Sgriob wrote:
I knew that there were a lot of immigrated scientists researching in North America, because it's simply the best place to do it. You have drug companies that dump insane amounts into RND and things like that. America has (had?) so much money that it was difficult for the rest of the world to compete. Then again, I would argue that the reason you have those companies dumping that much money into drug RND is because your health care system is designed to ***** people over and let them die. I remember watching a documentary where an insurance company wouldn't pay out for a guy to have one of his fingers re attached, because it was "experimental surgery". He lost 2 fingers, they stitched the other one back on no problem, but if he wanted his index finger back, he'd have to pay 60k.
Would you rather there be no experimental treatment, and the person be told that there is no hope of reattaching his finger? Emergency rooms in the States aren't legally allowed to turn anyone away, for any reason. You're also insinuating that this experimental procedure would have been approved by a state-run provider. My favorite example of how this is often not the case is the premier of a Canadian province opting out of Canada-care and coming to the US to pay privately for a procedure he couldn't get in Canada. The procedure used by the doctors in Canada was described as being several years behind currently available medicine practiced in the US, it came with a lengthy approval process and waiting line, and it was being preformed by doctors with significantly less experience than surgeons available in the US.
RedState.com isn't the most un-biased source available, they were just the first thing to come up on a three-year-old news story.
I don't think there's a single person that likes 100% of the way health care is provided in the US, but there are alternatives to single-payer that preserve the good things in the US, like the availability of experimental drugs, procedures, and devices.