Who would prevent them from exercising their freedom of choice if not the gov't by force of law?
People aren't selfish by nature, believe it or not.
Okay, that's at work. How about when you're not on the clock?
I normally have at least one pro-bono job on in my personal time at any given moment. Right now I'm designing a website for a friend who's starting a business. I don't know if you saw the post I made about one a few months back too. I don't remember turning people down, if I've got the skills to help, I do. Mind you, it's not like people walk up to me in the street asking me to fix their computer or build them a website... but I get a lot of requests from friends and acquaintances.
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Really?!? There's no limit to the amount of medical care - tests, operations, hospital stay, etc etc - a person can receive? None? Without any cost at all beyond the taxes? Octogenarians can get hip & knee replacements? Alcoholics can get new livers if the doctor sees fit? No limit on cancer procedures, drugs, therapies, etc? That's not what we hear here.
Yes, believe it or not, there is no limit. Alcoholics do get new livers. You can receive a hip replacement at any point, no matter how old you are. The treatments are based on need, not what can be afforded.
Yes I heard about all of the negative propaganda you guys heard about the NHS. None of it was true. The republicans made a claim that the limit of treatment is 22,000GBP per person. What they didn't say was that that figure was the amount for experimental medication, spread over every person. They claimed that procedures aren't given after the age of 65 or something, saying that Ted Kennedy wouldn't have received some treatment or other. These are all lies. Not only do they receive treatment, but any medication for anyone over 65, is completely free of charge, irrelevant of their financial worth.
My Aunt has battled cancer several times in her life. The cost of her treatments would have come into the hundreds of thousands at least. But she was treated, with no thought to the cost, and she's a housewife who's contributed little in terms of social security payments directly. Most recently she received Chemotherapy at the tender age of 65 or so. She's all clear now, and the only bill she has is a clean bill of health.
My mother, who lived outside the UK for several years moved back to England a couple of years ago, and received some much needed ankle surgery, plus 2 retinal transplants, free of charge, at the age of 60, without having made a social security contribution in years.
There are very rare treatments that the UK is simply unable to provide, and that does result in charity fund raising efforts for overseas surgery. We're talking like a dozen cases per year here. But the far majority of complaints are all covered.
There were other lies too - like you having to talk to a bureaucrat rather than a doctor when you're sick, which again is a lie. The govt isn't involved in the NHS very much. We pay the govt social security and they then spread that money between 2 departments - the DSS (Department of Social Security) and the NHS. Essentially, the NHS is just a state owned company, and one of the largest employers in the world to boot.
At the end of the day, with a country like Britain, which has the second largest military budget in the world (after you guys of course) there wouldn't be any valid excuse not to treat someone. If we can maintain such a large military budget, with little need for it, we can damn well maintain the health of our people.
Define "so many." I know of no medical bankruptcies at all, and have only heard tell of them on forums such as this one. Anecdotes of death from non-treatment are just as rare, and often come from your side of the pond.
So many = too many = more than 1.
Some 60% of bankruptcies in the US are due to medical bills. And most of these people HAD insurance. Most insurance policies include deductibles and won't cover long term illnesses without requiring some sort of contribution from the patient for their treatment.
You can read about it here:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/05/bankruptcy.medical.bills/
I know it's a Michael Moore schmaltz fest, but give SICKO a watch, it really shows how people who fall seriously ill, even with medical insurance, get left to die.
The word over here is that your gov't stops treatment when the costs reach a certain point. The doctors are ordered (or maybe they freely decide) to pump the poor sot full of cheap barbiturates until he fades away.
I've never heard of that happening. I have heard of one case of treatment being denied for someone with a chipped tooth... that's about it....
I have a couple of friends in Scotland that are both NHS doctors and they say the question of treating someone or not never comes up. Someone comes in sick, they treat them.
It still begs my question:
You blame the head of the administration of the US federal government, and your solution is to trust the head of the administration of the US federal government?
That is indeed a valid point. I don't trust the US govt for much, but they do seem to run a highly successful army, police force and fire service, so why not healthcare? You guys have the resources, you have the skill, the only thing holding you back is the HMO systems.
But perhaps what Abcinthia said was correct, a universal healthcare system might not be the answer for the US. It is after all a very large country, with more citizens than any other western country. But a solution is needed.
