Politics
Out of context: Reply #8008
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- TheBlueOne0
I mean, there are some truly incredible things that the US healthcare system does. It's the best at saving lives in extreme cases. Awesome trauma units, great invasive surgery, etc. I mean my wife routinely does more cardiac caths in a week in the US than she ever did even in Japan. But even she comes home sometimes and says "You know, we cathed this 93 year old woman today. At best she'll have another month to live and she's in constant pain from other things and on high levels of pain medication. I don't understand why in America it's considered a wise use of resources to do this. In Japan a person at that age, in that type of bad health would feel ashamed to take up that type of medical service when it could be used for younger, healthier people." I get her point, and see the merit in it, but don't always agree with her. But I'm American. And it's exactly that type of medicine - at the edges which flows down into the system, giving doctors better skillsets and technology to treat younger patients more aggressively and efficiently. We do that better than anywhere else in the world.
What we totally suck in is preventative and educational healthcare. Yes, we can keep you alive after a heart attack, but we have no real system in place to keep you from becoming an overweight, diabetic moron who will have no choice but need advanced medical procedures in your 40's.
We need a new paradigm, not just throw money at the problem.