Quote:
Originally posted by Dale S:
Our systems stinks. Could it be our entire system is slightly, if not completely, corrupt?
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Following this thread and others, hearing how hard it is for people to get the treatments they need, is a real frustration to me as an American living abroad. The USA is supposedly the richest and most well-equipped nation on earth, yet its citizens most definitely do not fully benefit from this advantage unless they can pay out of their pockets. Is it corrupt? Oh yeah.
But is it really better in the long run elsewhere? I used to think so, but now things are changing here too. France has socialized medicine,meaning 26% of our salaries is directly taken off the top for SS and basic health care. Most people also pay a supplementary insurance company to cover the percentage of what 'basic health' will not (to be fair, 'basic health' is pretty extensive; I was wary at first but have always received great care).
In the beginning I choked over this. When you're you're young, not sick, with no kids, this is a lot of cash and it looks like it flies out the window. For years it did.
But as soon as there's a problem, or you get pregnant (prenatal care and delivery) and have kids, you see the advantages: you rarely see a bill, or it is in penny change. I pay zero for most doctor's visits (including specialists) and medications, hospitalizations, surgical interventions and tests, and they have been extensive these past few years with my spine probs. 'Luxury meds' and 'luxury surgery' were pretty much all that were 100% out of the patient's pocket. Even middle-of-the-night house calls were reimbursed!
Unfortunately, with such a system there has been so much doctor-patient abuse that the well is drying up and changes have to be made. People think that because they pay so much into the system, they're entitled to milk it for all it's worth when they're sick: doctors write far too many prescriptions (I've come out of the pharmacy with a grocery bag full of largely superfluous meds), precribe paid work leaves for basically nothing, and order complicated and expensive tests on a whim.
I've also seen people throw fits in the pharmacy because it was suggested they accept the generic rather than name brand drug (btw, you won't see any ads on TV or in magazines for meds here; their prices are fixed by the gov't), or because toothbrushes are not reimbursed! Makes me want to smack some people upside the head...I've refused a med to hear the pharmasist say 'why don't you just take it? It won't cost you anything/you've already paid for it' (??!!)
Small wonder things have to change. So now, we can no longer see a specialist without a doctor's referral, many brand-name meds are no longer reimbursed (generics are), and the waiting list to have some tests like MRIs and CT-scans is getting longer and longer.
Excuse my rambling, but I've often compared the health care systems between the two countries and wondered if the solution lies somewhere in between the cruelly tightwad attitude of the US and the have-it-all mentality here.
Problem is, while the insurance companies are the 'abusers' (IMHO) back home, it would appear that the citizens themselves are the greedy ones here. If we had such a system back home, would the abuse and corruption then shift to the patients' side?
Probably...after years of having to fight for the basics, much of human nature would want the best.
Don't have the solution, but the health care issue is both extreme, and absurd in both protocol and proportion.
