usernamenumber | (no subject)

ryca linked me to a couple of fascinating posts made by

liz_marcs, who apparently has a pretty broad set of flisters. She started one post for Americans to post their health-care stories, and another for non-Americans under government healthcare systems, good bad and ugly. Reading through the results is very interesting. It's all anecdotal, of course, but at this point that's well-worth cutting out the middleman in assessing what the different experiences are like
to me.

American Stories

Non-American Stories

Then again, there are still a lot of questions that are bothering me about the current situation:

The proposed plan in the US is not a single-payer system like those described above (though some seem to fear/assert that it will inevitably lead to one). Instead, my understanding is that it creates a government insurance offering that "competes" with the for-proffit companies. But how can it do that without becoming a dumping ground for the least insurable people out there? And if that happens, how can it compete?

I'm also hearing that the proposed plan mandates insurance with penalties against those who don't subscribe. During the primaries, Obama's position against this was one of the main things that I liked about him over Clinton.

Urgh. Anyway, still suffering from head-explody, but helpful information nonetheless. Makes me all the more pissed about the crazy scare-tactics that are being used about people dying in line waiting for care in other countries (the citizens of which, when polled, still seem to like their death camps as much or more than we like our system for some reason, those wacky Canadians), etc... and terrified that so many people seem to be buying them completely. =:(

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Note that the American comments are for people who are uninsured and underinsured, not for people who actually like their insurance coverage. This puts in a bias in the responses.

I also see the government plans as being a dumping ground for the least insurable people out there, but I still think that these people deserve some care which is better than no care at all.

I did notice that about the skewing.

I noticed it too, and it would be good to see a balance. What's getting to me, though, is the fact that there are SO MANY STORIES about people without insurance or without enough insurance in America. It's just *wrong*. The fact that that post can exist at all and get so many comments is just boggling. I can only read a few at a time, honestly.

if you want to go fact to fact on this one...

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/561737

what im trying to say is that i'm glad they like their systems but ours still takes better care of us.