Health Care

[joanna bujes]

At 06:32 PM 05/30/2002 -0400, Yoshie/Moore wrote:
>*****   Forty million Americans have absolutely no health care, but
>who gives an enema? Wall Street is healthy and that's all that
>matters!
>
>Other countries look at this statistic and are appalled.  You talk to
>any Canadian, Brit, German, or Kenyan and they cannot comprehend that
>our national health policy is: "You're sick? Too bad!"
>
>What's almost worse is that those with health care are being forced
>to pay outrageous sums of money for belonging to an HMO ("Hand the
>Money Over").  With an HMO, you don't get help - you get referred.
>
>Meanwhile, the executives at these HMOs are becoming filthy rich.  In
>1996, the head of U.S. Healthcare pulled in nearly one billion
>dollars in compensations for himself.  That's right, one billion.

Wo. Yoshie, I'm shocked. You seem to assert here that health care is a 
basic right....that it is even, ahem,  more important than profits????

Seriously folks, this is one of the next bubbles to pop. These HMO's are 
pyramid schemes; when they can no longer grow at a certain rate, they 
deflate. And then I wonder who is going to explain why no one can go to a 
doctor any more. As the population ages, the clock ticks....and maybe even 
Amurricans will figure out that health care is not a free market issue: 
"let's see should I get a triple bypass or should I get a hot tub?"

As for Cuban health care: this impoverished nation has managed to build a 
health care system...in one generation... which rivals that of the most 
developed nations, not only for its own people, but for the poorest and 
most helpless people in the world. After Chernobyl, Cuba treated more than 
100,000 people. The U.S. flew 30 to Disneyland.

I'm going to stop now. I keep forgetting that I live in the greatest 
country in the world and that therefore I have nothing to complain about.

Joanna