RE: Obesity and health care in the US
January 4, 2015 at 3:36 pm
(This post was last modified: January 4, 2015 at 3:38 pm by Dystopia.)
Enlightening as always
It is a myth that Europe has these perfect HC systems - Last week in Portugal a man died waiting over half a day in the urgency room when he clearly had a dangerous condition with worrying symptoms - There's stil a lot to be done. Another thing I should note is that you pay a lot of taxes for healthcare and by definition governments put a lot of them in politicians' pockets, you never know accurately where your tax money goes, or how many of your money goes for actual HC, you just know it will be useful for someone/something.
Overall it's preferable to America but there's still a lot to work on - Something that is worrying is a tendency for citizens to constantly blame people who supposedly have "self-inflicted" conditions, like smokers, obesity, diabetes, accusing them of being burdens.
As a smoker, I'm offended when my government raises taxes on cigarettes but still keeps products to quit a lot more expensive, and says it is for my own good. I'm also offended how people criticize smokers as being a burden on HC system when in 2011 smokers paid 1500million € in taxes and only 1000million € makes up for the additional costs with smokers - That's part of the reason I'm smoking natural tobacco leafs that don't pay taxes, I'm tired to be a part of the system that at the same time wants to babysit me but simultaneously doesn't help and exploits people.
Quote:All of the above goes without saying in European health care systems. You get immediate treatment when you need it and you don't have to pay an additional dime to what your social security provides. They also provide preventive care systems. That's one of the answers why the US doesn't rank that good when compared internationally. Availability of health care or lack thereoff. Another would be the overall high costs per capita. In France they spend an average of about 4000 Dollars per patient, in the US, as far as I'm informed it's about 8000 dollars. Other factors are the actual positive or negative outcomes of treatments and life expectancy. It's a bit lower in the US than it is for example in most European countries.Preventive care like what? I've never had preventive care excluding appointments with doctors I have to pay.
It is a myth that Europe has these perfect HC systems - Last week in Portugal a man died waiting over half a day in the urgency room when he clearly had a dangerous condition with worrying symptoms - There's stil a lot to be done. Another thing I should note is that you pay a lot of taxes for healthcare and by definition governments put a lot of them in politicians' pockets, you never know accurately where your tax money goes, or how many of your money goes for actual HC, you just know it will be useful for someone/something.
Overall it's preferable to America but there's still a lot to work on - Something that is worrying is a tendency for citizens to constantly blame people who supposedly have "self-inflicted" conditions, like smokers, obesity, diabetes, accusing them of being burdens.
As a smoker, I'm offended when my government raises taxes on cigarettes but still keeps products to quit a lot more expensive, and says it is for my own good. I'm also offended how people criticize smokers as being a burden on HC system when in 2011 smokers paid 1500million € in taxes and only 1000million € makes up for the additional costs with smokers - That's part of the reason I'm smoking natural tobacco leafs that don't pay taxes, I'm tired to be a part of the system that at the same time wants to babysit me but simultaneously doesn't help and exploits people.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
