Mind you...?

[Dr Mordrid]

It's my understanding that it's the poor sick bastard who uses his life savings to jump to cue in order to save his life.

The rich sick bastard comes over here or goes to Karolinska for medical treatment....just like the Canadians do.

Dr. Mordrid

[thop]

At least we don't have our life ruined because of some accident (hello liz) If you got bad teeth it is your own damn fault and not the dentists. People tend to rely on doctors too much and forgot who is actually responsible for their very own health.

I rarely even visit any doctor, maybe once a year. But i'm damn glad an accident, even the most severe one, won't ruin my life.

[thop]

Oh and Tony really belongs on the first picture. With GWB everyone knows what to expect anyway, but Tony is either damn naive and stupid or just a better actor than Arnold Schwarzenegger (and they don't come better than him! ).

[Wombat]

Originally posted by KeiFront
You forgot the Beer Gurm

Not that you guys know anything about American beer.

[thop]

Not that any beer in the world can beat german beer

[Tjalfe]

can I assume you have tried every other beer?
ever tried any of the Canadian ones?

[Gurm]

No, sorry. German beer wins. But some American brews are starting to come close.

Canadian beer is like making love in a canoe...

****ING CLOSE TO WATER.

Gpar_

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by thop
If you got bad teeth it is your own damn fault and not the dentists.

For many people bad teeth are simply a matter of heredity. I agree that health care in the US is too expensive for any normal human to pay for, though. I remember watching Little House on the Prairie and seeing their local doctor giving his services in return for chickens and milk.

Of course, there are more expenses now, like those trillion dollar MRI machines that no insurance company will pay for. (How much did GE et al gouge the hospital for THAT monstrosity now?) There is really too wide a gap between rich and poor here, and no political party or anyone else has the will or can think rightly on how to change this.

[Brian Ellis]

In 1990, I suffered a quasi-total A-V block while in the wilds of NH. I was admitted to Nashua Memorial Hospital and was on the marble slab within an hour having an external pacemaker fitted, to keep me going while a thorough round of tests were done. An internal pacemaker was fitted 2 days later. The cost of this little adventure, in a regional hospital with a good but run-of-the-mill cardiologist was USD 32,500,

In 1998, this pacemaker had to be replaced and it was done at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Vaud, which is Switzerland's leading teaching hospital and research centre for cardiology. The surgery was performed by Prof. Kappenberger, who was a member of the team that developed implantable pacemakers and is considered as a leading authority on the subject. The cost? CHF 28,400 (~USD 17,750 at the 1998 exchange rate). The differences:
1. The second pacemaker was more sophisticated and slightly more expensive
2. The ventricular cable was not replaced, although the atrial (auricular) one was, as it was showing signs of wear (this saved CHF 450)
3. I was one day less in intensive care, reflected as 1 day less altogether in hospital (this saved CHF 1,000 in board/lodging/nursing fees)
4. The US cardiologist had a sense of humour.
5. The food in Nashua was terrible!

My conclusion in this comparison. Cardiac surgery in the US is horrendously expensive, compared with Switzerland, which already has the most expensive medicine in Europe (and the greatest # of MRI scanners, proportional to the population, in the world).

[Marshmallowman]

1990 compared to 1998, A lot of stuff has improved by leaps and bounds in heart surgery, I think the equivalent surgery in the US may have decreased as well, but I don't know, they comparison is probably stretching it a bit.

In Australia, that would be emergency surgery and would proably be fully covered by medicare, I am not sure about the replacement pacemaker 8 years later, they would probably class it as elective surgery(some of the lines they draw are quite alarming but in general I think its good)

[Brian Ellis]

Sure, I elected to have it because the battery was flat. It was on a tickover rate of 45 ipm, sufficient to keep me alive for a few weeks but not allowing any effort.

However, if I elected not to have it, I would have kicked the bucket within a month or two, which would have saved the Oz medicare system the cost of that and all future treatment, had I been there!

[Sasq]

I think, in terms of flat battery Oz medicare would have covered it, if you had elected to have a new pacemaker installed just to give you more libido then it would have been elective.

But Medicare only covers base model for most things. If you want better you (or your insurance company pays the gap)

Dan

Edit, must reinstall my speeelchecker

[Brian Ellis]

What's libido? Haven't seen much of that for many years (actually, not strictly true: the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak )

[DukeP]

Forget the flesh: Go Latex all the way.



~~DukeP~~

[az]

As many of you may know, my daughter came a good 13 weeks early. She was in hospital for 364 days, three months of which in intensive care (and this is neonatologic intensive care, where they had 3 doctors and 6 nurses or so for 12 children!).

Beside the fact that the last three months were unneccessary IMO (though this is another story), one doctor told us after half a year of being there and two operations (one more to come later) that the cost up to that point for Samira's treatment had added up to the cost of a small house, which in germany means several hundred thousand euros. He told us that one patient like this can bring a small insurance company to its knees. We didn't have to pay a single cent. We are on public healthcare. We haven't paid a single cent for Samira's treatment after that either, which includes the doctor (duh!), and four visits of therapists (they come to us!) a week.

Also, my girlfriend is close to dialysis now (which will of course be paid for by public healthcare, as well as the medication she needs now), and her nephrologist said we should be happy we don't live in the US, because the standard there is a lot lower than here (and of course you have to pay for it, which may be a reason the standard's lower). We have the prospect of getting a dialysis machine ourselves so we can do dialysis at home (after a training period of half a year). For free, of course.

If it weren't for public healthcare, we'd be a million euros in debt by now (this is no exaggeration). Of course, we are an extreme case, as we've been very unlucky, health-wise. We're quite on the lower end of income and living standard, btw, some may even say we're poor.

So please don't bash german healthcare if you know nothing of it, Gurm!

Of course, our public (and private) healthcare system has its problems, but a lot of that (not all, of course), is due to mismanagement, and paying some really unneccessary luxury stuff.

Sadly, our politicians are in the process of crippling our public healthcare severly, with the prospect of poorer people getting poorer healthcare. (Of course, rich people could afford to go to expensive private clinics before, but healthcare for the average joe was OK - which I fear it won't be anymore in ten years).

Oh, and I don't write this to make anyone envious, if it may sound like that. I'd gladly switch with anyone who and whose family is healthy, anytime.

AZ