4 Countries With Better Healthcare Than Ours

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"everybody loves to pick on France, where care is generous but taxes are high and work optional." DAMN !! Where did you heard that ? In France, sure we've a very good healthcare protection, but work is not an option !

Samuel Cour 8:54AM December 31, 2011

I'm not particularly religious but most religions that I know of teach charity and compassion...they also teach responsibility for oneself and ones family, accountability, work ethics and obeying the laws of the land. Some people need and deserve help but I have to wonder how many of that 40 million do not work because they choose not to or because they've learned how to live off the system. How many own designer jeans, drive nicer cars than they need, have boats or in other ways make financial choices that could have purchased health insurance instead? How many are breaking the law by being here in the first place? How many need help because they choose to abuse drugs and alcohol? I would help anyone who sincerely needed it but giving to people who should help themselves is enabling a different kind of disease and it's making our country sick.

Lora of FL 5:03PM June 23, 2011

The seeds of the health care problems were sown many years ago when the medical insurance industry was established without foresight and understanding of the human behavior. The insurance system encouraged the public to use medical care without proper restraint and concern for cost. The insurance companies were only too eager to pay whatever the medical profession wanted because it meant more business volume and made medical insurance more compelling. They are now trying to control the costs but it is too late. The rapidly increasing medical costs, in spite of decreasing cost of technology, contributed to a spiral of wage inflation which made America uncompetitive in the global context and created an unsustainable financial environment. The net result is that the health insurance premiums now exceed what the health care would have probably cost out of pocket if the insurance industry did not exist. One can only understand this if he or she has lived in a country where the medical insurance industry does not exist although admittedly things are getting worse there also as capitalistic greed is being imported. I recently got two knee X-rays and half hour consultation with a capable orthopedic surgeon for less than US $11.00 in India and that was above norm by local standards.
For America, the genie is out of the bottle and there is no way to go back unless there is complete economic demise and we start from scratch.

Haresh Patel of CA 8:52PM January 28, 2011

"If we just get rid of
- the waste and fraud
- all the unnecessary defensive medicine
- frivolous lawsuits
- stop providing health care to illegals and redirect non-emergency cases of
uninsured / under-insured cases to clinics"
Yay! we just handed our healthcare to our federal government. I'm sure they're already working on all of the above to handle our tax money with the utmost fiduciary care.

Political Atheist of CO 6:32PM March 31, 2010

First choice should be single payer.You cant have a mix & match.
Second choice a public option is a must.How else can you provide competition
to force Insurances to compete thereby providing choices to lower costs.
It boggles the mind that Insurance Companies can just turn you down for so called pe-existing conditions.
What happened to freedom if 40million go without care.
Where is the religous right that preach charity.

Richard of FL 7:58PM March 12, 2010

Nothing is for free; we have to pay for services, sooner or later, either as individuals or as a nation unless we start shipping the aged and / or the unhealthy and / or the incurable to some 3rd world country or a remote place and just forget about them.
Either we pay now or pass on the costs to our kids and grand kids; it's as simple as that.
We didn't plan and save for the long term; as individuals and as a nation, we borrowed and spent, borrowed and spent and continue to do so and not have the discipline and the courage to face the problems head-on. Our population is aging so our health care problems / costs are going to increase, and surviving in retirement is going to get harder and harder.
Let's wake up and stop lot of these stupid ideological arguments (left vs right, socialist vs capitalist, democrat vs republican, etc) and implement some practical and realistic solutions, otherwise we will go down, albeit very slowly but painfully, as all the great nations / empires did in the past.
If we care about our future US generations and long term viability as a leading / developed nation, we better face the music, swallow some bitter pills and pay some price.

MLA of CA 4:04PM January 26, 2010

To Lilly of CO: The quality of care in Britain is in line with what it spends on health services, relative to US. Britain spends $2992 while US spends $7290. We spend almost 2.5 times more than Britain I don't think the care and services in the US are that much better. Not everyone is covered here in the US and amongst the developed nations, we have one of the highest rates of obesity and the associated diseases (diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, etc.).
We all need to seriously think, good / decent health care at what cost ? Look at all the budget deficits we have at local, state and national level. Where is the money to provide all the services that we all expect ? How long can we keep printing (extra) money of ~trillion dollars a year without going bankrupt as a nation. We will have to make some hard choices for health care, medicare, social security, etc.
Our costs are bloated due to
- defensive medicine (lot of expensive tests just to fend off lawsuits)
- lawyers and our legal system
- insurance companies not being able to sell insurance across state boundaries
and exempt from anti-trust rules
- politicians not able to stand up to lobbyists from big pharma, insurance
companies, lawyers, AARP-senior citizens, health care providers (doctors, etc)
- shortage of health care providers
- health care for illegals and uninsured at Emergency rooms, which charge a lot
just to treat a common cold
- consumers not knowing and not caring to know as to what they are paying
for health care services because it's between the employers, insurance
companies and health care providers
- waste and fraud in the system: providers overcharging or charging for
procedures / tests, etc that were not provided
- aging population
- we want all the latest and greatest care without doing the cost-benefit
analysis
If we just get rid of
- the waste and fraud
- all the unnecessary defensive medicine
- frivolous lawsuits
- stop providing health care to illegals and redirect non-emergency cases of
uninsured / under-insured cases to clinics
By doing the above, we may be able to lower the costs by 20% to 30%, which should be enough to provide health care to all the 40+ million uninsured in this country and still cost less than what it is costing us now.
As for health insurance, somehow we need to provide health coverage / care to everyone by providing a combination of private and government coverage options with range of coverage options and costs. Those who can afford can opt for the best coverage but pay big dollars for it and those who can't afford, at least get the basic services (without having to go to emergency rooms). Keep in mind though, those with basic (bare minimum coverage) will get major / serious illnesses at some point in life, for which we will have to have buffer / reserves to deal with; these reserves will have to be funded in some fashion (direct and/or indirect taxes on those who can afford).

