Originally Posted By: Kaotic

Something else just occurred to me. I used to have a friend in New Zealand. She suffered from chronic bronchitis, the cure for which is a minor surgery (tonsillectomy I think). Their socialized medical care would not provide that operation for her unless her bronchitis was life threatening. Instead she was forced to go see a doctor 3 to 4 times a year and wait for hours each time (after waiting days for an appointment) to get a prescription for an antibiotic (over use of which, by the way, only serves, through evolution, to ensure that those bacterium continue to grow stronger and stronger by eliminating the weak ones and selecting for those that are resistant to the drugs) that would then take several more days to eliminate the infection so she could return to work. Now, the medical treatment was nearly free for her, but what about the cost of her lost time at work, to both her and to the company she worked for? What about all the other folks who could be helped when they are wasting time seeing her over and over and over again rather than fix the problem once and for all? These are just a few of the problems with "free" medical care.


In Brazil the "free(not free)" goverment health care system is a chaos, tha patient will wait much more like in your example, the private plans of course are much better but 70% population cannot pay for it, because its 2 times their whole salary per month(base familiar income here is about $500 US per month). So if we didnt have even a precarious government health system, that would be a big internal problem. I´m saying if there is a country that would make work a public and efficient health care system, that would be US and cheap.

Animal Ethics: "I tremble for my species when I reflect that god is just." Thomas Jefferson.
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