Health Care Reform Marketing... (Israel, health care system, statistics, Canada)

[Pug Life]

Last night I saw an advertisement for the anti-health care side of the debate and I laughed at it so hard. It had a lady from Canada talking about how her health care system is so terrible and how she would have died if not for the American system.

Then I looked at the actual statistics.

American women (because men tend to die of unnatural causes more often and are therefore less subject to the nation's health care) live to be an average of 80.97 years, pretty good, but Canadian women live to be an average of 83.86. That means Canadian women live almost 3 years longer than Americans...so maybe it's just a fluke. Let's look at other nations with nationalized health care:
France: 84.23
Switzerland: 83.63
Norway: 83.32
Israel: 83.32
Sweden: 83
(According to the UN, but not the CIA, Cuba's life expectancy is actually higher than the United States, despite the lack of American medicine and research)
Hmmm...maybe they shouldn't advertise about how nationalized health care causes people to die early.

However, I personally don't believe that we should pay for any health care for anyone over 18 unless they are serving the country in some capacity. An adult should be able to provide their own coverage, but a child should not have to face health problems because of who their parents are. All children should have the opportunities to receive full and comprehensive treatment so they can grow up to be healthy adults.

So if nationalized health care clearly leads to longer lives for the citizens, why take this route to scare people into rallying against it? Aren't there better ways to manipulate the voters? Or are Americans so stupid that they will actually believe that nationalized health care will somehow cause everyone to start dying off because of endless waits.

Hasn't anyone been to the hospital lately? I was in Touro Medical Center in New Orleans once with a fractured wrist and I was in the waiting room for 6 hours...waiting next to me was a teenager who was holding a wad of paper towels on his leg because he'd been SHOT IN A DRIVE-BY! He waited 5 hours to see a doctor. Ask a woman how easy it is to get an appointment with a reputable OB/GYN...the real problem is that we don't have enough medical professionals, that's why the cost is high and the waits are long. It's simple suppy and demand. If there are 15 patients for every doctor, it's going to be a lot more expensive to see one than if there are only 10 patients per doctor.