(August 30, 2009 at 10:51 pm)Saerules Wrote: If we are not denied medical service on inability to pay: then I'm an oyster. Several of my close friends have what i think to be desperate need of health care... yet they don't have it, and i note that all of the ones who need it (other than me, but that's an age/guardianship restriction) are 2-3 paychecks before they live on the street kind of poor.
That to me seems like a probable link, and with their statements of the same: i think it a true problem (at least in AK, USA). Our government, while not the best, is a lot better than most. You can very 37th in two ways: either that we are the 37th best, or that we are a good hundred (about 150 i would think) places away from the worst. And with Obama's health care reform: we would likely be bumped up to between the best and the 10th best.
Depends on what you consider the best. Waiting for months for an operation that I could get in a week or two isn't good to me. The only place that will deny you services based on inability to pay is if you go see a private doctor. If you walk into an emergency room they can not send you away. Not in my state anyway. We have signs all over the place in hospitals and some clinics that tell patients they by law are required to give them treatment regardless. There is no way people can say we are doing poorly as a country when it comes to medical health. Yeah we are really fat and that's causing medical problems but that's a personal issue and people have to correct that on their own. All kids get free immunizations if their parents can afford them. Health clinics give out birth control pills and pap smears based on income to patients with no insurance. Most doctors cut their prices for people who have no insurance if you pay for it at once out of pocket that day. No one is going around with typhoid fever or any of those other diseases that are rampant in third world countries.