MLA of CA 3:31PM January 26, 2010

I agree with Jeb's statements. At the age of 28 I have been on gvmnt.-funded
disability for my entire adult life due to uncontrolled epilepsy; but I am also one
of the individuals in my community who makes the least appointments. I get
ticked off everytime I wake from a seizure to find myself laying on an ER cot.
I don't need a private nurse, a 20 pg. hospital record, & an inefficient amount of tax-payer spending to help me in the care of a condition I've dealt with all of my life! It's wasted time, money, & energy, & if anything, I think my private neurologist & I know my body 100 times better than a random stranger licensed with a phd. As odd as it may sound, indiviuals with legitimate disabilities are probably those who milk the system to the least of their personal advantage.
I know the drawbacks of public healthcare first-hand, you get what you pay for. If you want to pay 75% less, then your care quality will also decrease by 75% & your wait-time will rise by 75%. Sure, Canada has a great healthcare system but they also have a different gvmnt system. You can't successfully combine the two; in the end this is probably going to blow up in our faces.
If we would start saving that 10% every month & taking better care of ourselves with better diet, activity, $10 over-the-counter supplements, & rest then healthcare probably wouldn't be such a big issue. It's about self-care, frugality, & common-sense.

Nicole Gallucci of TX 4:50PM January 23, 2010

I worked in England as a doctor and we let quite a few people die for want of a moderate amount of care (I am not talking fancy, expensive treatments) because they were a year or two past the cutoff for this or that.... Horrible!
Now I work in the US and 95% of patients want "everything done," even if it means they torture themselves...and bankrupt their grandchildren via Medicaid and Medicare. I would estimate that 66-70% of all medical care is not needed. I have people come in w paper cuts, 10 minute sore throats, 1 episode of diarrhea 2 days ago, rashes that have disappeared (I kid you not!). I have ever increasing numbers of druggies who come to get narcs (many Americans earn their living selling the narcs they are given from docs for their faked pain). My record is an 18 year old healthy boy faking back pain trying to get on permanent disability--and trying to cadge a few percocets to sell on the street! His 23 year old brother got on perm disab at age 22.... At our ER, we have patients who call 911 and get themselves squadded in every 2-3 days. They all know how to game the system, just complain of chest pain or shortness of breath! One female had 150 evaluations last year for chest pain, at a cost to the few working people still left of about $5,000 each time... You do the math... I'm amazed the country hasn't already collapsed... One 550 # man called the ER ordering us to send a nurse out to his house because "my wife s--t herself and she can't wipe her behind (because she is 450# and can't reach her rectum). We said we couldn't leave the ER but he figured out how to get her butt wiped! She shows up 30 minutes later by paramedics complaining of difficulty breathing. Her butt gets wiped! Then she wants a taxi back home, courtesy of the city... Nearly everyone in the whole country lying, cheating, wanting excused days off work to go car racing, days off school to play computer games, etc etc. There is only one solution: everyone pays for the care they receive, just like auto insurance. People would do a 180 to stay healthy.... And if you submit a claim, your premiums go up, so you will think twice before faking 10 heart attacks wanting morphine and vicodin... If you are destitute, you can beg your friends and neighbors and local community to help you....If it is legit, they will. But no one will help you if you are faking, so that will be the end of all the faking... Obviously, this common sense solution will not happen, so instead the whole country will collapse...The whole system is unsustainable.... I don't give us 5 more years til we collapse like a bunch of dominoes... Then we'll all get to experience "third world" care up close and personal! Believe me, the country is in a total mess...and way past the tipping point....on the way down into disintegration.... all empires collapse, and that is what is happening to us... My advice: don't get sick!!

jeb of OH 8:01PM January 20, 2010

I lived in London for six months. The healthcare system there sucks. I am an RN with multiple work experience and yet the Brits refused to let me work there. They said that American nurses weren't well trained enough. Yeah right. One of the largest hospitals in London was just down the street from my flat and so I made occassional visits there and what I saw was disgusting. The floors were corroded with dirt. The whole place had a foul odor on the the client floors. And those client floors are wards, housing both men and women with only flimsy curtains to pull between the beds.
Every day in the newspapers, there were stories of how the nurses failed to care for clients, never washed their hands, left feces on the commode seats, filtlhy sinks and how the food was unhealthy and left out of reach of the clients. There were numerous horror stories of how people died from lack of care while being in the hospital and how nurses who are government employees, could have cared less about the care they gave. It was just a job to many of them.
The British system rations chemotherapy drugs, causing many deaths to occur earlier than needed and probably with much pain. The ER's in Britain spend most of their time treating drunks since half the population can and do drink around the clock. Talk to the people who live there and you'll get a much better view of what's really happening in Britain. None of the people I spoke with there were happy with the system. The American Embassey told me that I would be unable to obtain healthcare thru the British system and had better hope that I would not become ill while there. They stated that unless I could find that rare private MD that wasn't government paid, I would be up a creek without a paddle. Luckily, I remained healthy while there but that nagging doubt was always in the back of my mind. The British system of healthcare can stay in Britian as far as I am concerned. The population pays thru their teeth for healthcare and get little return for their money.

Lilly of CO 8:42AM January 16, 2010