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Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds.
The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets - even a caravan - went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000.
Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity beds is partly to blame for the crisis, with hundreds of women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they are full.
Read more: The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets | Mail Online
You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK.
You could have saved us all a lot of trouble and blather if you had bothered to read the other threads on this and taken notes, instead of jumping right to starting your own and making us repeat this for the eleventy-billionth time.
Sensationalist statements like 'Communist', 'Death panels' and (lol) 'have you seen the state of Brits' teeth' (<-might come back to that one some other time), strike me as bizarre. I probably only get to see the wackier stuff that people come out with in the US, but I've been doing a bit of reading around:
1: If the Canadian system sucks, why do so many Americans buy their medication from Canada.
There's a world of difference between some Americans exploiting a quirk of the Canadian system and all of us actually trying to live under the entire Canadian system. You comprehend the difference, I trust?
Do you know why pharmaceuticals are so much cheaper in Canada - and, indeed, virtually all of the rest of the industrialized world - than they are in the US? You probably don't, so let me fill you in.
The pharmaceutical industry is subject to price controls in every industrialized nation except ours. This means that their governments legally prevent pharmaceutical companies from selling their products there for much more than the cost of production. Drug companies are willing to do this because they make up the cost of R&D in the prices they charge Americans.
So in essence, all the smarmy bastards who like to sit back and smugly pronounce on how much better their systems are than ours owe the financial underpinning of those systems to us. You're welcome.
I am going to get a freaking macro to repeat this to you twinks, because I swear to God, I have had to post this so many times now, I could repeat it in my sleep. This would be an example of one of those things you should have read on the gazillion OTHER threads first, rather than rushing in and making us do it again.
Life expectancy has nothing - zip, zilch, nada - to do with health care in the industrialized world, and not as much as you might think in developing nations. Be serious, Spanky. Do you really, GENUINELY think that the United States health care system is so deficient that it actually changes the life expectancy of a nation of 300 million people? Really? Is that really what you're sitting there, seriously thinking?
In fact, life expectancy is affected much more by factors totally out of the control of doctors and hospitals, things like homicide rates, accidents, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. And no, socioeconomic status doesn't change things because of lack of access to health care due to money. Even when those people are given access to quality health care - which they are, thank you very much - via free clinics, their life expectancies don't change, because they're attributable to factors like diet and nutrition, heredity, etc.
The United States is a much less homogenous society than most industrialized countries. That means that when you take an average of our entire population, you are getting much more widely divergent results factored into the equation. The group with either the lowest or second-lowest (can't remember which just now) life expectancy in the United States is one that your country doesn't have: the Native Americans. This is just by way of an example.
By the way, the study you're quoting from has been discredited on this board so many times that I'm truly offended that you're even wasting our time with it again.
Then perhaps you ought to think a bit harder. Maybe this time you could try engaging your brain in the exercise.
Did you ever bother to consider WHAT we spend that money on? Or did you just look at the raw numbers and assume all that was being spent on bare medical necessities? When you look at national healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP, you have to keep in mind exactly what is going into that statistic. It includes elective procedures like cosmetic surgery; dental work, including those things that aren't strictly necessary, like crowns, caps, and veneers; prosthetics such as hearing aids, which are very pricey and rarely covered by medical insurance, and also need to be upgraded periodically; quality of life procedures like laser eye surgery and weight loss surgery; and over-the-counter medications, including vitamins.
The United States is a wealthy country, with a wealthy and aging population that, even in economic downturns, has quite a bit of discretionary income. People forget that health care isn't just getting stitches and setting broken bones and getting life-saving surgery. It's also very much a luxury item, particularly to senior citizens. It costs a lot of money to keep a fifty-year-old woman looking and feeling like she's thirty, and it says a lot about the economic health of our nation that so many here can and do spend that money.
Tell me, why is it that people in the UK aren't forced to use the NHS? I think you and I both know that that wasn't always the case, and your nation's health care system became such an open scandal that your government was forced to incorporate elements of OUR system, like allowing private health insurance, to fix the problem. Now you want to sit back and brag about how spiffy it is and brush the past under the rug and pretend it was always that way, and that that was what you folks intended. Don't bullshit us.
As for government programs that "act as a safety net", we already have those ourselves, although your vaunted media might have forgotten to mention them. I realize the European press likes to depict the US as allowing poor people to drop dead in the gutters for the street sweepers to haul away. In fact, we're just not inclined to extend them beyond the poor and allow even more people to use our safety net as a hammock.
