Sometimes I have to wonder. She is at the hospital. What good does calling the police do?

King harbor emergency room is dealing with severe trauma issues that are more life threatening than abdominal pain and vomiting blood.

WTF do you think free medical care would do to change the situation? They have triage where they have to make a determination of who gets treated first.

I remember when I got my face split open and nose broken from a high speed ceiling fan, or when I was in a bike wreck and had two broken bones in my leg and multiple others in my foot. I had to wait my turn.

The fact that a little kid came in after me, that they thought needed more attention than I did meant I had to suffer and wait it out until they had time for me.

Does shit happen? Of course. Will socialized medicine make it go away? Not a chance.

To sum it up . . . people die in emergency rooms around the world every day.

i would bet not many of those die waiting in line vomiting blood on the floor. and when they do , people get upset and rightly so. People paying taxes want their money to pay so this doesn't happen.. its that simple.. its not about socialized medicine. The majority of the people dont mind if their taxes pay for doctors to do their job.. regardless of how much money they make..

No a 105 is dying. 103 is get the person help or they WILL die.

i wanna c it too

We have a higher infant mortality rate than most countries in this world (even worse than many 3rd world countries). That has nothing to do with obesity.

So, you have a gunshot victim, a car crash victim, a stabbing victim and someone vomiting blood.

Who do you treat first?

Capitalism also has insurance companies telling doctors what procedures they are allowed to do. It has prescription drug companies sending doctors on lavish vacations so that they'll prescribe their more expensive drugs. It has drug lobbyists paying of congressmen so they ensure we can't buy our drugs from other countries. It has lawyers coming up with minor mistakes to cancel an insurance policy of over 20 years so they don't have to pay.

I'm all for capitalism and the advancement of the medicine. Heck, my brother is a chemist for one of the big pharm companies. But insurance companies and drug companies should not be making the decisions of our doctors. When I go in, the doctor should be making decisions on what he thinks is right, not what the insurance company deems as acceptable. He should be prescribing drugs based on what he feels is best, not by which country sent his family to Tahiti.

Those are the first changes we need to make in our healthcare system that has nothing to do with socializing medicine.

Quick answer - all of them.

That is the reason for having "emergency treatment" centers. If they cannot manage the workload, there are serious deficiencies.


PS Excluding the obvious major incidents involving 100's of people.

More important she fucking died, if that was your wife or mother you would be ok with that?Yes I do think socialized medicine would help that alot, we are 24 th in life expectancy in the world. Japan has more mri's per capita then we do. Stop drinking the koolaide and do some reading,your a smart man for gods sake.

You said it man :thumbsup

paris hilton ofcourse!!

thats how it works int he land of the free.......right!?

I agree with you that even with socialized medicine, you wil have these situations. Another possibility though is that if every doctors office was free, you might have more choices as to where to get treatment. We might even have more emergency clinics and you won't be stuck going to the only place you can afford.

Maybe someone from Canada/France/UK can chime in later. Id like to hear if the situation is different there for emergency care.

Sure it's different and people get immediate treatment when there is an actual emergency. Again - depending on circumstances and major incidents when there can be a total overload caused by eg aircraft crashes, bombing etc - but these are rare and it is normal to get immediate assistance from the nearest emergency unit and free of all charges.

If an emergency started eg at home - emergency ambulance services will organise shipment to the nearest facility - again, without any charges.

The relevant criteria is time and ensuring patients are delivered to treatment center's asap - it is not a financial consideration or *any* other factor than immediate treatment for the patient.

let me guess . . . you are 18

How do you propose that is done?

Cummon.. Try and comment on something valid instead of irrelevant wild guesses on a totally different subject????

Emergency services either have facilities to treat patients in their catchment area or not. If they can't handle a reasonable anticipated workload - there is a problem?? No??

It is relevant . . . you are either very young or have never visited an emergency room of a trauma hospital in a major metropolitan area.

You think there is a one-to-one ratio of doctors to patients or something?

Get your head out of the clouds.

You think I was talking about a US treatment center?? Don't doubt there are excellent professionals handling emergency procedures and doing the best they can - but I'm not talking about the US in particular.

