blamebrampton | A side note

A side note

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!

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...yeah, that's not going to happen in the US for a while. :| There are too many enemies of it.

psst: socialised health care IS evil! :P :P :P (not joking, honestly -- I'm not a fan, and at least one point you have to concede is that the dentistry systems in socialized medicine systems aren't on par with the US system -- the dentistry I found in Germany was COMPLETELY useless).

Also, I beta read that story and TOLD the author that the UK has socialized medicine, so, yeah. Also, they're not American :P

Yeah. Dun liek Mpreg either. BUT! Yeah, I have read good Mpreg. Roma and Brumms and I think Oldie's wrote a fic I liked too, with mpreg in it. But. Yeah. Usually what I don't like in Mpreg is that it changes the characters into these peeps that I'm rly not interesting in knowing moar about. Instead of remaining individuals they become DAD and it's all about cuteness and stuff and the PASSION! and DRAMA just fizzles. Which is BULLCRAP cause family? It's intense. I think the Mpreg I've lieked was the one where the PEEPS weren't lost in the mechanics of the thing. 'Cause it's like Scifi somtiems, with the bolts and the POW POW and the ship and the action takes over and the characters are left behind. This happens in Mpreg, except when it doesn't. :)))))))))))))

Yes to all of the above!

And ha! Because I accidentally read an mpreg too. I was all "Fuck, they should really have warned for that!" and of course when I looked at the warnings it was there in CAPSLOCK!!! I think my brain just filtered it out as too traumatic to process. lol

Having been a medical professional for the past 30 years, ten of them spent in the healthcare insurance industry, I'd have to say that the answer for us (the States) is not a universal healthcare system as you know it, but an amalgamation of employer funded/government assisted care. And here, care is care is NEVER denied in the case of mother deliveries/prenatal care/children's healthcare, nor is care required in an emergency room ever denied, REGARDLESS of insurance coverage. It's the law, and sometimes I think non-U.S. citizens have seen waaaaay too much of Michael Moore's rubbish. Both my husband and I have had cancer in the past five years: had either of us lived in Canada or the U.K., given their treatment modalities/wait times, we'd both be dead by now. The plans currently on the table for universal healthcare right now are all employer assisted plan, and would not preclude private contribution.

I made a short post about this issue a while back. You can see it here. I won't tell you universal healthcare is evil, but I will say that expecting the universal application of it as a workable fix in the U.S. is laughable.

Well we don't really know how St. Mungo's works. Even though Britain might have socialized medicine doesn't mean the wizarding world would. And, I don't think Draco would be trotting into Muggleland for help. *snicker*

However, I agree about us dear Americans. *sigh*

I don't understand the appeal of mpreg, myself. But - that hasn't stopped me from dabbling in writing it, and enjoying a well-written mpreg fic. But I certainly don't seek it out.

PS... what do you blame Brampton for?

Ha, I saw that one. And I read it, too!

Good grief, mpreg and American healthcare politics?! You firestarter, you. ;)
*removes self to a safe distance*

Oh my god. *starts reading warnings very carefully*

I have no idea if the quality or writing is generally good or bad in mpreg stories, because I NEVER READ IT. *shudders for a bit longer than is strictly decent*

And, you know, living in the UK and having the NHS as a given is so awesome. I can't even tell you.

And coming across an error like that in a fic would make me stop reading instantly.

But I don't like Michael Moore either.

1) Was that the Charlie/Draco Mpreg? I quite adored it.

2) Speaking of Health Care issues. I quite like the aussie version. Being friends with an Australian Doctor, I was treated to many a discussion on how Canada's HC issues could be solved by the Aussie model.

Without intending any offence to any US citizens who may glance past this comment - I think the only thing sadder and more scary than the state of health care in the US of A is the fact that US citizens actually do defend it and get angry if you dare suggest that allowing people to die for want of medicine or treatment might not be the best possible system.

*headdesk*

*hugs you* - btw - mpreg? No, it's not my thing either, although as you say, there's been some damned good writing in the genre, and I have been known to peruse the odd piece if sufficiently well rec'd.

you read mpreg? o_O i thought we talked about this...

:P

Edited 2008-12-28 07:19 (UTC)

LOL This post is great. XD

Go research!

Mmmm now I'm looking forward to reading that fic, cos: yay mpreg! :D

** SPOILER COMMENT **

Hmm. If that's the hd_hols fic I'm thinking of, I kinda read it as the wizarding community introducing a law to deny DEs treatment, not as a lack of universal health care (more a retraction of it for a certain segment of society). And given the person, he wouldn't know about the UK Muggle system, nor could he go there because he's a guy, and he required magical treatment. So it didn't throw me out at all.

** END SPOILER **

As a Canadian, I can't imagine having to pay for healthcare. It's just something that's always there. Is it mis-managed? Hell, the finances are run by the government. Of course it is! But are people dying from waiting too long? I don't believe it. I haven't seen evidence of that, despite some rumours. Do mistakes happen? Sure they do. Is it devastating for those involved? Of course. But I don't see a direct correlation between UHC and that.

I've known many people who've been treated for cancer, etc., and have received phenomenal treatment here. Without having to go south of the border. Occasionally, the wait requires treatment elsewhere (out of the city/province/country), but in my experience that's the exception, not the rule.

I won't presume to know how the US system works, but the idea of going broke, losing my house, or losing all I've worked for just to stay alive/healthy is scary to me.

I was born in the US, but haven't lived there for a long time--Denmark is home. I still don't understand the US's horror of national healthcare or anything else remotely socialized, or that they can claim that it doesn't work.

I've been seriously ill here and there--no significant difference in the quality of the care, although here I have to push a bit more and there I have to resist a bit the things I felt were unnecessary. The difference was that there I was faced with mountains of paper and invoices (fortunately paid mostly by insurance) that had truly amazing figures that were followed by stunning numbers of zeros. I have never seen an invoice or any paper other than explanations of what was wrong and how they treated it. Oh, except for I did have to pay a small amount for a private phone in my hospital room here, but that was a cash transaction carried out by my husband at the phone company kiosk down in the hospital lobby.

Incidentally, I was in the UK last summer when I had a bad accident right at the beginning of a month long holiday. The NHS did not live up to its reputation at all. The care I received from the moment I staggered through the Accident and Casualty room's door was all I could ask for. Yes Danish hospitals are more modern and more "electronic" but I hardly felt like the treatment was sub-standard and when I did eventually make it home, the doctors here were seriously impressed with the work that had been done. And again, not a single invoice and not even a question of whether I had insurance.

The Scandinavian economies (outside of Iceland which has pretty much gone its own way since the second world war) are relatively healthy even in these dark financial days, the welfare state isn't under serious threat and still the US insists that nothing socialized can ever even begin to possibly work. Denmark has no national debt (and yes we have troops fighting in the middle east too). As I said before, I just can't begin to understand the mindset that insists that what we do can't possibly work.

Now, if we could just do something about what I see as the institutionalized racism/ethnicism of the the national government here AND if we could get over our national schizophrenia about the EU (come on guys, we are either in or we are out! It really doesn't work when we try to swim both ways at the same time), I might actually think that we were doing a pretty good job of governing ourselves.

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.

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??

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!

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.

*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*

I am in snowy Canadia at the moment. The day after I arrived my sniffly cold turned into a full blown chest infection and my brother packed me off to the doctor. $210CAN later I had antibiotics. Let's have that again. $210. NHS FTW.

Also, I am clearly not yet caught up to the mpreg. *eyes unread fics and unviewed pics* *wonders whether to bother with the mpreg*

Also also, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. My internet access has been sketchy for the last week or so. I'm a little behind on these things.

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