Well, that certainly proves my point about your sterling media and its unbiased coverage.
Let me take this in order. First of all, yes, a bunch of deluded do-gooders who have been bamboozled by the media into believing that poor people are wandering around like stray cats with no health care do periodically club together and decide to have these massive health care circle jerks so they can feel good about themselves and their contribution to poor people they would otherwise never speak to. And because people are that way, they will queue up for anything that's free and to take advantage of the ignorance and naivete of people who desperately want to feel compassionate.
When I was younger, I drove a taxicab. One of my regular customers was a "homeless" man, who spent all day on a traffic island at a busy intersection, holding a sign begging for money. In the evenings, I would pull up at the gas station across the street from where he was and pick him up, then drive him to a decent residential neighborhood, turn down an alley, and drop him off at the back door of the house he owned, so no one would see the "homeless panhandler" entering or leaving. Take a lesson.
Second of all, selling a house and living in a tent to pay for cancer drugs? Really? You REALLY, seriously believe this? These people either had something else going on in their lives that they forgot to mention, they were bullshitting for the cameras, or they were stupid to the point of being criminal. People with that sort of catastrophic illness in the United States are eligible for Medicaid, and quite possibly Medicare as well. It doesn't take a whole hell of a lot of asking to get someone to tell you that. Hell, they're practically ADVERTISING for people to sign up for Medicaid benefits.
Third, as to how splendiferously equal your nation's healthcare is, shut the hell up. Your own government is reporting that NHS performance figures consistently show widening gaps between best- and worst-performing healthcare providers, and vastly different survival rates depending on where patients live. Your own press refers to it as the "postcode lottery", because a person's chances for timely, high-quality treatment depends on the "postcode" in which he lives.
One study found that if the proportion of cancer-related illnesses and deaths were the same in Britain's lowest socioeconomic groups as in the most affluent, there would be 16,600 fewer deaths from cancer each year. The British Heart Foundation found that premature death rates for working-class men are 58% higher than non-working-class men. They estimate that more than 5,000 working-class men under the age of sixty-five die of coronary heart disease each year in Britain because of variations in health care access for socioeconomic groups.
The Good Hospital Guide confirms the disparity between rich and poor areas. In a rating of British hospitals, it showed that among London hospitals (as an example), the ones with the best performances just happened to be located in or near the wealthiest sectors of the city. The worst-performing are located in the most economically depressed area of the city. In addition, there are nearly four times as many doctors per 100 patients in the wealthy sector as the poor.
So don't come in here bloviating about the stellar "egalitarianism" of your nation over ours, all right?
Fourth, when I want to hear some punk from another country spouting off about what the US Constitution says and what it should mean to us in practice, I will signal that by being so rude and boorish as to barge into a message board from YOUR country and start shooting my mouth off about YOUR governing documents and how YOU should run your country. Until I am that crass and ill-mannered, perhaps it would be a good idea if YOU refrained from being so. So much for the stereotype that British people are polite and courteous.
So, I really don't understand many Americans hostility to health care for all. Maybe I just don't understand the issues. If it is all about money, why not cut some of the defence budget - afterall the US spends as much on defence as the rest of the world combined (another figure that shocks me). Nobody in the US ever seems to question the amount spent on the military so I guess the issue can't be big government either. I'm confused. Someone please explain. Thanx
What's not to understand? We don't want your crappy system, we don't consider it better than ours, and we're tired right down to our toenails of hearing from a bunch of pompous, smug little prigs who have never lived in our country but imagine that we are waiting breathlessly to hear their unsolicited advice on how to run it.
In addition, concerning your mention of our military budgets - which, incidentally, are traditionally high in part because of the need for us to aid in the protection of the REST of the world, and you're welcome for THAT, as well - if you truly knew as much about our Constitution as you like to flatter yourself that you do, you would know that some of us take its provisions very seriously, and have no wish to see our government extending itself beyond the jobs it has specifically been given. National defense is one of those jobs; healthcare provision is not. Spending a lot on one thing is not "big government". Taking on dozens of things, particularly ones that aren't listed in the Constitution, is.
PS. I believe the US media dug up some Brit politician to slag off the UK's NHS. First of all he is member of the European parliament (MEP), not the UK's. No UK MP would dare say what he did. Second it's easy for a guy on over $100000 a year (basic) to come out with what he said. Third he was severely reprimanded by his party's leader in the UK (lol, silly Tory bastard).
