DGDevin wrote:
"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.

Straw man. Health "insurance" is not the same thing as "health care."

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?

When the Shah of Iran was diagnosed with cancer, he came to the US for
treatment. Not Canada. Not France. The United States.

'Course he died right away, but that's beside the point...