The United States of America where. . .

[ecube]

About the healthcare issue, I have a buddy who had an issue with his foot and had to go to the emergency room, it turned out to be nothin but they footed(no pun intended) him with over a thousand dollar bill. He was unemployeed at the time, called some number explained the situation to them, and eventually they just squashed the bill. i'm not saying they do this always, but it does happen and a doctor bill isn't worth someone dieing over.

[jj2007]

My take on this is, sure pay the medical bills..  But insurance ?  that is what drove all the medical profession up in the first place. Its WHY the medical bills are so high. Get rid of being "required" or "forced" to have insurance and lower the costs on medical and we dont have to pay for that plane that the Dr just bought when they head out to the netherlands on thier 2 month vacation that the  insurrance company just payed them.  :U

That sounds logical but evidence tells a different story: Europe has much better health insurance but much lower health costs than the US. No clear idea why this is the case but it's a fact. Maybe because going quickly to a doctor avoids long-term trouble? What's not even included is that not caring for health results in economic loss outside the patient-doctor relationship, e.g. bad health leads to job loss etc...

[oex]

In the UK we have NHS and private, private is on the rise and although it is meant to drive down prices it is always more expensive and actually inflates prices.... They always have a monopoly in their area.... Dentists wont treat you unless you have someone to take you home or live locally because of the anesthetic and you're unlikely to drive to the next town to get your broken leg fixed :bg....

The great thing about privatisation is not that it makes things cheaper it's that it shifts the responsibility, spreads out the blame and creates a complete unneeded insurance industry in the face of high unemployment....

When I travel abroad I want health insurance to cover a multilingual, multicultural health system platform I dont understand and give me coherant all seeing perspective.... When I see my local dentist who lives 5 minutes down the street I dont want to pay $150 for a 20 minute filling....

I think (from experience) that possibly the UKs biggest asset is the NHS, it says my country (my local community) gives a sh*t about something important (ie it's citizens) regardless of age, sex, color or bank balance.... :lol no it wont make me all patriotic I still think my country is a failure on various important issues such as recent wars, and other attitude issues but it's a step in the right direction....

[bieber]

Do you work for free Bill?
I doubt it. You have bills to pay, food, etc.
Why shouldn't a company be allowed to recoup its cost of research and return a profit?

Or just because it is a medical related company,
are they required not to make a profit, but to just break even?

Where would the incentive be to find more cures and new treatments ?

Some things are more important than profit, and medical care is absolutely one of them.  In general, I don't think medical research or health care should be done by for-profit corporations, because you can always trust them to consistently put profit above the well-being of the public.  I don't work for free, but I do pay taxes that go to public services, and I (and most every other American) consider that a reasonable thing to do for the common good.  We have food stamps to keep the poor from starving to death, now it's high time that we started making sure that the poor stop dying for lack of health care.  Hell, you don't really even need to be poor...just seeing a doctor can be so prohibitively expensive that even your typical, working class citizen may risk financial ruin if they go to the hospital.

[box]

It should be illegal for hospitals to render care to poor people and people who don't speak english

[José Roca]

It should be illegal for hospitals to render care to poor people and people who don't speak english

Anybody wanting to force everybody to speak English should first learn that, in English, the names of languages are always written with a capital letter. Sheesh.

[box]

Go back to mexico

[José Roca]

I'm not Mexican and I don't live in the United States. By the way, you should also learn that, in English, the names of countries are always written with a capital letter. Go back to school.

[box]

I'm not Mexican

Who do you think you're kidding, josé

[José Roca]

If you had gone to school you would know that there are many Spanish-speaking countries other than México.

[bieber]

Dude, you're getting trolled.  Hard.

[PauloH]

It should be illegal for hospitals to render care to poor people and people who don't speak english

I'm a medicine doctor from Brasil and I live in my country. If the quotation above is the kind of thinking people have at United States you're in bad times. I must say that is the most ridiculous statament I saw in my life. This remembers me some kind of nazist thinking. This is disgusting!

[hutch--]

Hola Hombre,
Lo que una vasija de mierda.  :tdown

Sensible países han cuidado de salud universal.

[box]

tu aires retardo

It should be illegal for hospitals to render care to poor people and people who don't speak english

I'm a medicine doctor from Brasil and I live in my country. If the quotation above is the kind of thinking people have at United States you're in bad times. I must say that is the most ridiculous statament I saw in my life. This remembers me some kind of nazist thinking. This is disgusting!

??

[jj2007]

Hey, before starting a nice little flaming war, check the early posts of our little "street thug". He seems to be intelligent, so I assume he pulled your leg. And he definitely has a strange sense of humour :green