price-fixing, manipulation of the FDA,
gaming the patent system to extend profits and so on. Some hospitals have
closed ERs because they are swamped with uninsured patients who have no
other source of health care. Unless the law prevents them from doing so
insurance companies will refuse to insure anyone with a history of serious
illness, and they have employees whose job is finding excuses to drop
customers once they get sick. Doctors order needless tests to cover
themselves against liability, and they pass on the cost of malpractice
insurance to their patients. Government programs like Medicare pay out
countless millions in bogus claims because it is so easy to defraud the
system. The medical profession restricts the number of med school graduates
to keep salaries (and thus costs) up. The loudest screams about health care
reform invariably come from those who make the biggest profits, no way do
they want change that doesn't put more money in their pockets--and so on and
so forth.

Isn't broken?