efficiency is an issue that totally keeps coming up with arguments against socialized healthcare and it drives me frickin' nuts. because when i was living in germany i had to go to the german hospital emergency room and it was the best hospital experience of my life:
went up to a window told them what's up. sat down. 5 minutes (no exaggeration) a woman asked me into this room. she helped me fill a form out because i didn't know german. this form was one page. i didn't have jack for information, all i had was my host family's name and the town they lived in. no phone, no address. keep in mind also that i'm obviously a foreigner. so we fill out this form, it takes a few minutes but as she's doing that this other lady is prepping me for surgery, doctor comes in does the surgery, they give me a piece of paper and say come back in a few days. i go out of that room and around the counter is the pharmacy where my prescription is already filled and i'm on my way home. seriously, i the whole thing took about half an hour!
i went back three times for follow ups and every time it was the same, _no_ waits, super nice people, insane efficiency.
so that's that. compare that to experiences i've had in us military hospitals or the hcmc downtown that were agonizingly bureaucratic and inefficient makes it clear that it's not government healthcare = sucky and expensive or market competition = awesome. execution is definitely a factor.
people act like it's all impossible to do socialized healthcare and when i tell them i have experienced this impossibility they get all stupid and are just against it. why can't we do what germany did, why we can't just copy them? i really don't understand what the problem is. it seems to me some people are just irrationally clinging to some cold war pinko fear that is just silly.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-04-13 04:11 pm (UTC)went up to a window told them what's up. sat down. 5 minutes (no exaggeration) a woman asked me into this room. she helped me fill a form out because i didn't know german. this form was one page. i didn't have jack for information, all i had was my host family's name and the town they lived in. no phone, no address. keep in mind also that i'm obviously a foreigner. so we fill out this form, it takes a few minutes but as she's doing that this other lady is prepping me for surgery, doctor comes in does the surgery, they give me a piece of paper and say come back in a few days. i go out of that room and around the counter is the pharmacy where my prescription is already filled and i'm on my way home. seriously, i the whole thing took about half an hour!
i went back three times for follow ups and every time it was the same, _no_ waits, super nice people, insane efficiency.
so that's that. compare that to experiences i've had in us military hospitals or the hcmc downtown that were agonizingly bureaucratic and inefficient makes it clear that it's not government healthcare = sucky and expensive or market competition = awesome. execution is definitely a factor.
people act like it's all impossible to do socialized healthcare and when i tell them i have experienced this impossibility they get all stupid and are just against it. why can't we do what germany did, why we can't just copy them? i really don't understand what the problem is. it seems to me some people are just irrationally clinging to some cold war pinko fear that is just silly.