TheRealMafoo said:
I am not saying there is not good healthcare around the world. I am just saying the best is in the US. I posted a list of the top 20 hospitals somewhere on this site, and something link 16 of them (with the top 8) were from the US. There is no place in the world where you can get better healthcare, then John Hopkins. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/the_johns_hopkins_hospital/index.html The second best place in the world for medical care, is the Mayo Clinic. http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester/ Unless you live in the US (or are willing to fly here), you can't get care at this level. I live 2 hours from the Mayo. Any American who wants to live close to these hospitals (or any of the other top 8), can do so. I am glad your mother is getting great treatment. I am sure many outside the US do. But if your mother had an ultra rare blood disorder, cancer or needed a new heart, here chances of living are better at these two locations, then anywhere else in the world. So with these things available to me, and all Americans, how is that bolded statement not true, let alone unacceptable? |
It's great for you, that you have some of the best hospitals in the world close to you. But best does not necessarily mean, that this is suits you the best. The hospitals you chose are frankly not the best for my mum, because after working hard for 52 years she still couldn't afford this ones without stacking up high dues. Here she gets A-class treatment for free.
Apart from that, if you have extra money and want that A+treatment, you could easily get the best from around the world whereever you live and especially in a first world country. In every case you wrote in the answer to my post, I can always find someone equal or nearly equal to do the job done. Well it's probably then 98% of that Mayo could give you, but it might be more in some very specific illnesses. But even if you are in the "best hospital" in the world (actually I don't think, that rankings are really the right thing to do and 100% trustable), there might be some specific illness, where you get better treatment in another country. I'm not a doctor, but slimebeast might bring some light to this.
What makes it unacceptable is not, that you chose the best plan for yourself, but that this plan might not work out for everybody and then assume it would. That you get the best of the best treatment goes at the expense of others. Not, that you steal or something from them, but that this treatment wouldn't be A+, if everybody from your state and the ones around could easily go there, should be clear.
I heard that some insurance companies in the US have their own hospitals and you just get the treatment there paid by them, so you definitely don't have the same health care as their costumers.
If you are in the need of A or A+ treatment you get it here as well, without having to beg for it, but that people die, because they can't afford it or have to argue with the insurance company over the expenses, barely (I write barely, because everything happens sometime) happens. In a socialized health-care-system, if you work harder then others you will still be able to get your A+ treatment if you want to have it for minor illnesses, so that makes your statement invalid.
But in the case something goes wrong (our self-owned company going down after 30 years in my mother's case), you still get all the treatment you'll need. In the specific case of my mum, she wouldn't have gotten the treatment in the USA for two reasons.
1. she could still walk, but just with heavy painkillers
2. because she could still walk, there was no 100% necessity to do an operation and she couldn't have been able to pay for it all for herself.
But if she would have money to spend, she could get treatment the same level as in the two hospitals above.
But back to you. If you would live in Germany, you would still get the best treatment.
You would choose between a private insurance and a socialized one. If you go private, you pay less premiums for now, and have to pay after a treatment first by yourself and then get it back form the insurance company. The problem is, while you get older your premiums get naturally higher and therefore, when you're old it's more expensive then the socialized one.
With a socialized one you normally have to wait a little longer in a doctor's office but your children are insured as well and the expenses are directly given to the doctor's union by the socialized insurance companies (yes even socialized medicine is somehow privatised here as well). The premiums are directly collected by the state as a percentage of your payroll. If you need a surgery - and if it's a heart surgery or something like this you get it instantly as well.
In both you can freely choose the doctor/hospital of your choice.
