Healthcare

[nihal]

I don't understand healthcare in America. I am totally confused. I'm lucky to be extremely healthy and have never really had any health related issues. Healthcare in India is incredibly cheap, both in terms of medicines and hospitalization. As most of you know, Shruti had enormous complications during childbirth. The total bill came to about $5000

Comments

[lilsabub]

I am no expert on the subject by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems to me that the root of the problem stems from medical malpractice lawsuits by patients.

Doctors in America are forced to pay through the nose for malpractice insurance because patients have become accustomed to the luxury of slapping their doctor with a lawsuit when something goes wrong. Doctors in America do not make the loads of dough everyone assumes. My mother's doctor was unable to retire until the age of 80 because paying for his malpractice insurance was eating into all his funds.

I completely defend a person's right to be a whistle-blower on an outrageously negligent doctor, but Americans have taken it too far, forgetting that a single mistake does not a malpractice make. Fertility treatments, for example. People pump themselves full of drugs to make a baby and then sue the doc when the kid comes out deformed. Know the risks. Take responsibility. Doctors do the best they can.

Buying insurance for oneself is also outrageously expensive, and, in many cases, impossible. A friend of mine is mildly alergic to red food coloring, and for that reason no one will sell him health insurance because he has a "pre-existing condition."

The whole thing is totally jacked up. For years I had no health insurance and the fight for health care reform is dear to me. If Obama does nothing else in his term as president, I hope he sees this through. I'd really like my friends to be able to afford to see a doctor when they get the sniffles.