[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi:
However if you have the choice between the two systems the choice is clear: the US. US tort law insures that doctors takes the greatest pains possible for care. The compensation of doctors within the US insures that they have the best doctors on average ( I'm sure that every person "knows a great doctor in Canada", whatever ). The compensation of doctors in the US also insures that they have the best equipment available ( the tort law also reinforces this ).

Well, you've certainly found a doctor who prescribes good psychedelics if you think the compensation and system here ensure the best health care. The doctors here are, by and large, overpaid, and have such good insurance that many don't feel a need to pay attention to what they're doing. Where I just came from in Florida, the _best_ local hospital had doctors amputating the wrong limbs, performing surgeries on the wrong people, and killing people by prescribing the wrong drugs.

Tort law does nothing to prevent this. And under many health plans, people don't even get a chance to go to tort law anyway - it goes to mediation, said mediation being people who are on the health plans' payrolls, deciding whether the outfit that gives their paychecks was right. Guess how they decide most of the time?

It is simply better if you can afford it.

You know - I got better health care in Colombia South America this New Years Eve. No medical insurance for that country, 5 in the evening New Years Eve - I waited in the emergency room for less than half an hour, saw a good doctor, was out in less than 1.5 hours total, and spent somewhat under $100, including two medications prescribed.

It's pretty flaming sad when a country as ... internally mangled as Colombia has better health service than the USA - with the health plan my employer gave me, as a $65,000 employee, I would have had to pay more, for worse treatment, at home.

Sure - rich Colombians come here for fancy operations. So do the ultra rich Russians, Saudis, etc, because everyone knows - rich people can get the _best_ treatment in the USA.

Fifty years ago, the average doctor earned about 5 times the average person's pay. The average CEO made about 10 times his average employee's salary. Today, the doctor makes 50 times the average pay in his area; the CEO makes 500 times the average employee's pay.

Capitalism is broken, at least in this country. For blood's sake, some of the richest and smartest capitalists in the country say so - Warren Buffet, Paul Allen, George Soros, etc.

When corporations were originally given equal status to human beings / citizens in this country, no one imagined a day when the corporations sole responsibility was to itself, its executives, and even more so, to its stock holders. A corporations prime responsibility is ... fiduciary. It has to make money for the stock holders, and damn everything else. Not just make money - but make the _most_ money.

Otherwise, the companies can, and have been, sued, for not maximizing the shareholders wealth.

Glad you like a country that, with one of the largest gaps between poor and rich in the world, has gone back to giving the rich huge tax cuts.

Feh.