<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jul 2 2008, 01:57 AM)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>My observations...
This IS GOVT. HEALTH CARE at it's finest. King's County Hospital. Key word is County, as in government run.
It was a psych ward. The people in the video looked like patients to me. They're nuts in the first place, or at least disturbed. They also probably have seen people do strange things before (like lying on a floor) and didn't think anything of it.
I'm not defending the hospital in the least. The commentary is spot on - she had problems and was in the right place to get them taken care of.
My personal experience is somewhat different from what people say it's like. My wife had a seizure a couple of years ago and got a ride to the emergency room in an ambulance. She was seen right away and got immediate care. In fact, she got too much care, as the hospital first asked me if we're insured (no) and then asked if I own my home. When they found out we do own our home, they ran up the bill - my wife had every test imaginable, and given the choice of an expensive test or a cheap one, they chose the expensive one. The bill was staggering, but I was able to negotiate it down to a fraction of what they first billed us for. It still hurt a lot to pay it.
That said, I've had to see a doctor once or twice a year. I go to one of the nearby clinics and get seen generally within an hour. The diagnostic centers around here are excellent as well. While at one of these clinics, I've seen people come in who belonged in an emergency room (broken leg or whatever) and the clinic sent them over right away. My wife sees doctors monthly or so, and there's no issue with the quality of her care; in fact, I got to know one of her doctors and he's a very cool fellow.
The bottom line is that big hospitals only make sense in crowded urban areas where you might even find one every square mile. As the cities grow, the hospitals get overloaded - they were built for X people per square mile and now there's 10x (or whatever). In the US, the emphasis on health care is at the clinic level. We're building new and lots of clinics as fast as they can be done. The clinics serve as outstanding triage centers - people with the flu get prescriptions and sent home, while those who are really sick end up at the hospital where they belong.
*shrug*</div>
I personally think it is all still way too expensive.