What's health care really like overseas?

By Don Smith 11 comments

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Don Smith

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I got into a discussion with a conservative who claimed that in most overseas countries with national health care, the hospitals are filthy and people wait long in lines. My guess is that he was repeating conservative talking points. The discussion got me wondering: what is health care really like in other industrialized countries, especially those with national health care?

Does anyone know of any reliable, objective studies? Such studies could be extremely valuable for countering propaganda about the topic.

Alternatively, if there are enough OpEdNews users who have experience with overseas health care, I'd like to hear their stories. Anecdotes may not be representative, but they still could be useful.

I know that "health care tourism" is a huge industry: people who travel overseas to save money on medical and dental care.

Don

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Democratic Precinct Committee Officer, activist, writer, and programmer. My op-ed pieces have appeared in the Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and elsewhere. See http://WALiberals.org and http://ProgressiveMemes.org for my (more...)