Sigh....sounds great!  The thing about bribery....doesn´t sound so great though.  The reality of the situation here is if you have to be in a care institution for any time, you really need an advocate (careing friend, family member or loved one) around.  That is someone to be there to see that you are getting good care. 

Nursing homes are the worst.  One does NOT want to go to one of those places without an advocate.  I have visited, and still visit a few people who have been in nursing homes recovering or finishing their lives.  The facilities are  horrors!  I´m not disparaging the workers, theydeserve much more than they get and should get medals for what they do, as they  are over worked and underpaid.   The enviornment is depressing, it´s not a healthy one either. It is hard just to visit them and not come out depressed.   They smell of urine and feces, someone is always screaming and you don´t know if they are having a psychotic episode or really in trouble.  One time I heard a woman screaming and screaming over and over again.  When left the person I was actually visiting to peek in her room, it turned out her bed was badly broken.  I was able to call and get help for her. 

You do not want to get sick or injured in the USA.  We need a better system.  From what I´ve read about Netherlands care, it´s really enviable.  We need some sort of Universal Healthcare...NOW!....actually yesterday...but now will do...We are the ONLY industrialized country without a universal health care system.

I will agree and disagree with you alameda -

On getting sick or injured in the US - We do have some of the finest medical centers in the world in the US.  We have places like MD Anderson where people come from all over the world to get cancer treatments they can´t get anywhere else.  Some of our level one trauma centers set the standards for traumatic injury treatments that occur all over the world.  We are and always have been on the cutting edge of transplant surgery technology, so on and so forth.  YES, we do have a lot of things wrong but we DO have a lot of things right.  

On nursing homes - Nursing homes are horrendous places but not just the US.  Nursing homes have older and/or sicker patients whose families for whatever reason, can´t or won´t take care of their family members.  Many of them are bed ridden and incontinent.  They are always sad places because most people go there to die or they are recovering from a devasting illness or trauma.  Many of these patients are on Medicare/Medicaid (government run programs) which reimburse very poorly.  Nursing homes have very high overhead and can´t afford to give quality care because they don´t get very much money for doing what a lot of family members won´t do for their loved ones. 

Don´t misunderstand me alameda, I know we need to improve our system and there are many good aspects to the healthcare bill that is currently on the table....however, I have worked in healthcare long enough (and worked in VA and military hospitals) to know that OUR government is probably not the best suited choice to run healthcare.   The insurance industry needs to be reformed, pharmaceutical companies need to be reformed (government grants them 20 year monopoly on all new drugs!!), but I think our government is far too corrupt to take care of the people I love. 

I do hear you when you say people need help.  I agree.  People do need help.  My office is located in the Emergency Room of a downtown hospital.  I see the need everyday.  But I am concerned that many aspects of the bill are not meant to help these people but to pay lip service to those of us who are demanding change.

 You are right Elisabeth; we do have some of the best and most cutting edge research.  We also have some amazing facilities, it´s just that not everyone can afford them, or even know about them or are able to get into them.

As for trusting our government, we are our government.  If it´s corrupt and inefficient, whose fault is it? I have been involved in grass roots programs and have noticed our main fault is our pass the buck syndrome.  We always seem to want someone else to take care of the problems.  

Maybe another issue is that some have an unrealistic idea of just what to expect.  However, I do think basic preventative care, and maintenance should be available to all.  By the time things get to the emergency level, a lot of productive time has been wasted, and what perhaps could have been a relatively inexpensive problem becomes very expensive.

I think we are drug crazy. We want symptomatic relief...and NOW....we don´t like to feel any pain.  Sometimes a little pain is good, it tells you where the problem is, you know? 

 I don´t think the private insurance industry would do any better at the job of keeping us healthy, and....they have the incentive of making money in the mix. 

The sicker we are...the more profits they can make.  This I have experienced first hand.  Give you this, that causes that, for which we can give you this...and on and on and on.....were as if they hadn´t given "thisnthat" in the first place none of the rest would have been necessary.  

I am not sure what the percentage is, alameda, but as I am sure you know, only a very small percentage of Americans participate in our government.  Perhaps if more people where involved, we wouldn´t be in this mess. 

As for whether to put my health in the hands of the insurance companies or the government....tough call!  Government is big and will look to save money....insurance companies are smaller but look to make money!  The fact of the matter is, people need to be more concerned about government and their health and less concerned about the latest celebrity gossip (just my opinion!)

 Perhaps if we had more education on healthy living it would help....things like eating healthy food, healthy life styles.  Things like food combinations, what´s in the food we eat.

