I feel your pain. Really! I've been there.

About "waiting lists" in that evil socialized medicine but every thing is rosy under corportatized medicine: My mother (aged 75+ and suffering from alzheimers) was released from a hospital emergency room with a broken arm that had sharp edges causing her extreme pain everytime she moved). I could get no information from the emergency personnel. Her regular doctor wouldn't return my calls and only did after I put up a fuss. Then he acted as if I was out of line by expecting to actually get information about my mothers condition. I was not shown xrays until we went to the surgeon's office. I wouldn't say that the emergency personnel lied to me, but they came real close. They withheld information on how serious the break in her arm was. It took a week to get an appointment with the surgeon (though once the surgeon saw the exrays I must say he did get her scheduled for surgery within a day).

Sorry about your tooth.

Gail

Get some clove oil from a pharmacy and apply it. Also, let an aspirin dissolve on the tooth. These can help get you through the night.

Eww. Asprin tastes nasty. I can't swallow them so one dissolved in my mouth and I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth for a long time. I'm sorry about your tooth. I hope it gets better soon.

enough of these silly home remedies. Kevin, here's what ya do:

fill a tumbler or small glass with 4 to 6 ounces of Jack Daniel's sour mash. Toss it back, all at once (don't namby-pamby it). repeat 3 more times.

I guarantee you'll feel better.

But whatever you do, do not mix OTC pain meds with alcohol. Very bad for the liver, by which I mean that it's a cause of sudden liver failure in a not insignificant number of people.

Talk to the folks in Norway who end up paying out of pocket to get decent, necessasry healthe care. No one is going to say that the Noregians don't get how to implement socialism. You just can't say that it works very well.

For people that can't stand the government that they get every 8 years or so, why would you want to trust the government to provide you such essential services? If you hate Bush, doesn't it stand to reason that the government will screw you over?

The moral here is that you have a choice. If you don't like your current plan, choose another. If it's based on your job, sell your services to someone else with a better plan.

Hope you feel better.

The mullet's comment reminds me of an old mountain remedy for a cold. Drink 2 ounces of moonshine every hour, wait a week or so and your cold will be gone.

Joe Gannett,

This is just stupid. We should not try to establish a naitonal healthcare system because every few years a Rethugnican can get in - lie on a massive scale to the general populace - and gut the system.

What is to prevent the health care service - especially the cheaper ones - from screwing patients over anyway? Aren;t these companies run by the Rethugnicans - like Bush - who prefer to lie to you then screw you out of your benefits?

And don;t give me that market morality crap. It is patently obvious that the SEC and the public have a huge tolerance for corporate malfeasance. Notice the Worldcom award - as opposed to what the Worldcom crooks cost investors.

The cheaper services would race to the bottom - and offer the least amount of service for the price. There is no morality here. It is just business.

Why do you put so much faith in corporate interests? At least government offices are subject to public oversight.

And where do you think all these high benefits jobs are coming from? In case you had not noticed, there are a few million people out of work right now. Employers are cutting their benfits budgets because they know that employees will NOT be looking for a better deal. It is race to the bottom time for benefits, too.

You would think a pro business Republican would understand this.

I feel for you. I had an abscess that had me in the emergency room begging for help. I had been on a DMO that was so bad I left it. My company finally got a decent dental plan, in part because of mine and other's complaints. Because I had left the old one, I had to wait out the 1 year time period for major work. I could no longer wait and I finally had to drop $1500 out of my pocket for a root canal and cap.

Get the Sonic Care toothbrush. Makes a huge difference. Floss to!

Don't brush your teeth six or sevenhundred times a day! You can actually brush to much and damage your teeth! (The name of the condition is "tooth brush abrasion".) It's also painful, since the teeth loose the protective top layer and become extremely sensitive against heat, cold, sweets. And it might require treatment (artifical cover).

So only brush after meals, don't press too hard, and use a soft toothbrush.