Most of the western world have full emergency care facilities and these are staffed to deal with anticipated numbers of incidents 24/7 and the level of emergency care is high. And no - they don't have 1-to-1 ratio of doctors - that is not necessary, but specialists/surgical staff are available if needed.

you are such a fucking arrogant arsehole

his post was completely valid and you respond with that juvenile crap

fuck you baddog you aint shit

ummm, isn't this thread with the intent of bashing the US medical care system?

Where do you think we should get these emergency room doctors from? You have no clue what an emergency room in LA County is like. You probably live in a country that has less people than LA County has. It is easy to staff something that small.


I am sorry? Who are you?

Oh that's right . . . noone.

No... I never thought the thread had anything to do with "bashing the US medical care system".

The thread is about a movie called "SICKO" which was a reasonable portrayal of different sets of circumstances in various countries and pointing out blatantly obvious differences between different systems. If anything, it should have at least been an education.

And no - emergency care facilities are geared - or should be geared - to handling the numbers of potential patients within their catchment area irrespective of size.

Again . . . where are they supposed to get these doctors to man the emergency rooms? Do they grow on trees where you live?

The one time I went to the emergency room at North Florida Regional the wait time was nearly 6 hours before we got seen.

In Canada I have never waited more than an hour to be seen in the 3-4 times I have gone.

Dare I ask why you were there (at the FL emergency room)?

No, doctors don't grow on trees - leaves do. They train them in colleges/universities and they are employed and paid by those administering medical facilities. It's called a staffing issue. The same issues are handled worldwide, tho agree, that can be a challenge in certain areas - but it's the same with any qualified staff in any industry.

Also remember that most of those people flooding the LA county emergency rooms would not be there if they had other alternatives by getting their medical needs covered before it became an emergency or was provided free by the government. Once you force people to wait till its absolutely neccessary to seek treatment or make it so going to the emergency room is the only way to get treatment financially for them, of course your going to see overcrowding. Its common sense.

You seem to think that doctors are pounding the bricks trying to find work or something.


We aren't talking about lawyers here.

My friend had a 7 inch gash in her back that required stitches to close and stop the bleeding. First hour was wasted just having them verify insurance info and get approval from the HMO.

I love the idea of free medical. I can see the doctors lining up around the block to get paid government wages.

So, a low priority item.

Yet the same injury in Vancouver would have been handled in an hour.

I don't think anything about docs pounding bricks. Either there are enough to handle the population or more need to be trained.

This is not exactly a unique issue to LA area in particular - there are many heavy metropolitan catchment areas in many countries and they manage very well.

Have no clue as to the internal arrangements of hospital operations, but may be related to finance in the US? I have no clue, but from the little I know, that seems probable.

And yet all the countries that provide free health care are staffed. Hmmmm....

You have zero logic but thats ok.

and the population in each city is?

what do you think happened? the doctors were all off golfing, or they just wanted to see how long you would stick around?

You need a picture drawn for you I guess. Our doctors probably make a little more than your freebie docs do. In fact, don't you guys use some version of candy stripers instead of real doctors?

Gainesville - 250,000 people

Vancouver 2.5 million

The simple reason is emergency rooms in the US are filled with people there for non emergencies as its the only guaranteed way for many to get medical attention.

In canada the majority of the patients in emergency are there for emergencies.

If you can't see that, then your hopeless to it.

OK.. can tell you... in almost all western countries, no way would any person waste an hour in any emergency center talking crap about insurance. All that is needed is name, address and DOB - nothing else is relevant other than treatment asap.

I've only been in three emergency units in my life.. and each was in a different country - but got immediate attention and basically a quick ID while treatment was in progress. And every incident was free of charge although I was not even a citizen of two of these countries.

Why didn't you just go to an urgent care center instead of an emergency room?

See this post sums up your ignorance. Of course your doctors make more. They can charge more, and get kickbacks from the HMO's. Keep in mind they also pay more insurance costs due to the legal system there.

But if you add free health care guess what happens? Doctors either take the new wages or they find work elsewhere. Oh but every other western civilized country is the same, so where can they go. They stay in the US and keep on being doctors. If the US offers private care as well some will stay private, but the majority will remain in the free system.

Its not rocket science.