You know, if I could, I´d make visiting nursing homes mandatory for everyone, but in particular young people.....so they can see what can happen.  Maybe having students do some simple tasks for credit could reduce the load?....but of course you get into labor laws....and all that...argh

As for the celebrity gossip.....I agree with you on that....however maybe seeing the results of some of the bad decisions those celebrities make could teach a lesson?  Anna Nicole Smith was a tragic story, Britney is another.  Sadly, it´s only the glamour that is focused on......and the recent story of Jasmin Fiore.....glamorous model suspected of being murdered by her reality show Megan Wants  a Millionaire contestent husband Ryan Jenkins.....

All that glitters is not gold....and maybe gold really is not that desirable anyway?

May  Senator Edward Kennedy rest in peace....

he understood the lesson from his parents.........

"much is expected of those to whom much has been given"

"This is the cause of my life. It is a key reason that I defied my illness last summer to speak at the Democratic convention in Denver—to support Barack Obama, but also to make sure, as I said, "that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American...will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not just a privilege." For four decades I have carried this cause—from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a question of policy; it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society. Now the issue has more meaning for me—and more urgency—than ever before. But it´s always been deeply personal, because the importance of health care has been a recurrent lesson throughout most of my 77 years. "

— Ted Kennedy

Ted Kennedy on Health Care

Thank you Ted....

This isn´t reform, it´s robbery!!

Capitalists, as my friend Father Michael Doyle says, should never be allowed near a health care system. They hold sick children hostage as they force parents to bankrupt themselves in the desperate scramble to pay for medical care. The sick do not have a choice. Medical care is not a consumable good. We can choose to buy a used car or a new car, shop at a boutique or a thrift store, but there is no choice between illness and health. And any debate about health care must acknowledge that the for-profit health care industry is the problem and must be destroyed. This is an industry that hires doctors and analysts to deny care to patients in order to increase profits. It is an industry that causes half of all bankruptcies. And the 20,000 Americans who died last year because they did not receive adequate care condemn these corporations as complicit in murder.

The current health care debate in Congress has nothing to do with death panels or public options or socialized medicine. The real debate, the only one that counts, is how much money our blood-sucking insurance, pharmaceutical and for-profit health services are going to be able to siphon off from new health care legislation. The proposed plans rattling around Congress all ensure that the profits for these corporations will increase and the misery for ordinary Americans will be compounded. The corporate state, enabled by both Democrats and Republicans, is yet again cannibalizing the Treasury. It is yet again pushing Americans, especially the poor and the working class, into levels of despair and rage that will continue to fuel the violent, proto-fascist movements leaping up around the edges of American society. And the traditional watchdogs—those in public office, the press and citizens groups—are as useless as the perfumed fops of another era who busied their days with court intrigue at Versailles. Canada never looked so good.

(...)

read more: This isn´t reform, it´s robbery!

The private hospitals in Turkey are generally well-built and well organized facilities usually designed for the needs of richer people or those with private healthcare coverage. Despite I have a right to use some of the more expensive ones, I opt for a modest hospital on account that they work like a geniune healthcare instution and not like a money trap unlike most others.  

Some time ago, I visited a fashionable hospitable which had just been acquired by a Jewish investment group. Since I had known the hospital which is notorious for its high prices, I had astounded at witnessing the numerous cost saving measures that involved things like poorer quality water being served to patients. They were acting as if they were trying to avoid an imminent bankruptcy. When it came to prices however, they were a couple of times more expensive than the average healthcare facility. The same hospital was in the headlines several times when they did nothing other than watching when say a pizza delivery guy was hit by a car just in front of them.

State hospitals are usually overcrowded. There is an appointment system in place. Say, your child has a hard to fix problem in his jaw, you have to plan forward and apply for an appointment when he is five-six years  old so that he can have an appointment when he becomes operable at the age of 9 or 10.

The national healthcare system in Turkey has been being abused by almost everyone involved in it. Remarkably, there are patients whose conditions would hardly justify coming to a hospital or medication. There are never ending lines of people waiting to benefit from a highly inefficient healthcare system.

 Things aren´t so perfect in Canada either.  What we need is a balanced system...something better than anything that is in place anywhere else in the world.  I hope that we can learn from other countries.  After our town hall meeting on Tuesday with our congresswoman, I get a little better feeling that our congress is at least LISTENING to physicians and hospitals about how to solve some of the issues. 

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/08/26/u-s-hospitals-save-canadians-lives/

 You are lucky then. In Turkey, politicians generally just listen to their local organizations in each town where they get the information about which doctor supports which party. Head doctors and administrators supporting other parties are immediately passivized, appointed to a hospital in a remote part of the country, forced to resign or ask for retirement. Those supporting their party on the other hand is usually given a quick promotion regardless of their merit or experience.

This unfortunately does not only apply to the healthcare system only. Upon rising to power, they usually spend the first year for undoing the favours done by the previous government to their own supporters. Once they are done with them, the new guys begin to ride the gravy train.

If it weren´t for these corrupt people, Turkey could have long been a wealthier and a much  more stable country.

 The link doesn´t work.