Mr. Fannetti,

Leaving behind diatribe about "Rethugnicans", you haven't addressed the basic point. Kevin was complaining about his ability to get services in a decent amount of time. There are models to look at when it comes down to socialized medicine. Canada, Norway, England, France among a few have fairly command based health care systems. Based on my own personal experience with Norwegian relatives who deal with the command based system, they have had to go outside the system for care on numerous occasions to receive necessary, life enabling care - including services for things such as cancer treatments. Being inside of a command system will not address his issue.

Obviously, you don’t embrace market forces as part of your economic point of view. However, where do you think innovation comes from? What lessons from command economies have you missed that prevents you from seeing that market forces rather than centralized planning provide for the engine which keeps technologies moving forward – including in health care?

It seems to me that you have a little too much faith in the “public oversight” ability of the government. Once again, in a free society that still elects its government – spare me the stolen election drama – you will be subject to a change within at least eight years with a totally different agenda and “who prefer to lie to you then screw you out of your benefits?”. Better to have the market chasing your dollars with the services that you want and can or are willing to pay for.

Civilly yours,

Joe Gannett

Joe

Sorry, but that is nonsense. First, please xpolain how my situation is different form the situation you describe your Norwegian relatives to be in? I am paying for services that I am not recieving, and having to pay extra to actually have my problem taken care of. Which it isn't, I might add. If we have the best medical professionals in the world, then I fear for the state of medicine.

Second, in case you had not noticed, we are already in a command system. The vast majority of AMercans have less choice than most Europeans and Candadians. The difference being, in the US system, the financial incentives are to NOT provide coverage, and NOT provide care. In short, to waste money that should be spent on health care on profits. Add to that the complete and utter lack of choice (I can use the system my employer - who has every incentive to minimize costs - selects, or I can do without), and the total inability to affect the priorities of my insurance compnay, and the US system has all of the drawbacks of a centralized command system with none of the benefits.

As for "technology moving forward" in health care, I am sorry, but about half our research dollars come from public funding. Medicine is not like any othe rindustry. People invent widgets becasue they want to make money. People invent cures becasue they want to help people.

My kid broke her arm. We are British, so it's socialised medicine. We had to wait eight hours in casualty for it to be put in a cast. She was not allowed food or drink for the first four or maybe five hours because they didn't know whether they would operate. For "didn't know" read "no one knowledgeable had looked at her". I forget when she was given a paracetamol.

Granted, my one case doesn't prove my point any more than yours proves yours. But here's what the health editor of the Guardian's Sunday equivalent, The Observer, said about the NHS after two years spent on the job.

Kevin and All,

I’ll let Anthony Browne’s comments in The Observer that Natalie referred to speak for themselves. All that I will say is that it is very much in-line with what I observed as part of Norway’s system.

However, I do have one point that I would like to place up for comment. It seems to me that it is a very sticky patch you place yourself in when you willing let choice be taken away from you on such a central issue as your own health. I would suggest that the money is the key and who controls the money controls the ethics/policy/standards/distribution.

I believe that you are arguing that we as a nation have already lost control over the money and thus the choice because you view the only choice as being with your employer. My contention is that choice still resides in your hand to a large extent based on a number of factors. Currently, there still is a choice to use the company plan or decide to spend you money on some other non-company plan. You can choose to supplement you current plan with other insurance. You can choose to have no plan at all and pay as you go. Most companies of any size provide multiple options – not all certainly. You can choose to work for another company. You can choose to have your union negotiate a better plan and many do.

I will disagree with your comment, “The difference being, in the US system, the financial incentives are to NOT provide coverage, and NOT provide care.” We will probably just have to disagree on what incentives employers find necessary to get talented productive people.

My central point on choice, however, is that when the government begins to control the dollars for care, it will have control over the ethics/policy/standards/distribution. I made the point in the previous post that the government will change and may very well go in a direction that you may disagree with. To put it plainly and more specifically, who do you want controlling your body? What tinkering with the health care system are you willing to abide in areas such as birth control and its extensions. Who is to say that the government won’t decide that smoking, drinking, McDonalds and generally being a couch potato are against the public good and simply too expensive and make legislation designed to control your behavior.

I make what I consider to be a fairly liberal point. What control are you willing to give up? In light of the most recent Supreme Court decisions related to privacy, how do you go down one path and not follow it on another?

Respectfully,

Joe Gannett