[ExI] What Makes People Vote Republican

[Samantha Atkins]

On Sep 19, 2008, at 11:44 PM, Damien Broderick wrote:

> At 04:23 PM 9/20/2008 +1000, Dr. Stathis wrote:
>
>> You're relatively speaking better off if you have a serious illness  
>> in
>> the public hospital system in Australia. I have seen plenty of people
>> arriving in an ambulance from a private hospital either because the
>> hospital can't provide the sort of treatment they need or because the
>> hospital is worried that their insurance will run out. I know people
>> working in the health care industry who have private health insurance
>> but say that they would rather be in a public hospital if there were
>> something seriously wrong with them.


I guess I have spent altogether a year in hospitals as an adult, all  
in the US.  In general I find that the public hospitals and a few  
university hospitals have really really excellent trauma care.  From  
sheer volume or something they attract a lot of hot shot trauma docs.   
So if you are very seriously in an emergency situation you want to be  
in one of those.  But their day to day care if you are going to be in  
for a while really majorly sucks.  The university hospitals have great  
docs but relatively poor admin stuff and worse followup care in my  
experience.  For that you want to be in a more private hospital.    
Money?  It is the states so they both cost an arm and a leg although  
generally they want let a wound go that far on purpose barring  
SARS.  :-)    The general hospital is more likely to give you decent  
care even if it is not obvious how they are going to get paid.   But  
these days they are swamped by people who have no insurance, and no  
real non-emergency routine medical care.

Can't speak about other country's care from personal experience  
mostly.  I will say it is not recommend to be tapped out on your  
vacation funds and contract food poisoning in Paris late at night.   I  
thought I was a goner before they found a doc who admitted to speaking  
English, would  see me and give me something the counteract the  
outrageously bad symptoms (much too late by then to pump my stomach).   
Not recommended.