On Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:38:40 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> So tell us, what should this woman have done?  Just lived with the
>> injury because the healthcare system is broken and she's not in a
>> personal position to fix it?
> 
>   What exactly are you suggesting?
> 
>   Imagine that she had a pure accident where no other person was
>   involved.
> Maybe she was walking in the wild and a tree branch fell over her. What
> should she do? Sue somebody until someone pays her bills?

That's not the case that we're talking about.  But in that particular 
case, your own insurance would cover it, if you had insurance.  If you 
didn't, then yes, you'd pay for it out of pocket.

But when someone else is involved, the insurance companies tend to want 
to assign "fault" in order to avoid paying out if they can.  That's what 
insurance companies *do*.  They manage risk - and when an incident 
occurs, they have to work out whose risk is responsible for covering the 
costs.

>   If you live in a country where an accident can leave you crippled for
> the rest of your life because you don't have money to fix yourself, then
> perhaps it would be better to move to some other country. It's not like
> you would have to move very far. I hear the public health care system in
> Canada is pretty ok.

Yeah, because anyone can just pick up and move to another country for any 
reason.

Oh, wait, no they can't.  We looked at it - getting actual legal 
immigration status in most countries is fairly difficult.

I couldn't, for example, just pick up and move to Canada.  I'd have to 
demonstrate that I had a job offer there, that I wouldn't be a burden to 
their system, and that my moving there would be beneficial to Canada.

There's also the small issue of the person actually *wanting* to move to 
another country.  Saying "well, just move to another country" doesn't fix 
the problem with the US healthcare system.

Jim

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