Healthcare in a nutshell....
 

If this doesn't hit the nail on the head,
I don't know what does!

Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with
The same complaint. Both have trouble walking and
Appear to require a hip replacement.

The FIRST patient is examined within the hour,
Is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for
Surgery the following week.

The SECOND sees his family doctor after waiting 3 weeks
For an appointment, then waits 8 weeks to see a specialist,
Then gets an x-ray, which isn't reviewed for another week
And finally has his surgery scheduled for a month from then.
Why the different treatment for the two patients?






The FIRST is a Golden Retriever.
The SECOND is a Senior Citizen.

true - but that's what you get when you pay directly for medical care out of your own wallet. there's absolutely no way a socialized public 'free' healthcare system can provide top notch healthcare to everybody in every situation, that's a resources issue, then there's the bureaucracy and politics involved that fuck up a national healthcare system - you'd be paying 80% in income tax to have the national healthcare system people want.

got the cash - you can go to a private hospital and get the same treatment the golden retriever gets.

Keywords - 'got the cash' :(

I got to tell you watching my Dads treatment and my parents had good insurance. If my mother didn't have the contacts she had and the ability to take no shit.His treatment would of sucked and my dad probably wouldn't of had the 18 months he got.

dam... this joke actually makes me sad.... my prostate is fucking killing me and my doctor appointment is still 20 days away... fuck dammit! :(

Tried milking it? :winkwink:

Sorry, but you're wrong.

Let's start with the golden retriever. Apart from the vet paying far less in malpractice insurance, he is also allowed to deliver a significantly lower standard of care. Bluntly put, more protocols are in place to prevent human patients accidentally dying than there are to prevent animals from dying.

Those things make treatment take a lot more time, which also increases waiting times.

As for socialized medicine not providing top notch care to everyone in all situations - over here, it provides top notch care to virtually everyone in virtually all situations. And even if the system does not make everyone happy (an impossibility under any circumstances, considering the fact that even with the best possible care, people will still die and will therefore still be dissatisfied), a large majority of people actually are quite happy with it. And all that is achieved without hitting 80% income tax...

In fact, western countries with socialized health care actually have governments spend less on health care than the US does, while achieving better results.

http://media.economist.com/images/20081018/CUS174.gif
(source: http://www.economist.com/research/ar...TOKEN=47470697 )

The problem with the American system is that the government spends the money it could spend on paying for health care on paying for profits in the health care industry instead.

Why the corrupt fuckers who are responsible for this mess haven't been voted out of office and locked up for fraud is anybody's guess...

To expand on what Libertine said, Vets make less money than doctor's too. Vet technicians way less than nurses.

If it were a matter of paying $5000 out of pocket for the new hip, all expenses in, it probably wouldn't be such a big deal.

I dunno about that.

Last year we had to rush one of our cats to the local vet after we discovered she'd turned jaundiced overnight. Kidney and liver failure. During the first visit, the vet gave her a saline injection to re-hydrate and stabilize her (she'd been throwing up all night). She sent us home with the cat for a final good-bye with the family.

Initial cost - $280 (diagnosis and saline - took about 20 mins.)

The next day we returned to the vet to have her put down and cremated.

Additional cost $300.

In total - the vet put in approx. one hour labour.

We paid $580 cash and received some ashes.

That seems out of line. My sister is a Vet, however, and I can tell you without a doubt (at least in Canada) they make much less money than Doctors. The exception being if you own the practice, then you might do alright.

:2 cents:

The golden retriever's doctor visit was not free. Can you imagine the quality of care if every dog in Canada got free healthcare?

absolute BULLSHIT

healthcare in all socialized medicine countries is RATIONED, some people just don't know it. three people died in a middle class suburb of Toronto in the waiting room recently, strokes and heart attacks, with chances to survive BUT they received NO TREATMENT - the hospital was incapable of providing treatment at the time. that story is repeated over and over. Doctors know it - they don't want to be alarming their patients though - so when a newly diagnosed cancer patient is told it will be 6 weeks to wait for surgery or some other type of treatment they don't tell the patient it could affect their outcome. people die on waiting lists.

you can't offer top notch medical treatment to 33 million people for 'free' - you need to go through a medical crisis to see the major flaws in the system - system works great for women having babies, broken bones, and the rest of the garden variety of ailments people get - it's when you need the best medicine can give you or a loved one that you see things aren't right. it's like playing a roulette wheel - some people get great state of the art medical care, things align right for them, and their location has a big deal to do with it.

socialized healthcare works for the working poor, the unemployed, people with pre-existing conditions, young people - but if you're able to spend 3-4K on medical insurance a year you're going to get better medical care in the US system.

A doctor in a country with what you'd call "socialised medicine" myself, I feel I have to step in.

Briefly, here, a very high standard of care is provided to everyone according to their individual needs. We have a relatively well-functioning GP system which safeguards access to the higher echelons of care for those that need it. Many countries with a "socialised" form of healthcare don't, resulting in cluttered-up accident & emergency rooms and outpatient clinics. When needed, we have the facilities, the money and the personnel to immediately treat a heart attack, when needed, and it is done as said indeed. Yes, someone who's up for elective surgery or a routine colonoscopy may have to wait for a few weeks, or months, in some instances, but so what? When needed, one can be seen, admitted and treated the same day.

As far as I'm concerned, people die in emergency rooms in phantom stories. Without having the evidence to prove my point, I dare say with great certainty that it happens here no more frequently than in the US.

3 patients die waiting for a bed: EMS

Written by: DON PEAT
Feb. 7, 2008


Hospital backlogs that leave patients in waiting rooms or on stretchers in a so-called "hall of shame" are to blame for three people dying within 24 hours at Etobicoke General Hospital, a city paramedic union leader alleges.

Glenn Fontaine, unit ambulance chairman for Toronto Paramedic Local 416, claims three people died between Monday and Tuesday at the hospital, with one of them going into cardiac arrest after sitting in the waiting room with chest pains for three hours and another patient dying after waiting with paramedics on an "offload delay" before getting a bed

Offload delays refer to paramedics at the hospital with a patient waiting for a bed.

Paramedics call the hospital's back hallway where they routinely wait with patients for an emergency room bed the "hall of shame," Fontaine said.

............


Rest of the story

I'm not sure what happened there, and three patients would be extraordinarily sad. But I'm absolutely sure such stories circulate in the US too.

Moreover, such delays have little to do with a country having "socialised" medicine, but rather with how much money is spent on healthcare and probably more importantly, how that money is channelled and how services are organised. Again, I have little knowledge about Canada's GP system. I can very well imagine this particular emergency room was cluttered with people with minor complaints that don't need hospital care.

Here, guidelines command that self-referral to a hospital emergency room is "not done" and patients are (depending on their complaint presentation) first evaluated by GPs, who have their regular practice during business hours and have set up A&E-like posts all over cities in after hours. An exception would be an ambulance presentation, but even those are usually the result of a GP evaluation.

Overall, this filters out around 95% of people who might otherwise present to the ED with a sore throat but who now get adequate care from their GP. This saves tremendous amounts of money and hospital reserves.

Of course, both have their pros and cons, but I think there are very few arguments for a commercial healthcare system as present in the US.

Sure for the majority socialized medicine works well. For the wealthy however, a commerical system is always the best.

Put it this way, if you or a family member were diagnosed with some rare cancer, and money was no issue at all, where would _YOU_ go for treatment? Off to Canada for some socialized medicine? I think not. Mayo Clinic here I come.

Obviously but be realistic...To what % of people is money no issue? 3%..5% maybe 8% at most.

LOS ANGELES - A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.

Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19207050/