There are many Aspects of the dominant social practices around illness & dying that few people look into. Practices such as Giving us pain killers so that when the segeon's perform the operation on the patient's body, the pill would have already taken it's course causing the body to have bein reacting differently resulting in the patient not feeling pain. Or how the big insurance companies really care about themselves and only do things to benefit the big insurance companies and to ensure that the ill people get less health care. However there is another aspect of the dominant social practices around illness & dying that even less people look into, such as looking into other countries health care. In countries such as Canada, France, and England where they have a socialist health care system. Now one might find themselvs asking themselves, "But what flaws could these countries possibly have." Well in the Movie Sicko by Michael Moore, he did a great job of explaining there health care system too and how even though there is no such thing as a "perfect health care system" it did show how those other countries have way better health care systems then us and have way better method of doing things than us.
The first piece of research I got was by watching the movie sicko by Michael Moore. In this movie something he did was he wanted to compare our health insurance methods to other countries health insurance methods. He went to Canada, France, and England to do this and found that there methods of doing things is very different to our ways of doing things. For example while talking to the people in those countries they told Michael Moore how if they got ill and couldn't go to work because they were still ill they would still get paid. Anothere example would be how in those other countries the doctors will go to your house and treat you at your house if you can't go over to the hospital. However the most shocking thing that stood out to me was that doctors in Canada, France, and England get paid more for telling people there patients in the U.S only try to do what is needed with the least amount of time possible.
I have wondered can there be a perfect health care system in the United States. Michael Moore answered my question, when he said that "it is impossible to have a Perfect health care system," However Everyone is entitled to health care. Now even though this is true the down side is the wait may be ridiculously long to actually be seen by a doctor and get the medical attention needed (http://healthcare.procon.org/). Now Britian's health care system has a main principle of the British health care system, being that, "there should be a free, comprehensive health service for everyone according to need, regardless of their income." (http://neamh.cns.uni.edu/MedInfo/bhs.html).
While i was talking to my grandmother and asking here questions about illness and dying. I found myself asking her a very deep question. I asked her, "was there a time where the doctors were unjust and didn't seem to care about your medical problem." She then responded by saying yes i have and she then told me how when she was in her mid 30's she didn't have health insureance and because of that everyone that worked in that hospital didn't seem to care about her or her medical problem. She told me how she had to wait about 3-5 hours just to get medical help. She then told me how when she finally did get called to get medical help the doctors didn't really seem to want to help her. And how the doctor seemed as if he wanted to move on to the next paitent and didn't really answer her questions thouroughly or thoughtfully enough.
(http://www.hospitalcomplaint.com/).
This is clearly a violation of everyone being treated the same while being saught medical attention. This makes me very mad however this is just the tip of the iceberg because this must happen to alot of patients without health insurance. "Back in 2006, The Wall Street Journal told another such story: that of a young woman named Monique White, who failed to get regular care for lupus because she lacked insurance. Then, one night, “as skin lesions spread over her body and her stomach swelled, she couldn’t sleep.”(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/opinion/11krugman.html) This pice of evidence shows that my grandmother wasn't the only one that has to deal with being treated unequally because they didn have health insurance. This makes me think, will the United States health care change and become as good as other countries health care such as britain or france. Even though i am not sure it's safe to say by the way things are going that the health care of the United States will not change for a while.
The pieces of evidence i found that are listed above show that the health care of the United States is not similar to that of Canada, France, or England. My granmother has visited France before and unfortuanantly she was telling me how she got sick there and had to go to the hospital. She told me that unlike here the medical care was superb and they treated her really good and answered any questions she had very thoroughly and thoughtfully. After telling me this I then asked my grandmother, how does the health care system of France compares to the health care system of the United States. She then responded by saying that it didn't and how she doesn't think the United States health care will ever compare to that of Frances. I then asked, why and she said because the doctors of France seem to actually care about you and you are the patient meaning that you are their 1st priority.
So i was correct when I said that The United States health care system is not as good as Canada, France, or England. However I was also right when I said that there is no such thing as a perfect health care system. Thus proving that those countries really are reliable and you can count on the medical health care in those countries not like thie curropt medical system we have here in the United States.
Johnny,
ReplyDeleteI was left with a similar impression of Sicko, The United States has a dysfunctional healthcare system compared to many other parts of the world. My favorite line describing the treatment of patients searching for care, " This is clearly a violation of everyone being treated the same while being saught medical attention. This makes me very mad however this is just the tip of the iceberg because this must happen to alot of patients without health insurance." Throughout the piece i think you did a good job summarizing up your major arguments and using information from a variety of sources.