Kennedy’s Choice
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News breaks today that the champion of British/Canadian style socialized medicine has a malignant brain tumor.
Teddy Kennedy was diagnosed via biopsy very quickly, which is a much different story than we get from places where socialized medicine is mandated. This is because Kennedy opted-out and paid for the services he wanted, got those service when he needed them, and thus got acceptable results (given that his type of tumor can have a survivability time of less than a year, timely diagnosis and treatment is essential).
Makes you wonder why Teddy values private medical services when his needs are dire, but doesn’t want it for the everyone else. Probably for the same reason that Fidel Castro flew to Spain for medical care, despite his much lauded government medical system.
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If you have polite and articulate comments, please provide them. Rants and flames are discarded.
Why is it that – ‘Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries.’?
And if socialized health care is so bad why is it that – ‘Compared with five other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom—the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system’ ?
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=482678
‘Ten Reasons Why American Health Care Is so Bad’ -
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=ten_reasons_why_american_health_care_is_so_bad
‘In just the past year, a full 25 percent of us didn’t visit the doctor when sick because we couldn’t afford it. Twenty-three percent skipped a test, treatment, or follow-up recommended by a doctor. Another 23 percent didn’t fill a prescription. No other country is even close to this sort of income-based rationing. In Canada, only 4 percent skipped a doctor’s visit, and only 5 percent skipped care. In the U.K., those numbers are 2 percent and 3 percent. Few of our countrymen are waiting for the care they need, that much is true. But that doesn’t mean they’re getting it quickly. Rather, about a quarter of us aren’t getting it at all.’
But maybe poor people don’t deserve any better?