A side note

[blamebrampton]

Dear Americans,
Outside of your strange, strange country, most of the developed world has this marvellous thing which we like to call health care for all. I'm reading an interesting mpreg (that will teach me not to read the warnings!*) story from hd_hols and the poverty-stricken pregnant one is in despair as his health insurance will not cover it. On the off-chance it was written by someone on my flist, the good for society news is that in the UK, this is not the problem you might think it is! And I have my fingers crossed that in the US, it won't be for much longer, either.

(And if anyone is planning to respond telling me that socialised healthcare is evil, I will LAUGH AT YOU, and then I will QUOTE REAMS OF STATISTICS until you FLEE.)

XXX
BB

* And yes, my dislike of mpreg is not supported by the excellent writing that occurs within that genre and the imaginative plots that many superior writers bring to bear on the concept. But I still don't like it!

Comments

[alienor77310.livejournal.com]

Same error happens in het fic. Hermione/Ginny/OFC gets preggers and/or sick and can't afford healthcare.

And I love socialised healthcare too. Ours (French) is far from perfect, but it is free or nearly so (free if you can't afford complementary insurance) and mostly efficient.

[alienor77310.livejournal.com]

Huh? None of my grown-up nephews are above that. All above 18. Maybe even more than the little ones.
*has just spent 3 days with her 8 nephews and nieces*

[astarael02.livejournal.com]

Woo!! (I don't know how to show how much I agree. "Hear hear"?)

I'm too lazy to find the posts below that actually argue, but I'm proud of living in a country where everyone is entitled to the same level of medical care. *supresses imminent rant before it comes out*

Also, I know the NHS in britain has some problems, and for some people NHS dentists are hard to find, but I've found that the healthcare system is a lot better than you'd think by listening to the media. I had an operation in April, not even an urgent one at all, and the waiting list was less than three months (I was surprised how quickly it all happened actually, I was expecting to wait a year or two!), I had appointments with the consultant, blood tests to make sure I was healthy enough for the operation, lots of the most lovely and friendly nurses I've ever met, and I felt like I was being cared for properly the whole time. And this was in a hospital far "up north".

The only thing that maybe wouldn't have happened in the US if I had lots of money was that I had the op in the morning so that by early afternoon I'd have recovered from the anaesthetic, they could check that I was OK and my mum could take me home for the night and bring me back in the morning for another checkup, thus avoiding the need to take up a hospital bed overnight. But it was completely unnecessary after all and I was an outpatient, so I wasn't bothered by that at all. I was treated wonderfully.

Also, I don't like mpreg either. I don't have any interest whatsoever in stories where a character being pregnant is an important part of the plot, since pregnancy in general is not a pleasant process and I dont like the "growing up and having babies and being a lovey dovey family" kind of stories. So why make it possible for a man to be pregnant just so you can have the same kind of plot points in a slash story??

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

I don't know the American system in enough detail to be able to work out how to fix it, but I think it's pretty obvious what DOESN'T work: being dependent upon having the right employer to get proper medical treatment without going personally bankrupt. Especially in a country where workers' rights aren't entirely up to scratch. I can't believe anyone who doesn't have the pure luck to have such benefits through employment would argue against some model of socialised health care.

Sure, you can't just plop any old country's system onto the US and expect it to work, but there isn't the person alive who can convince me that the current US system is the best a resourceful country like the US can to with the huge amounts of money it uses on health care!

[lilian-cho.livejournal.com]

1) Is this the everyone-is-forced-to-marry-and-propagate situation?
Saw that recced somewhere.

[drgaellon]

But, OTOH, it is the legally-required incontrovertible requirement for physicians to provide INVOLUNTARY FREE CARE that, in part, drives the spiralling cost of health care. You're paying for it twice - once in your taxes, and once every time you access the system - because the doctors and hospitals have to charge more to cover the cost of caring for those who can't pay.

As a physician, if I want to maintain my hospital privileges, I must take ER call, and I must take every patient that comes in, regardless of ability to pay, care for them through their entire hospitalization and see them in my office until the current, acute illness is resolved. I can bill them for it, I can dun them for it, I can send them to collections for it... I can drive them into bankruptcy over it (#1 cause of personal bankruptcy in the US: health care bills), but I can't refuse to care for them.

Your insurance insulates you from that - and it's that very insulation that drives the American demand for the newest, "best" treatment (NB: newest != best!!!!). If you don't know or care what it costs, because you're never out-of-pocket, of course you're going to demand the newest, most expensive treatments.

This system is BORKED, and has been for 30+ years. Yes, it's entrenched. Yes, it's working, in a limping-along fashion... but it isn't going to for much longer. It needs a fresh start and a new approach.

