Re: ot: Fourth Amendment... gone forever?

On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 21:12 -0700, Jason Hayes wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 7:14:33 pm Kristian Erik Hermansen wrote:
> >
> > +1. For Michale Moore, you could tell he was holding back to try
> > being "fair and balanced". Health care in the USA is a joke compared
> > to the UK. You don't believe it? Watch the movie and ask any of your
> > friends who have had care in both places...
>
> Or you can ask me. I endured the Canadian health care system for over 30
> years. To clear things up, it's not the panacea you appear to think it is.
> The US health care system -- expensive as it may be -- is light years ahead
> of the Canadian and British systems.
>
> A few quick examples from my own life experience.
>
> 1) I had to wait over 18 months to get a simple, outpatient operation to fix
> an inguinal hernia in late 2004. The only reason I was "rushed" in at the 18
> month mark was that I was to the point where I could barely function any
> more. If I hadn't pushed the issue, the surgeon's office would have let me
> sit on the waiting list for my originally scheduled date -- six months later.
>
> 2) My mother waited over 2 years to get one hip replaced and has waited over
> two more years to get the other done (four years and still waiting).
>
> 4) My wife's step-grandfather was diagnosed with prostate cancer in November
> last year and was told that he will need to wait until June to get in to see
> the specialist to determine how they will treat his cancer. Eight months of
> letting the cancer grow before they will even take a first look at it.
>
> 5) My wife and I lived in Calgary, AB for five years. In that time, we were
> only able to get our kids into a pediatrician once, after we were referred by
> another doctor. Additionally, none of the doctors we could find were taking
> on new patients, so any time we needed health care, we went to walk-ins
> (urgent care) or the emergency room.
>
> Those are the first few examples that come to mind. If I needed to, I could
> dig up a lot more.
>
> Regarding your first assertion, Michael Moore doesn't have the first clue what
> life is like under socialized health care and you don't see him traveling to
> Cuba for his check ups and surgery, do you?
>
> The simple truth is that people are dying on wait lists in Canada, Great
> Britain, and France. Worse, they're made to wait like that after having paid
> 50%+ taxes for their "free" health care.
>
> Don't fall for it. The grass is not greener on the other side of that fence.
----
oh but it is...

In any of the countries you mention above, you are not subject to
exclusions for pre-existing conditions, large deductibles, medical
decisions made by health insurance companies and of course, of all the
countries mention, this is the only one where people routinely have to
declare bankruptcy because of the phenomenal costs of health care, and
this hits both insured and uninsured people.

Then add to the equation the vast numbers of uninsured, the percentage
of the nations GDP that is given to the health care industry (and
rising) and the cost escalations for health care the last 5 years and
the projected increases in health care costs over the next 5 years and
it is clearly a system that is deeply broken.

For every 'horror story' that you list above, there are surely 10 horror
stories in the American health care system...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kaiser4may04,0,335770.story?track=tothtml

Oh yeah, this is a great health care system we have here in the US...

Craig

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