The Long Crisis

Posts Tagged ‘US healthcare system’

Along with many other pressing issues President Obama seems to have his hands full in attempting to reform the American healthcare system. One might wonder why “the best healthcare in the world” needs such extensive reform and how it compares to other healthcare systems around the world.

One interesting blog post at Huffington Post is made all the more interesting by the number of comments on healthcare received outside of the United States and on the cost of that healthcare. From personal experience I know that compared to healthcare systems in even third world nations healthcare received in the US is not always all that great, especially when the costs of healthcare are compared.

In the 1990’s I was working as a financial consultant based in Hong Kong when I came down with a high fever and extreme weakness while in Lahore, Pakistan. My driver insisted that I go to a hospital and drove me to a nearby hospital EM . I admit to being a bit apprehensive as Pakistan is definitely a third world nation and as an American I was concerned about the level of care I would receive. In addition, I worried that Americans were not very well thought of in Pakistan at the time as we had left them high and dry after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan and many in Pakistan justifiably felt used by the US government.

At the hospital I was examined by the doctor with less than three minutes wait. He was very professional with his examination. At the end of the examination he arranged for an assistant to bring medication to me. The next day I was fine.

When I asked for the bill I was told that it was their pleasure to have me as a guest in their country and that there would be no charge. I have often wondered how a Pakistani national visiting America would be treated at an American hospital under similar circumstances. More recently, I had a similar experience in Thailand except that the exam by an English speaking doctor at a hospital ER and several medications from the hospital pharmacy set me back all of 500 Baht, about $13.00.

Yet when I tell my family and friends that I will soon return to Asia they always bring up how I will risk being far from “the best in the world” healthcare. It is sad that so many Americans accept “facts” that are simply not true.

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Third World Style Healthcare in the US

Here is vivid evidence that the healthcare system in the US is badly broken and that many millions of poor and middle class people need assistance.

In the video you see hundreds of people, some of whom lined up overnight, receiving free healthcare from an organization dedicated to bringing healthcare to those unable to afford to pay for healthcare services. This is a scene witnessed often in third world countries but this is in the United States in the backwoods of Tennessee.

There are about 47,000,000 people in the US who have no healthcare insurance and millions more who are under served as to quality healthcare. In a system where profit seems to come first millions of US citizens are suffering from health challenges that they can not afford to correct.

The state of the healthcare system in America is just further evidence of America’s sad decline toward third world status. In some areas of the nation, just look at the video, we have already arrived at the third world destination.

And in a long crisis the worse is yet to come.

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