Posts by Danielle
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I'm just about to complete a Masters in Unemployability (History)
George, I'd like to be the first to welcome you to librarianship (me) or high school teaching (my husband). Still, in our household we know a shitload about contraceptives in New Zealand (me) and Joan of Arc imagery in Vichy France (him), so I suppose that's got to come in handy sometime.
Sigh.
(Then again, I'm basing this on our mediocrity. For all I know you could wind up being like Jake, globetrotting and publishing articles in the NZJH and whatnot! So don't be discouraged. And actually, I don't even work as a librarian at the moment. I do Waitangi research for a law firm. So perhaps there is hope after all, and I should just shut up.)
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The track record of doped up athletes from the 70s and 80s making it to 2009 isn’t a strong one.
But look at Keith Richards!
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I'm sure there's some hugely important reason for not allowing all professional athletes to dope themselves to the eyeballs with impunity, but I'm damned if I can think of what it is.
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As long as we're doing the 'anecdata' thing, my lovely 90-year-old grandfather was recently admitted to a local hospital after a heart attack. He stayed in hospital for ten days, during which he received excellent care and was tested for everything under the sun. (No dementia! Hooray.) He is now at home with health-system-provided three-weekly nurse visits, physiotherapy and a snazzy new wheelie-walker. His house has been modified for easy mobility. All of this was free. At no point was it suggested that he would have to be put to death for being too old. Nor did we have to deal with one single insurance company bureaucrat and battle for his care.
Last year, my friend went to the USA for a holiday and bought travel insurance. She was admitted to a hospital while there for pelvic pain and stayed three days. She had some jello, ice chips and some pelvic exams and was eventually released. The bill? 13,000 US dollars. Which she then battled the insurance company for months so they'd pay. It was hugely stressful and annoying and stupid, and achieved nothing for her health whatsoever.
My aunt and uncle in Louisiana are still paying off the bills from my cousin's car accident over 20 years ago.
I'm just sayin'.
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malpractice litigation
The threat of which looms so largely over the heads of doctors that the USA's caesarean rate in some hospitals is nearly 50%. Since we're talking about birthing babies, and whatnot.
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single digit thousands of which we paid about $1000 out of pocket
And that's a good deal, in your mind? Awesomesauce.
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Danielle, that medical bankruptcy number is wrong by a mile.
OK, sure, whatever. I think the key point is not the number of bankruptcies (isn't *one* too many?), but the proportion of people who were supposedly *already covered* yet still went bankrupt.
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Either you're exaggerating, or your godmom's GP should be struck off, or she's living in a parallel universe.
I'm amazed - amazed! - by the numbers of Republican-friends-and-relatives suffering so, so terribly in countries with socialised medicine at the moment. It's funny that you never hear about them at any other time...
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The cost of which has nearly doubled since 2001, and will double again in the next ten years, while incomes have remained stagnant.
I forgot to say: the worst statistic I've read during this whole debacle is that of the million people per year in the USA who go bankrupt because of huge medical bills, seven out of ten of them *already had health insurance*. GAH!
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The last thing healthcare over here needs is more direct govt involvement with a public option, there are very good and viable ways of helping those who need med insurance but can’t afford it without actual govt involvement in the marketplace.
Really? You're from New Zealand, with universal healthcare, based on 'government involvement', and it's a cheaper better system by every measure, like all universal healthcare systems in western countries compared to the USA, and... that's your answer.
Oh come *on*, James! Give me a glimmer of something non-talking-pointy! Prove to me you aren't a pod person! Just once! :)