Healthcare, Insur, Soc Sec

An Outside View of US Health Care Reform Efforts

Here’s an Australian paper quoting today from a speech by the French President (Nicolas Sarkozy) at Columbia University (New York City).

Welcome to the club of states who don’t turn their back on the sick and the poor

The very fact that there should have been such a violent debate simply on the fact that the poorest of Americans should not be left out in the streets without a cent to look after them … is something astonishing to us.

If you come to France and something happens to you, you won’t be asked for your credit card before you’re rushed to the hospital.

Ooh. He’s telling the truth – at least on this matter.

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  • A friend of mine – a professional writer and researcher – has been compiling comparative statistics. It is stunning to compare the US to other nations (see this: http://plutochronicles.com/?p=59).

    When this blog pal posted an article on Dailykos comparing life in the US to the rest of the so-called developed nations, the US came in last on every point. Because Dailykos has international readership, one particular item shocked all parties inside and outside the US: that there was no paid time off for US workers as a matter of law. People inside the US couldn’t believe that the rest of the world had this “luxury,” while the readers outside the US were flabbergasted to learn that US workers did not enjoy such a right.

    And so on in terms of health care. The US really has become a spectacle to all the other developed nations, and not for good reasons.