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"Universal" health care in Italy and their dirty little secret



 
 
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Old April 8th, 2007, 11:22 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
PJ O'Donovan
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Default "Universal" health care in Italy and their dirty little secret


"Universal" health care in Italy and their dirty little secret

Posted by Stuart Browning
22 Jan 2007 @ 3:05pm


Why Do Europe's Rich Come to the US for Health Care?
Health Care Policy

Silvio Berlusconi
Italy's richest man, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, just had
surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in the U.S. to install a pacemaker.
Hasn't he read the 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) health care
rankings that put Italy's system at #2 in the world and the U.S. a
dismal #37 behind Costa Rica?

Why would a billionaire fly thousands of miles to get surgery in a
country whose health care system is rated so low by WHO when he could
have had his surgery in any one of the socialized health care systems
of Europe that WHO ranks so highly? Perhaps, because the WHO health
care rankings have little to do with healing - and everything to do
with politics - make that socialism.

The 2000 WHO report based 25% of its score on the "fairness" of a
country's health care financing which is measured by how much more
higher-income groups pay for health care than lower-income groups. We
are constantly reminded by single-payer advocates that the U.S. spends
more on health care than other nations and gets less as shown by our
low ranking on the WHO report. Their circular argument seems to be "we
need government-run medicine because reports show that we don't have
enough government-run medicine".

Berlusconi did, however, have his criticisms of the Cleveland Clinic:

ITALY's richest man has two complaints about US hospitals: bad
food and ugly nurses.

[...]

When the anaesthetist asked if he had any allergies, the Forza
Italia leader quipped: "Only to communists." He was reassured: "There
aren't any left here in the States."

Food and nurses aside, I wish they were right about the communists.

 




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