Nationalized Healthcare? No thank you....

Long time – no post.

I’ve been busy with work, home projects, and family stuff lately. I’ve only had time to read a few of the blogs and news-sites that I like to follow, and absolutely no time to post anything relevant here.

I read this story today, though, and had to take a second and post a link. The story takes place in Japan. The jist:

“After getting struck by a motorcycle, an elderly Japanese man with head injuries waited in an ambulance as paramedics phoned 14 hospitals, each refusing to treat him. He died 90 minutes later at one facility that finally relented — one of thousands of victims repeatedly turned away in recent years by understaffed and overcrowded hospitals.”

We’ve heard a lot recently, are are sure to hear more in the coming months/years, about everything bad someone can say about the Healthcare System in the US. We are told over and over how unfair it is, and how we should be like Europe, Canada, and other “modern” countries and allow the government to step in and run the Healthcare system.

The World Health Organization used to go as far as ranking the healthcare systems of major countries, emphasizing their “facts” to show the US as ranking 37th, well behind Japan at 10th.

It's easy to see problems in the US healthcare system. Its also easy to grab onto the pretty promises made by some politicians that everything would be so much better if we just followed the lead of England, Japan, and other "forward thinking modern countries".

Before you allow yourself to be swept up into the frenzy to pattern ourselves after everyone else, take a minute, read the AP article referenced above, and do a little more research into just how happy the every day citizens who have to try and seek medical help under state administered healthcare systems really are.

There’s literally tons of reports that this type of system, while sounding good at the outset, are completely unsustainable and fatally flawed.