Maggie's Farm

"Why the Republicans are finding it hard to reform Obamacare".

The article is based on false assumptions. The U.S. has the best healthcare in the world. When Canada denies older citizens a bypass operation or simply delays it for years that Canadian citizen can drive across the border and get the bypass in a week. When the UK denies people basic healthcare because they don't have enough doctors or operating theaters or hospital beds people die. State run health care will kill you (the VA). What Obamacare will do is bring our health care down to the level of Canada or the UK. It will allocate healthcare based on federal budget funding and not need. It will provide free and complete healthcare to the millions who sneak across the border while denying healthcare to older citizens because it is not cost effective. Today the U.S. may well have more CT machines then the rest of the world combined but if Obamacare is allowed to survive ten years from now we will have half as many CT machines and the waiting times (as in Canada and the UK) will grow to years instead of the present hours to days. Some years back when I went to a clinic, to my doctor complaining of shortness of breath my wait time for a CT scan was 30 minutes and then I was admitted to the hospital. In canada wait times for a CT scan average 6 months with some people waiting two years or more and some dyng while on the waiting list. In the UK CT scans are rare and doctors with patients in need of a CT scan are not allowed to say those words. Most people in the UK have never seen, heard of, or used a CT machine. Why? Because the UK's health care budget is mostly spent on administrators and not on health care. In Canada in some provinces entire hospitals will close for the last three months of the year because they have already spent their yearly budget. Make no mistake; Canadian's love their healthcare! Why? Because if you have the sniffles or a broken bone you can get in get treated and pay nothing (well, actually you paid a lot but it was taken from your paycheck withut yur choice). Most Canadian's have not run into the wall in their healthcare system. But on that day when they have a diagnosis of cancer or heart disease or any of the serious illnesses associated with old age they discover that their health care system has problems. Often it will take them months before they even discover that they are getting the run around. They are told that they need a CT scan but the machines are booked up so they are put on a waiting list. They don't know that in the U.S. there is no waiting list and CT machines are not just in regional hospitals but in all hospitals and large clinics. Then after 3-6 months on the waiting list and feeling sicker everyday they ask pointed questions and that is when for the first time they discover the problem with socialized health care. That is when they are told in private to drive over the border to any large U.S. city and get their emergency treatment; some real healthcare. What will they do after the U.S. adopts their healthcare system?