Billy Connolly on the Amercian Health Care System

Billy describes the US health care set up from a concert in 1981. Its interesting just how relevent his comments are today in 2010!

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• billy
• connolly
• health
• care
• sicko

[aiyic]

Every time I go to the states, I'm shocked at the level of six o'clock pharma-advertising aimed at middle-aged to elderly people. And what takes the biscuit, is that they mention the litany side-effects at the end of the ad.

[MrMaxTruth]

I'm a Brit living in America. Great place but unfortunatley the health care sucks. I took my daughter for a dental check up and was told she needed 5 fillings. I waited as we were going on vacation back to the UK for a second opinion. We were then told by a a uk dentist that she only needed one! Yep, it sure is a money spinner !

[yurismir1]

@MrMaxTruth That's why Americans have better teeth than Brits :)

[TEGDHaze]

@rapier0954 That is only part of the story. (With approximately 100,000 deaths in hospitals each year from accidents there is perhaps a good reason for the lawsuits.) But the US healthcare system is inundated with specialists and a dinstinct shortage of general practitioners because the big money goes to specialists. So everything you do requires a specialist which becomes very expensive indeed and I think is like a mutually-benefiting network referring clients to each other.

[TEGDHaze]

@jtpinnyc You must have an awful lot of money. I had my eyes checked and even though I HAVE insurance I had to pay $700 out of my own pocket just to have a couple of tests run!! I can't afford to go back. More than half of all personal bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical expenses. People are denied life-giving surgery because they can't afford it. Must be why they had an opening for you who had cash. It's no accident the US is last among peer nations in deaths from preventable causes.

[TEGDHaze]

@jtpinnyc You are making a classic false argument. The distinguishing difference is not culture or race but economic status which has a far more negative impact on health in the US than in peer nations. A Harvard Medical School study has concluded that 45,000 people die every year in the US for lack of adequate health insurance. The US is last among peer nations for deaths from preventable causes and studies conclude the primary reason is inadequate healthcare for large sectors of the population

[jtpinnyc]

@TEGDHaze You are making the classic mistake of attributing things like child mortality rates to quality of health care. This is not the case...life expectancy and child mortality are much more a factor of culture. There is nothing about US health care that causes children to have bad health outcomes, but there are certain cultures in the US, especially among immigrant groups and inner city blacks, which perpetuate poor parenting and poor health. Likewise the culture of fat people/eating junk.

[rapier0954]

@TEGDHaze I think the drs in the usa order plenty of tests because they want to be sure in case there is a lawsuit. The whole thing has gotten way out of hand. 

[rapier0954]

@TEGDHaze I read all your points in the 3 sections you sent to me and I do not disagree with any of it. I began a thread on here a way back commenting on Billy only but it is okay to have diversified the discussion. With the deficits and debt of both the US and UK I do not know how many social programs will survive intact. They will all need to be scaled down or something. I am a Canadian our deficit to GDP ratio is the best in the G8 UK is one of the worst so cut are coming.

[TEGDHaze]

One of the absurdities of the US healthcare system is that on the one hand you've got insurance companies trying not to pay out by penalizing you with co-pays and deductibles for going to the doctor or hospital. And on the other hand you have doctors and hospitals trying to make as much money as they can, once they have you there, by giving you loads and loads of tests etc. Between them it's a real tug of war but it's the American public who loses...

[TEGDHaze]

@rapier0954 That is part of the problem. The wealthy have every need met at the expense of others. Have you ever seen signs in shop windows for people trying to raise money to pay the medical bills for their daughter with leukemia? Or people in your neigbourhood having raffles so a sick child can get treatment? Or selling their house to pay for chemo? It happens here. More than HALF of all personal bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical expenses. This system is broken.

[TEGDHaze]

@rapier0954 Did I say it had anything to do directly with Billy Connolly? Wealthy people will do just fine in the US system and probably pay less because there's no sliding scale for the insurance company or the hospitals and it's not funded progressively through taxation. Everyone pays the same amount. But for the rest of the population coverage is far less secure and for a large sector it is terribly inadequate. Believe me you would pay MUCH more for the same care in the US system.