Ok, maybe you'll get free healthcare, but you'll be too dead to enjoy it:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/catosletter/catosletterv3n1.pdf
An excerpt: Among women diagnosed with breast cancer,only one fifth die in the United States, compared to one third inFrance and Germany, and almost half in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
Among men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer, fewer than one fifth die in the United States, compared to one fourth in Canada, almost half in France, and more than half in the United Kingdom.
According to SEER which are the statistics by the National Cancer Institute the mortality rate for breast cancer is 24.5 % which in my book is 1/4 and not 1/5
http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/breast.html
The mortality rates in Europe on average is 21.3 % with Russia being the lowest at 17.1 %.
http://www.encr.com.fr/breast-factsheets.pdf
Only 1 in 12 women in Europe develops breast cancer whereas it is 1 in 8 in the US.
In 2007 France had 62,245 new cases of prostate cancer and 9,202 deaths, hardly 50 %. During the same time the prostate cancer death rate in Canada was 27 %, in the UK 23 % and the US in 2007 219,000 cases and 27,000 deaths.
As already stated before, there are lies, there are damn lies and there are statistics. The way those numbers are run in the US is complete hogwash. Those people who die during treatment are not taken into consideration with those numbers, neither are the ones who develop secondary cancers during treatment and die from that, or the ones who survive 5 years because according to our scewed system here, if you still breathe after 5 years you are cured, even if you die of the disease 5 years and 1 day after the diagnosis.
Wasn't it John Goodman who was Sen. McCain's advisor who said that there is no health care problem in the US because everyone can get health care, they just need to go to the emergency room. This is such a bunch of nonsense that I don't even know where to start.
People who don't have medical insurance don't get the same treatment that the ones with insurance get. The uninsured are have to pay “up front” -- before services will be rendered. When they are unable to pay the full medical bill in cash at the time of service, they can be turned away except in life-threatening circumstances. The hospital is only required to do triage and stabilize, nothing more!
The cost of keeping people uninsured by far outweighs the cost of providing universal health care.
The United States spends nearly $100 billion per year to provide uninsured residents with health services, often for preventable diseases or diseases that doctors could treat more efficiently with earlier diagnosis.
Hospitals provide about $34 billion worth of uncompensated care a year. Who do you think pays for that?
Uninsured are 30 to 50 % more likely to be hospitalized for an avoidable condition, with the average cost of an avoidable hospital stayed estimated to be about $3,300.
The increasing reliance of the uninsured on the emergency department has serious economic implications, since the cost of treating patients is higher in the emergency department than in other outpatient clinics and medical practices.
A study found that 29 percent of people who had health insurance were “underinsured” with coverage so meager they often postponed medical care because of costs.
Many uninsured individuals postpone needed medical care which not only results in increased mortality but also billions of dollars lost in productivity and increased expenses.
I am just wondering who Mr. Goodman thinks is going to being paying for those emergency room "treatments" of the uninsured? Santa Claus?
But for starters it would be nice if Mr. Goodman could at least get the numbers straight.
The whole drama with his assistant was a kick in the pants, but it doesn't totally negate all of his work.
