|
Edited on Mon Jul-09-07 06:06 PM by lefador
... I had to rush a buddy over to the emergency room due to a deep cut in his arm that severed a couple of his tendons. We waited literally 3 hours before the attending had a chance to service him, two of my buddies spent those 3 hour holding his arm upside his head and applying pressure to the wound with a makeshift tourniquet. Had I not had the first aid training my buddy would have had serious damage to his arm, not by the wound itself but by the length of time it took to get help. This was not a busy emergency room in the innercity with 20 gunshot victims arriving at the same time, this was a medium sized city and the only emergency besides us was a car and a motorcycle crash.
I lived in Europe, and yes... sure the system ain't perfect. But at least there you have a choice to opt for private insurance if you are not satisfied with the baseline public service. Not only that, but the whole concept of ambulatory medicine means that you don't have to go to the emergency room to treat a cold. Sure, elective surgeries have a backlog... but I have never met anyone who was able to see or get an immediate appointment with an specialist in this country.
And don't get me started with some of the horror stories from some of my friends here in the States who have had to not only go from doctor to doctor, getting wildly different responses to their queries, but also had to get a crash course in medicine in to be able to better deal with their condition (my friend's wife has cancer). Back in Europe, I never heard of people having to jump through the same loops nor had to do as much private homework than some of my friends in America have to do in order to deal with serious illnesses. Here, you have to research you health plan, research your physician in the HMO offers you a choice (which is not a given), then you have to educate yourself and shop for second opinions, then you have to fight with the insurance in order to get approved, and then you have to fight with the billing department which always "screws up" in a way that benefits the HMO (I have never heard of any insurance company screwing up by undercutting the cost, it is always more expensive and it is always the patient/customer that has the burden of proof)... and then depending on the condition you will enter the wonderful world of dealing with American insurance companies and their wonderful game of "ooops that medicine that you need to take for the rest of your life after the operation and that costs a pretty penny ain't covered." Back in the old world, it was only for elective surgeries that I have had people going from specialist to specialist, usually for very specific conditions... and all through the whole ordeal they had to spend a total of 0 Euros for medical expenses. They were just focused on fighting the disease, and in the case of cancer that is quite the ordeal by itself, here you not only have to fight the disease but have to also fight the system which is designed no to cure you but screw you.
I am sure Euros and Canadians are aware of the shortcomings of their systems, no system is perfect. But at least they have a baseline coverage and don't have to deal with the same level of headaches. I just don't see them wanting to trade their systems for the mess that we have in this country.
So Dr. Guptah, I am sure he was a good first born Indian boy and made his family proud by going to med school. Like many of his ilk, he went to med school as an obligation not a vocation... and his constant defence of a system that benefits his bottomline and not the patients interests demonstrates the bottom feeders that are a big chunk of the medical profession. So he can suck my left nut for all I care. I am tired of these people trying to tell me that I should believe them and not my lying eyes.
|