Medical Malpractice

Why does America have some of the best hospitals and best medical schools in the world?

If the Democrats are so convinced that our healthcare system is horrible? Private non-profit hospitals like Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Mayo Clinic are some of the best in the world (Canada and the UK don't have anything that comes remotely close) and undoubtedly the best medical schools in the world (Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, UPenn), no other country in the world has better medical schools than our top-tier schools.

Public Comments

1. Calm down, what's the point of having the best hospitals if a large chunk of the population doesn't have the means to pay for treatment there. What is the point of having the best medical schools if they are all privatized, like most Ivy League universities, and not only does the public school system not prepare it's own citizens to meet the standards necessary to attend them, but even those who do attend them end up with exorbitant amounts of debt The U.S. has the top 10 highest ranked universities in the world, canada has 1, but canada has a higher overall level of education. Canada spends a lower percentage of it's GDP on healthcare than the U.S. does, but covers 100% of it's population, versus the U.S. which has about 15% uninsured, and many more underinsured
2. Okay try getting treated there, I'd love to see if they'll take you with an HMO.
3. Then, why do we not have the highest life expectancy and third world level infant and maternal mortality? These are two major indicators of quality of our health care system. It's called access. I could live next door to the Mayo Clinic but not be able to afford it.
4. Tis true!
5. I don't think that most of the 300 million Americans will have access to places like Johns Hopkins and Mayo Clinic. Most will have access to municipally run hospitals. You cannot base a nation's health on a handful of examples.
6. I don't think that anone has said that we don't have excellent doctors, nurses, and facilities. The problem is that so many people don't have access to those health care providers and facilities, and instead get treated in emergency rooms (if at all) at outrageous rates, for illnesses that could have been treated earlier for much less money. That's really not so hard to understand, is it?
7. Free enterprise works.
8. No point having great hospital's in the world if the SYSTEM you have makes it very difficult get actually use it
9. I take it you are forgetting about Papworth, Addenbrookes etc in the UK with the medical schools at Cambridge and Oxford then? FACT - Insurance companies in the USA admit to pushing up prices, buying politicians and not paying out claims when they should [a] FACT - PER PERSON the USA spends more on healthcare than any other nation on the planet [b] FACT - Obama debated his plans before the election for healthcare [c] FACT - the chance of a child under five of dying in the USA is greater than industrialised nations with universal health coverage [d] FACT - Obama was elected by the American people to bring in change [e] FACT - Obama wants to stop insurance companies screwing the American people [f] FACT - The reforms Obama wants work in the Netherlands and in Switzerland [g] If anyone can prove the facts above are wrong, e-mail me and let me know.
10. Listen, my right-wing friend (though I have promised I'd never call a right-wing my friend), if you knew the scenarios my family has, you'd question it.