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luxshine
2007-02-19 04:52 am UTC (link)

Ok, I'll admit I have problems with that one too.

I've been in ONE american ER, for a very mild case of heatstroke but since I had been recently in surgery, the paramedics took me there. I waited for hours, felt better, asked if I could leave... and no one let me. I had to argue with a doctor, six hours after I had been put in the waiting room, so he would finally let me go 'against medical advice'.

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	singe 2007-02-19 06:54 pm UTC (link)
	Don't get sick in America. Christ A'mighty. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kahrohseh 2007-02-20 01:03 am UTC (link)
	Yeah. My mom? Bone cancer. No health insurance. It's really funny hearing people react to my railing against the American health system because most are utterly convinced that death by bureaucracy and negligence is only something that happens in heathen countries and we're all far too nice for that to happen here. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	singe 2007-02-20 02:14 am UTC (link)
	What a nightmare, I'm so sorry that's happening to ya'll. What's also sad is even if you HAVE insurance that doesn't mean they'll pay. Insurance companies get away with a lot of shady bullshit under the 'pre-existing condition' clause. Sigh. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

kahrohseh
2007-02-20 04:22 pm UTC (link)

Story of our lives. Even if we could afford insurance for her now, no-one would take her.

I could fly my mother to Norway and dump her on a street corner somewhere and could guarantee she'd see better medical care than we could get here as fifth-generation tax-paying working-class Americans (who, being of Norwegian descent, don't complain much unless someone's got an arm off). :p The hell.

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	luxshine 2007-02-20 03:14 am UTC (link)
	I'm convinced that the most advanced a country is, the easier it is to end up dead by bureaucracy and negligence because everyone is covering their asses. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

kahrohseh
2007-02-20 04:37 pm UTC (link)

Echoes of Gilliam's Brazil there. I completely concur. Still, I'd like to feel that a country properly sorted out can be advanced and not kill its own citizens. But then, we're also a country whose current dictator believes in the "sanctity of life" enough to ban stem cell research and gay marriage, but treats the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths as an interesting factoid. And thinks that giving a tax break on health insurance when most who don't have it are too poor to pay taxes is an excellent damn solution.

May I ask, where are you from, and can I move there?

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luxshine
2007-02-20 05:20 pm UTC (link)

Mexico. Unfortunately, we are not much better as the extreme-extreme right has just gotten themselves into power and, well, they like to follow the steps of mr.Sanctity of life.

(On the plus side, gay marriage has been legalized, and there's at least one ER that will not only take you no matter what you have, or if you have insurance or not, but also will not charge you at all for the service. And a health insurance policy that more or less goes to the fact that if you have a job, you get health insurance. So it's a situation where you have to decide if it's a half full glass or a half empty one)

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