But a couple points stood out to me, points that every American should address to Doctors Clinton, Pelosi, Reid, Kuehl, and Schwarzenegger.
It is being paid for through donations that have been raised by Doherty himself (who went door-to-door in Ireland asking people to help him get a new face) and The Physically Challenged Irish and American Youth Team Inc., chaired by New York attorney William Broderick, which brought the teen to the United States and arranged for his treatment.
Allow me to emphasize: here's a country with socialized medicine, a medical system that has the economic power of an entire developed country behind it, and this boy has to go door-to-door to solicit donations from strangers in order to have his surgery paid for. Where are the caring, compassionate Europeans?
The combined socialist might of European medicine couldn't help this boy. Where does he go to have this surgery done?
“Nothing to worry about,” added (his father) Daniel Doherty. “We’re in fairly capable hands in America.”
I wonder what's different about medicine as it's practiced in Europe as opposed to America, that allows such surgery to be performed here by benefactors when it cannot or will not be paid for by the taxpayers there. Hmmm, I wonder.
God Bless America.
God bless America indeed. No nation has ever been so generous, in terms of individual or national giving than America. And no health care system has ever been so competent and so advanced medical knowledge and practice. Even if one is utterly without money, they won't be turned away at any hospital in America. Is this true elsewhere in the world? Thought not.
ReplyDeleteThe reason he has to go door to door is the same nasty little secret that the socialized medicine show doesn't want people to know. When socialized medicine came into play, all costs were based on the average normal types of situations that people would possibly encounter. Normal meds were included as well as things like childbirth and such. But the out of the ordinary procedures were beyond the scope of these programs. In fact, many procedures that Americans consider "normal" such as gallbladder surgery are things that may be delayed as much as a year unless an emergency occurs. That is why hospitals along the Canadian border do such a bang up business. That's not to say it's cheap, but having had a gallbladder attack, which pretty much feels like being kicked in the stomach by a horse, I would not want to endure that for any longer than I had to. I can't even imagine what the wait list is for reconstructive surgery in lands with socialized medicine.
ReplyDeleteWhat with the "fairly capable" comment?
ReplyDeleteWe're now a 2nd rate medical destination? Why not stay home hand have it done by the "first rate" medical hands?
Maybe it's the Euro/Dollar exchange rate...
KauiaMark, I took his comment to be a compliment.
ReplyDeleteSame here. I took it to be an example of that sort of clever, witty British (or Irish) understatement.
ReplyDeleteAnd let us not forget the inherently two-tiered nature of all socialist medical systems.
ReplyDeleteIf this kid had been the son of the prime minister or the son of a member of the cabinet or anyone with access to the special care that special people get, he wouldn't have had to wait and he wouldn't have had to pay.
In a classless society it's best to be in the upper class.
Sort of like the old school tie, eh?
ReplyDelete