I am a Canadian and feel much the same way. It really sucks that your health care system is so wonky, but when I watched (until I really couldn’t stand it any more) the whole health care debates in the US, I started thinking “They deserve what they get.” Except my poor bleeding heart doesn’t really believe it, and I am just so glad to be born and raised here.
On the other hand, I work in health care, (Registered Nurse) I’ve worked both in public and for-profit (nursing homes) systems and I think there is a lot of waste.
Friday night I got sick very rapidly. A slight cold that had not kept me home from work over the previous two days turned ugly in the space of a short nap after work nap. I woke up at 10 with my eyes stuck together, (classic “pink eye” symptoms), a wretchedly sore throat and a throbbing ear. I booked off work for the next day, knowing I was too sick to be there, and waited until morning when I could go to the walk-in clinic.
I was the third patient seen when the clinic opened at 11 am. The doctor the next morning expressed surprise I waited since my ear was “very full of fluid and bulging” and I am clearly quite ill. “You didn’t go to the Emergency?” she asked me.
Of course not. Firstly, that night I could barely see to drive myself to the hospital, and two I knew that I would only have to tough it out 12 hours until I could see someone. I know a lot of people who would be standing in line at the hospital very quickly but that isn’t me. I was miserable and in pain over night, but some Aleve and a warm compress over my eyes and beside my aching ear helped, and I think these days too many people are unwilling to accept any ache or pain without medical intevention. Knowing what was wrong and that it would be just overnight until I could see a doctor helped.
When they’re done to check on an already-diagnosed problem. The CT version of X-raying someone’s leg before taking off the cast, to make sure the bone really has healed.
The thing with Diana was how the French deal with accident victims. Remember the TV series Emergency? Paramedics would spend a lot of time trying to treat the patient at the scene of the accident. The U.S. found that in the long run it was better to transport the victim as soon as possible instead of letting “amateurs” try and treat the patient in the field with very limited resources. Had Diana been transported directly to a hospital especially since her injuries were so severe she probably had a fair chance of survival.
As I remember from a CBS News report on French emergency services, in general the ambulance staff includes a physician, so it’s not like it’s a bunch of ambulance drivers are fumbling around. But I have no idea what happened in the particular case of Princess Diana’s care.
This is the problem. For all the rant about “free market”, the US health care system is anything but. You go in, you have no idea what ballpark the bill will be in ( except whatever you THINK it might be, multiply by 10, based on theses stories). You have no choices, you get whatever the hospital decides to charge. With sufficient yelling and negotiating, or with the power of an insurance company behind you, that same bill can become 1/10th the amount. There is no logical connect often between what services and items received, our perceived value, and the billed prices. Often the party paying (insurance) is not the party receiving the benefit.
The only connection betwen this process and free market capitalism is that some parties get rich.
I know this is heresy but I don’t believe the heath care system should be used to make anybody rich. To treat the sick and injured is a humanitarian calling like the clergy. It’s ultimate goal should be to reduce human suffering not to make money for stock holders. In America we have lost sight of this. People often say do you want the government to make health care decision and the answer is no but with our current system we literally have insurance claims adjustors making these decisions. I myself had to argue with an adjustor a few years ago trying to secure treatment for my grandfather because his insurance provider disagreed with the treatment recommended by his physician!
she died at the entrance to a tunnel/underpass, iirc
It’s not that they can’t airlift you if you have an accident in a tunnel - they’ll just get you out of the tunnel and then into the helicopter. But, they won’t airlift you when you’re in the middle of a metropolis is my point.
By the time they take off, figure out where to land safely, wheel you out of the tunnel, strap you in, make sure that they’re going to have a safe takeoff, etc. you’re going to be picked up and delivered to a hospital by ambulance in either Paris or New York.
So true (about a cost containment problem.) When one of my family is injured I have to choose either: 1) tell them to suck it up or 2) take them to a doctor and agree to pay, sight unseen, whatever amount they want to charge. And the hospital/doctor is going to use the best, most up-to-date (read: most expensive) treatment available because there is no incentive to do otherwise and there are strong incentives to not use lesser treatments. There is no reason to even try to contain costs.
If I could go to my neighbor, or the Straight Dope, or a wise old woman, or maybe a witch doctor for medical help I’d at least have a choice. But that would be illegal.
I don’t want to get involved in the rest of the thread, but I want to at least address this: Princess Di’s injuries weren’t survivable. Her internal injuries were so massive that her heart was literally torn out of her circulatory system and the pericardial shell. No hospital on earth could have saved her, whether or not she got there 20 minutes earlier.
The area around Place d’Alma is pretty crowded, what with trees, bridges, lamp-posts, and such. I never made a point of looking, but I suspect there are not too many flat spots in downtown Paris or any big city where you would put a helicopter down - but why would you? By the time you fly a copter in and do the transfer, it’s just as fast to drive an ambulance, lights blaring. Not that downtown Paris hospitals are likely to have heliports. And Alma was one of the more open parts of the city…
IIRC, a passing doctor was on the scene within a minute or so of the crash. Oddly enough, the one guy who wore a seat-belt survived. (not important enough to ignore the law, and smart/trained enough to put it on.) As one motivational speaker I saw said about it all… with all the flack about doctors and conspiracies and so on, it simply boils down to - nobody wants to admit that one of the most-liked persons in the world could be carelessly killed by a drunk driver like the poor sap down the street from you.
On Monday I dropped into emergency with chest pains, I was given all the test ECG, BP, chest xrays, my blood was tested within the hour etc etc and after a clean bill of health was sent on my way. The bill to me $00.00 and they offered to pay for a taxi back to the office, I said no as I thought I had got enough.
Oops thats right I live in a socialist state, Australia.
Anyway, it’s just another strawman. At any decent-sized hospital in the UK you’re likely to see a landing pad and/or a helicopter. Hell, they even have one in Hereford (which is pretty tiny really), although it uses the carpark.
Oh, and transportation is as free at the point of use as the medical treatment itself. Paramedics are fully trained medical staff (now becoming a graduate profession too), although that maybe wasn’t so much the case in 1997. Nonetheless, it wasn’t like ambulance staff then were just drivers in white coats, they absolutely would have had training for emergency situations, if nothing else.
There has to be some mistake somewhere with that story. I just had a hernia repaired; actually surgery with an anaesthesiologist - in New York where things are never cheap. The bill was under $6000.
