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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (11404)	11/17/2009 10:10:28 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

And 95% of US cancer patients don't get to go to MD Anderson or the Cleveland Clinic... so they are not getting the "best health care in the world". Of course not. Only the top few percent of the world's population get the world's best health care regardless of where they live. The next few percent, somewhat less, etc. Whether or not that top few percent of individuals getting the world's best health care are in the US or not is irrelevant. Seems to me that you guys are just framing this differently. You seem to want to demonstrate that because some number of folks in the US don't get world class care that the US can't have the world's best health care. That doesn't make sense. Some number of folks in any country, even the country you would pick for having the world's best health care, aren't getting the world's best health care. Duh! So comparing countries has to be about something other than the most or least fortunate individual or about individuals at all. It has to be about the group as a whole. You could pick the median person to represent the entire group or you could use the average. You could pick some critical mass out of the group and toss out the stragglers at the end of the curve and then use the median or the average. Inode picked the top 95% so he was tossing out the bottom five percent. Perhaps not the best choice of a named critical mass but certainly an adequate one. But comparing countries based on what either the top few percent or the bottom few percent get in the way of health care just isn't useful. It would be useful if you were arguing the equality spread in various countries but that's not what's on the table.

To: Road Walker who wrote (11404)	11/17/2009 10:18:25 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

But if you go to Peoria General Hospital then it's likely there are dozens of better facilities in other countries. In general, the cancer care an average, every day person gets in this country is better than the cancer care an average, every day person gets in most other countries. There are, of course, exceptions, but for the most part, if you have cancer, you'll get better care here than elsewhere. You have a better chance of early detection and a better prognosis once it has been detected. If you're one of the five percent and have no insurance, you have a much tougher road, and you would probably be better off in another country where socialized medicine is practice. That is, you would be better off moving to Canada. That is not to say one of the five percent CANNOT get excellent treatment, but the five percent is something we need to fix in this country (unfortunately, Congress has decided that the political power is more important than solving the problem for the 5%, and the end result could well be that we get NOTHING.) Oncologists I've worked with, for the most part, bust their asses to treat people who cannot otherwise afford treatment. I know of several clinics who routinely treat patients where the practice itself covers the massive cost of chemo drugs for some patients, but that is a very last resort. There are all kinds of cooperative programs these patients can participate in to get treated. I'm aware of a couple of such offices which have full time personnel to work out payment alternatives for patietns who are flat broke so they can receive treatment and they're remarkably effective at doing so.