There was a long line of human suffering. Mothers were crying over
their sick children and the elderly sat on the floor fanning themselves
with newspapers. A girl’s shorts were soaked in blood and she had to
get in the back of a line that spilled out onto the sidewalk. The door to
the examination room was manned by a security guard, and no one
could enter unless they showed the proper paperwork, no matter how
much they begged and cried. On the bright side, public hospitals inBrazil offer free care.
More to come, almost done finishing the book. Will do a review later today.
9 comments:
Little publicized fact about our system versus the Canadian system (ie free). Approximately 6% of our population does not have medical insurance for various reasons. Approximately 6% of Canadians do not have access to medical care for various reasons. What really matters is the quality of the care when you do get it.
Thanks for the graphic reminder.
Welcome to our future.
Roosh was uninformed. He should have spent US$ 100 and get private emergency care.
Public hospitals in Brazil vary a lot, because they are mostly run by the states, albeit some are federal (the worst). In São Paulo and in the south, they are not that bad. Just long lines for a consultation and months until you get a time for surgery, for example. In Rio it is much worse, like Roosh described.
Most middle class people here try to get insurance if it is not provided by the employer. Good insurance for a couple with two kids with private hospital room, exams, surgery and consultations, goes for US$ 650 a month. However, the top doctors don't accept insurance, you must pay cash, and some charge US$200 for a consultation.
For a good view on what socialist medicine is, try "Life at the Bottom" from Theodore Dalrymple and "Sick Notes" by Tony Copperfield. Both are doctors working in and exposing the atrocious British healthcare system, which is considered excellent among Obamacare fans.
And Canadians pay 50% income tax and 13% sales tax for our free health care. I could easily afford to buy my own health insurance if I paid American levels of tax.
Marcos Dutra, 200 dollars for a consultation with the "top doctors" is far lower than we usually pay as a supplimentary payment WITH insurance. Recently moved to the keys and the kids needed routine physicals (just weighing, measuring, signing the paper) to enter the public school system. The price out of pocket at an urgent care center would have been over 300 dollars per child. I went to the public health clinic for a far cheaper price.
Government health care is where poor people go to die. If you can't afford private care, your next best option is to find a church (Brazil has a lot of these) and pray to the Virgin Mary.
America has private health care paid for by the government (Medicare and Medicaid) but we can't afford it much longer. The more I look into our future, the more it resembles Brazil.
What is sad is that Brazil has some of the best doctors in the world in the private sector. Hospitals like Albert Einstein and Sirio are among the best anywhere. If I were to choose where to have surgery, I would prefer Sao Paulo to the US.
Don't get me wrong, I love the States and I think it is a superior country in most ways, but the way patients are treated sucks.
Having experienced private medical care in both countries, there is no comparison: in Brazil doctors talk to you, nurses are caring and you feel like a human being. In the US, one feels like a piece of meat. My wife had a miscarriage in Phoenix, we had insurance but they made us wait for two hours. The nurse told us to go outside and call 911 if we wanted faster service, I kid you not. We finally went home, but not before being coerced into signing a paper saying we refused service that they never gave us. It was the worst experience in my life.
I can't even imagine how people will be treated when health care goes public in the States.
One of the chief principles of insurance (any insurance) is a shared risk pool.
Dump a bunch of risk in the pool (Obamacare), and it must be absorbed by everyone else via an increase in premium. Insurance companies do not take bad bets. Risk managers who want to stay in business can only take on so much risk.
Underwriters (most underwriters) are not stupid. The premium will ALWAYS be a mathematical function that is proportionate to the risk of a given situation or ongoing occurrence. End of story.
Marcos, I call BS on your statement- While I agree that Brazil places greater emphasis on palliative care and the role of personal interaction in medical consultations, regardless of whether you're at a public or private institution, supply sourcing is the same in Brazil- (licensure and distribution of controlled substances and specialized technology is managed by each state, and therefore subject to ridiculous, corrupt and horribly backwards 3rd world supply chain rules). The end result is incredibly innovative and creative doctors who have to do things like make their own stents out of their pens. End result, I'd rather have a dogmatic and emotionally reserved doctor with a steady supply of equipment, even if it comes at a cost whereby I am merely a number to him.
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