[drgaellon]

ZOMG, cross-gen SQUICKS ME OUT. (Which is bizarre, given my penchant for pretty twinks. Fortunately for me, while he is no longer a twink, and only 2 years younger than I, my boyfriend is an ex-model, and more than pretty enough to suit.)

[drgaellon]

don't understand well the term 'elective.'

Neither do many surgeons. I've been fighting all weekend with my surgeons who keep writing that my patient needs "elective" gall bladder surgery. No, she doesn't. It's not elective, it's obligatory. It's not emergent, which is the only distinction surgeons seem to make anymore. As soon as they can wait a few days, it becomes "elective," regardless of how life-preserving it is. And that just confuses laypeople further.

[drgaellon]

Don't kid yourself; on the public dole, the wait times here aren't much better... four to six weeks to get an appointment in our primary care clinic, three to four months to get an elective cardiology consultation, six months to get an appointment in the free eye clinic. Life threatening illnesses are, of course, rammed through the system at speed, but for routine stuff, if you're in a Medicaid clinic, you wait - *IF* you can get an appointment at all. (When I worked in the Medicaid clinic in Ocean County NJ, we had no cardiology, no pulmonology, no gastroenterology - you had to drive 45 miles to the nearest teaching center, and the wait times were even LONGER, because you were coming from out of county, so our patients were minimum priority.)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

You braggart!

(You lucky, lucky, deserving and did I mention lucky braggart ;-)

[drgaellon]

My friend Jill has new twins. I was holding one of them last night, and observed to her father that she was a drool factory. Fortunately, it all went on the bib, not on her, or me.

[drgaellon]

Rule 34, baby!!!!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

HEE! Now that I have accepted my destiny as the sexy maiden aunt, I embroider. My friends all receive nicely stitched cloths from me, for putting betwixt baby and clothes. When I hand them over, there is a polite thank you. The next time I see the new parents, there is kissing and hugging. I have *observed*!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I adore that icon. And I have to say that even Charlie/Draco mpreg is less scary than dwarf porn ...

[drgaellon]

Moi? Brag? NEVER! XD

[arobynsung]

Unfortunately, in the U.S., cooperations tend to have our Congress in a choke-hold. It'd be great to have, if it was correctly regulated and run (which in itself is hard to manage) but it would mean a lot of congress members finding their balls. Quite the task for them let me tell you.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

It is! I recced it yesterday. Not a pairing I would normally read, but it's quite good.

And the pregnancy bit is more about discussing the law and the unfairness of it then any actual pregnancy. Mpreg without the Mpreg. ;)

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to believe with everything out there that Charlie/Draco Mpreg might scar you. :D

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

*g*

I'm not that fond of those things with female characters either. :D

[romaine24.livejournal.com]

Fad? Hmmm, not sure the Snarry folks think that. :)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Snarry disturbs me less, because most of what I have read has Harry in his late twenties, thirties or even forties. The next-gen crossgen seems to love the twinkdom. To which I say: AAAAAAARRRRRRGH!

[silentauror.livejournal.com]

I quite agree. Just yes to all of this. If I had enough money to make those choices for myself, I would hope that I would still care enough about the people who don't to ensure that there was something in place for them. But alas, most people are not particularly altruistic, which is why we need to elect governments that care about people.

Do you sound French? Like, grammatically or politically? Grammatically I think you sound fine, but I live in a city full of people who speak English as a second language to their French, so I'm possibly used to that. Politically, I just have no clue, hahaha. *loses*

[romaine24.livejournal.com]

Nope, I won't take it personal. *giggle*

Would Scorpius in his mid-twenties do?

[enchanted-jae.livejournal.com]

*leaps to defend the honor of gift!fic* Heh. I'm an American, so I guess that part didn't bother me in that shit like that actually happens here. It bothered me that it happened to Draco, but not in a way that jolted me out of the fic. Also, I'm going to presume my mystery author was writing from the standpoint of wizarding UK, which clearly does not have standardized health care. *nods; grins*

I, too, hope that the US gets its collective head out of its ass some time soon and provides health care for all. The major stumbling block has been, and continues to be, the lobbying of the powerful health insurance companies. Where would they be if we didn't need them? That's not to defend them at all; merely stating that their interests are a main reason why standardized health care in America has not seen the light of day. Yet.

Once you've solved our health care crisis, please turn your attention to getting sex education in our schools, because that is sadly lacking, too.

America is very strange and absurd. *nods*

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

It was the socialist idealism coming from the privileged ;-) Which I have to say, I don't mind!