President Sarkozy is over this week from France and gave a speech at Columbia in NYC. I quote part of it here because it encapsulates what Europeans thought about the healthcare debate in the US -- their suprise that we could be arguing over something that is taken for granted over there.
"Welcome to the club of states who don't turn their back on the sick and the poor," Sarkozy said, referring to the U.S. health care overhaul signed by President Barack Obama last week.
From the European perspective, he said, "when we look at the American debate on reforming health care, it's difficult to believe."
"The very fact that there should have been such a violent debate simply on the fact that the poorest of Americans should not be left out in the streets without a cent to look after them ... is something astonishing to us."
Then to hearty applause, he added: "If you come to France and something happens to you, you won't be asked for your credit card before you're rushed to the hospital."
4 comments:
I beg to differ with President Sarkozy on one point.
In July of 2005, I slipped on a wet marble step leading up from the Seine and before I was even put in the ambulance, they wanted my I.D. and where I was resident. At the time, all I had was my Texas driver's license and U.S Passport with me, but Vince kept telling them my address was in Great Britain. So, they do want to know who you are and where you reside before they would even transport you to the hospital.
On a positive note, the bill I received for ten hours in the E.R., x-rays of my hip and a morphine I.V. came to $173.00 USD. Would have been five figures, at least, in the States.
what bunk
poor people have had medicare for forty years, and no one by law can be denied emergency treatment.
Emergency treatment, yes, but is that so satisfactory?
Say someone has a lump - but doesn't want to go the doctor about it in case it's nothing and they can't afford it cause they have no insurance. Well, when they're dying of cancer, then they can get emergency treatment, but is it so wrong for them to get treated earlier in the game?
Or the use of preventative medicine? Statins et al? One of the great problems of preventative medicine is that humans can't think so abstractly. Imagine you have $5 million and with that, you can give 1000 people statins over 10 years, saving 30 potential lives, or you can give five people heart transplants right now without which they'd die. You want to save the five now rather than the possible thirty in the future, even though that's not logical.
Why should people without insurance be denied the right not to fall ill, too? Why is only emergency treatment adequate enough?
Sarkosy got it wrong as well. The principle beneficiaries of the bill are the WORKING people who do not qualify for Medicaid (very restrictive in many states) or are not insured by their employers or are ineligible for private insurance due to preexisting conditions.
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