PS. If you think only one guy in your government is pissing all over your extra-special system, you're deluded. But hey, again, if you like it, have it. Unlike you British, we don't feel any special need to tell you how to run your country.
You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK..
Please explain :
BBC London: In A Socialized Medicine Emergency Room Patients Dropping Like Flies
Princess Diana was taken to a Hospital which was 4 miles from the crash scene - yet it took the French socialized hellcare an hour and 46 minutes to take her there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.
You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK..
Please explain :
BBC London: In A Socialized Medicine Emergency Room Patients Dropping Like Flies
Princess Diana was taken to a Hospital which was 4 miles from the crash scene - yet it took the French socialized hellcare an hour and 46 minutes to take her there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.
Why do you care, are you with your governor on secession?You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK.
Sensationalist statements like 'Communist', 'Death panels' and (lol) 'have you seen the state of Brits' teeth' (<-might come back to that one some other time), strike me as bizarre. I probably only get to see the wackier stuff that people come out with in the US, but I've been doing a bit of reading around:
1: If the Canadian system sucks, why do so many Americans buy their medication from Canada.
2: Overall life expectancy in the US is lower than in Canada, the UK, Puerto-Rico and - shockingly - Jordan (Neigbour of Irak!). The US comes in at #35, just above Albania, an impoverished ex-commie state next to Greece (which also does better than the US).
3: America spends twice as much as the British do on health (as % of GDP), but yet still 15% of Americans have no insurance. That together with the life expectancy makes me think you're being ripped off.
4: The UK National Health Service is paid for out of general taxation, but nobody is forced to use it. There are plenty of private insurance schemes here, and if you can afford them then fine, but then it's also good that those wealthy people pay some tax for the benefit of the poor who can't. In fact, many people over here also get private health insurance as part of the jobs - just like in the US, and the NHS acts as a safety net for the poor and those who lose their jobs and insurance - not unlikely in these economic times.
I've seen TV reports showing thousands of (mainly poor black) people queueing in and around a football stadium for hours and hours, just to get some basic help on an assembly line kind of system with absolutely no privacy at all - it looked more like something I expect to see in Africa, not the worlds richest nation. Then there was the woman who had to sell her house and was living in a tent with her husband in order to pay for the cancer drugs she needed. Don't know about you but I find that quite shocking. Maybe I'm just being bamboozled by the media, but I thank my lucky stars I live in a country where everybody's life is regarded as of (reasonably) equal value. I thought the US constitution said something about equality somewhere... must have been meant selectively... oooh, heck, it was! It didn't apply to slaves (then) and obviously the poor (then, now and in the future too probably).
So, I really don't understand many Americans hostility to health care for all. Maybe I just don't understand the issues. If it is all about money, why not cut some of the defence budget - afterall the US spends as much on defence as the rest of the world combined (another figure that shocks me). Nobody in the US ever seems to question the amount spent on the military so I guess the issue can't be big government either. I'm confused. Someone please explain. Thanx
PS. I believe the US media dug up some Brit politician to slag off the UK's NHS. First of all he is member of the European parliament (MEP), not the UK's. No UK MP would dare say what he did. Second it's easy for a guy on over $100000 a year (basic) to come out with what he said. Third he was severely reprimanded by his party's leader in the UK (lol, silly Tory bastard
If you're not an American, then why the fuck do you care?
You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK..
Please explain :
BBC London: In A Socialized Medicine Emergency Room Patients Dropping Like Flies
Princess Diana was taken to a Hospital which was 4 miles from the crash scene - yet it took the French socialized hellcare an hour and 46 minutes to take her there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.
Probably took them that long to get her out of the mangled limo she was in, sport.
Do you think anyone might be desperate enough?
Insults work better if they're even vaguely related to the truth. I guess this answers my question as to whether you plan to "empty insult" me to death. To round it all out, why don't you call me a "poopyhead"? That's about your speed.
Insults work better if they're even vaguely related to the truth. I guess this answers my question as to whether you plan to "empty insult" me to death. To round it all out, why don't you call me a "poopyhead"? That's about your speed.
I'll just let you speak for yourself.
I'll just let you speak for yourself.
Probably better, since YOU certainly aren't qualified to do so. Now run along, little boy. You consistently have nothing to contribute, and you're boring me. FLUSH!
