"SIKO
This is an excellent topic, it will be very interesting to see the differences. I hope to hear from lots of you in countries with differig systems. Here is my limited experience and 2cents.
I would never want socialized medicine. I believe that the systems we have in place should be reformed as there is alot of things MM film that are serious issues. Though I have great coverage now I have dealt with some of these problems before myself. I believe the sick, elderly, disabled, and children should be entitled to healthcare and they are (medicare, medicaid, MI child etc) -- as already stated these systems need revised.
One of my friends is from Ireland and is taking a rbeak from the boards right now I will have to see if she is willing to come share her experiences with Ireland socialized healthcare, it is ridiculously substandard especially for CF'ers. Ireland has a 1/2 and 1/2 system where there is the free 'government' care but then there are private hospitals as well. My friend with CF carries private insurance and CANT USE IT for her CF, sicne so many in Ireland have CF it is considered covered under government benefits and she has to go to the public hospital which is horrible. She is now goig to be paying 100% out of pocket to go to a private person because the public place is so bad.
I have also spoken with my friend from Canada who has diabetes. She reports that she would never want to live somewhere without socialized medicine but then speakign to her day to day I cant believe what she gets for free. WHere she lives there are very few GP (general practicioners) so she has to call for hours on end to even get through to her GP because they are so busy. Then her appointment will be for a week or more out. Her GP sucks on top of it all but noone else around will take her because they are all overflooded with patients, she told me the ratio but I cant remember and dont want to falsely quote btu it was ridiculous. There are so many other things but I digress....
Now perhaps you say those countries dont have as much power money etc as USA and WE woudl do it better. My friend lives in Kuwait for the past 4 years. Tehy too have socialized medicine. For thsoe of you who dont know Kuwait is a very very very rich country. Since she is now Kuwaiti she has to pay the equivalent of a co-pay so usually free or $15 to get something done. She recently has a miscarriage and D&C and did not even get told what was beign done to her (didnt know what a D&C was until I told her and she is a smart girl they jstu dont tell you anything there). Then she later went to the ER equivalent with severe stomach pains they kept monitoring her for a day and decided she has appendicitis and was rolling her down for surgery when another doctor decided to examine her she had an ovarian cyst which had burst that doctor figured out and they almost removed her appendix! The care she gets there for 'free' is not anythign I woudl want. There is also the 'private' hospitals there that you can pay for so basically all the good doctors go private and the others get publice.
I have noticed a trend with manny areas with socialzied medicine which is this whole public and private idea. So basically going to a public FREE place is the equivalent in my head of getting a public defender here on a court case and we all know how great they turn otu to be when what you really need is a lawyer with an interest in making a profit because then they do a MUCH BETTER job. I will stick to worrying about paying for my care of taking a public defender free socialized hospital any day. In addition if there is private hopsitals then only the rich can afford those and you basically are right back to what we have now where the rich or as is right now those with good coverage via work etc can afford a level of care different than the rest of those underinsured or not insured.
I am not saying public health care never works in some instances I am sure it can. BUT let me bring up another reason why it woudl neever successfully be instituted in teh US. OUR BORDERS. With the way our borders are already bleeding, what do you think woudl happen if we had free healthcare? Part of the reason Irelands system is so substandard is they need more money to build new facilities, they have gotten so big so fast that they cant lkeep up. The US is already in this predicament with not beign able to keep up in many parts of the US with hospitals being overrun and overcrowded what woudl happen if we switched to socialized? How would we decide who could get free and who coulndnt when it come to illegal aliens? Have you seen how Canada regulates who gets in and who doesnt to protect their systems? I am all for legal immigration of upstanding citizens and think it should be increased and easier btw.
