help294 wrote:If our healthcare in this country is so great why are we ranked lowest compared to all the other industrialized nations? Maybe, just maybe, they have it closer to right then we do. Compared to other industrialized nations we have the highest infant mortality rate. It can't be the best if everyone does not have access to it. I know someone who has MS. Husband lost his job from recession, along with the health insurance, now she doesn't know what she should do, pay for her groceries or pay for her shot she needs monthly. Her shots cost $1000 a month. This is a young woman in her early 40's with 3 kids to raise. She can continue to have close to a normal life, but has to have medication. Medicaid can only help after they have lost everything. This is wrong. Something has to be done. Healthcare is a right not a privilege.
PS I do have a degree, but if you can't tell, not in english.
No worries Help...your prose reads like Chaucer compared to our resident Ivy Leaguer.
Could you please define the parameters of the "right" you identify? What exactly is it that people are entitled to? And since rights are necessarily attached to corresponding obligations, who is it that is obligated, on your view, to provide these "rights" to everyone?
With respect to world rankings, be sure to look at the factors being measured in their creation. Here's what the WHO looks at:
How does a society know when a health care system is "good"? The World Health Organization (WHO) released a report in 2000, in which it outlined three goals for a "good" health care system:
--It should make the health status of the entire population as good as possible across the whole country.
--It should respond to people's expectations of respectful treatment and client orientation by the health care providers.
--It should ensure financial protection for everyone, with costs distributed according to one's ability to pay (WHO, 2000).In short, if it ain't socialized, it's bad. The rankings are agenda-driven. I prefer to watch how people vote when their own lives and health are on the line. Under those circumstances, it's one-way traffic from those supposedly vaunted healthcare regimes to the U.S. to obtain the needed care.
Infant mortality numbers are often cited as a dispositive indicator of health care quality. They are not, as they fail to factor in causes of death and lifestyle variations. For instance, more people per capita drive in the U.S. than in any other country, and auto accidents have an annoying tendency to kill people...especially infants. Lack of cultural uniformity in child-rearing practices, particularly among less educated immigrant populations, can also lead to more health crises than are found in other, more homogeneous developed countries. These factors skew the numbers and have nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of health care provided.
