Alltop.com

You summary was partial and did not represent the entire article.

Your conclusion was also slanted. Shame that you try and impose your filters on others

Every story had a happy ending, I recommend people to read the entire article and ignore your words.

BOFF

Anecdotal comparisons like this can be useful for illustration but they are very dangerous, as you never know how representative they are of the complete picture. Stories can almost always be found that support a particular point of view in emotional, convincing way. Policy should not be formulated from anecdotes.

The second important point with regard to these comparisons I constantly see between the US an other countries is that they (usually) fail to mention the biggest difference between the systems; tort laws. You cannot have a socialist health system with a capitalist (and blood thirsty) trial lawyer system. It won't work but it looks like we're going to try.

People keep forgetting that all the good doctors leave Europe to come become millionaires here in the States.

A valid point. The first part of this article purports that the standard care in the US for a heart attack is a heart transplant. Awful reporting. The renowned and highly vaunted BBC will be sitting a bit lower on my lists. Probably at the same level as many other groups. CBC going up on my list.

The U.K. health care system is currently with the highest deficit ever, just as the U.S.. Other european countries have very strong health care systems such as Sweden, France and Germany. It would be wiser to compare to other European countries and set aside the U.K. as it is an exception. So why do people keep assuming that the current state of the U.K.'s health care system reflects the whole of Europe's reality.... Really bad comparison and post!!!

Don't forget Spain, 8th in the world! I've been living in this country for 30 years and I can assure you its health care is fabulous. Many northern Europeans would rather be treated here, than even in Germany, Holland, Sweden, Belgium.

backoffice, I quite agree. If he's going to post this nonsense, he needs to not misrepresent it on twitter. I've replied to him on twitter already, no response.

"can't believe she had to wait 90 days 4 her insurance to kick in and then go bankrupt to get treatment for breast cancer! :("

"and even insured, she still paid $45k & her docs had to wait for permission to do tests to see if her heart was ready 4 chemo?"

"his conclusion that that is a 'better' system is flawed at best."

"a healthcare system where the first duty is to the shareholder and not the patient is pathetic. Put people before profit."

Amazing! If people are so fired up in America to have a European modeled healthcare system please do America a favor and just move there. If it's the European model you desire to live under please go away and go there. If u are offended or challenged by this comment I'm sure Europe would love to console u.

As an American, I am perfectly happy with healthcare in the states as the growing majority of Americans are. At the core I believe it's Capitalism opposers of American healthcare are really fighting and truth be told most of them could care less about the poor and uninsured aside from the entitlement money the politicians give them only to stoke their own position of political power.

how can the US system better when insurance companies are only interested in the bottom line?

Why do some Americans think Europe is one small country?
Why do some Americans think everything good is concentrated in the USA? Including good doctors.

I would like to see a similar comparison (for fairness and thoroughness' sake) of the British and American health systems, and the Canadian, Cuban, Swedish, and Japanese ones. All of these countries have health systems of a certain renown (yes, even the Cuban one), and yet all of them have their own shortcomings (again, the Cuban one will probably have many more). I don't believe there is a perfect public health system presently anywhere in the world, but I do think one is possible. The question is, which is closest?

Ooops, looks like you don't dare poke the free-market fundamentalist dog. They bite. Well they bark loudly because they have actually lost their teeth having been called out on the damage they did to the world economy.

They are going down - but they are going down barking. Woof.

As Noelle said, your summary of the BBC interviews is completely inaccurate -- unsupported both by the anecdotal evidence of the interviews and by the more substantive statistics maintained by the World Health Organization, which show, for example, that you have a greater chance of dying before age 60 in the US than in the UK, France or Germany -- the countries mentioned in the BBC interviews. Alltop has managed to publish a total fraud and George Kawasaki has compounded the crime by tweeting to promote the fraud. Try to do better in the future, please.

"The first part of this article purports that the standard care in the US for a heart attack is a heart transplant." Excuse me what? I don't understand. The only reference to a heart transplant is by the citizen who needed it, this was a reccomendation by the doctors. Your comment makes no logical sense! If they used an example of an American male who had a heart attack and received some different sort of treatment, would you still be saying that they are purposely implying that this is the standard treatment for a heart attack in the U.S? I am racking my brains at how you managed to clutch at these invisible straws. They gathered a few examples of different people's experiences in different healthcare systems and because the American guy they chose to interview had a heart transplant, to you this is translated as the standard treatment. There is no standard treatment for a heart attack in any country, it's dependent upon the circumstances of a person health. Seriously how can you accuse the bbc of implying anything when the only words regarding the issue are said by an American interviewee and involve one type of many different treatments available for a medical condition (one of the different treatments is clearly reflected in the example of the Italian patient).
BTW the fact that the patient was turned away three times doesn't account for the factor of early symptoms being insignificant or unidentifiable upon initial examination and there is no evidence as such to suggest that negligence was the reason as to why she was turned away initially.

"The first part of this article purports that the standard care in the US for a heart attack is a heart transplant. Awful reporting."
You need to read the article and retract the comment. It is utterly wrong and suggests you did not really understand what was being said.