she just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
So I'm working at this conference in DC and last night I finally escaped, well, 
was rescued, by a couple of friends that live in DC. We ended up at the Ghana cafe in Adams Morgan (outdoor seating, hoppin crowd, live reggae). We 
were accosted by some rambunctios cardiologists from Australia who were super nice and hilarious!Facts that I learned about the land down under:
- Aussies have a very poor opinion about the US and Americans (they said this trip changed thier minds though).
- They have free healthcare, without all of the issues our gov't tries to scare-tactic us into believing. I asked how long you would have to wait in line to get a heart procedure, thinking it was probably something ridiculous; he said for an emergency procedure like angioplasty the wait is one day, and the cost is zero. Crazy! What are we doing here, why cant we get it right?? If you live in the country and have to travel to a city hospital and stay for a few days during a procedure, not only do they reimburse you for your travel expenses, but will find you a hotel ... and pay for it!!
- No one in Australia drinks Fosters. They drink Coopers.
They do really call men Blokes and women Shielas. - They love vegemite but agree you pretty much have to be eating it from birth to ever be able to choke it down.
- They really do say Crikey ("a legal way to say the F word on TV")
- They recommend a band called Powderfinger.
- There's a place in Australia called Coober Pedy (the opal capital of the world) where its too hot to live above ground so they all live underground like freakin Hobbits!
- Their money is made of plastic, so you can't tear a bill in half!
- Cigarettes in australia, by law, have to look like this:
which is obviously not effective since an entire group of cardiologists were smoking them!Anyway, thats Australia in a nutshell!
posted by Evil Genius @ 12:12 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Sounds like fun! :) Glad to hear you are having a good time in DC! hooray!
also glad you were able to hear from some live folks that universal healthcare systems are not as bad as the "man" makes it out to be. sadly, though it seems we will probably get some crap-azzed version of universal care that will be so junked up with provisions and loopholes and exceptions that it will end up being costly and ridiculous. only until folks recognize that it is a human right to have access to healthcare and that we ALL benefit from having a healthy population and that it costs us tons to pay for those without insurance one way or another (usually way more to pay for the emergency or intensive or chronic care for things that could have been avoided if they had access to care on an ongoing basis)... maybe then we will actually get 100% universal care. i keep praying for that day.
Monica, if you wanted universal healthcare, you should have voted for Hillary. Maybe you did.
Shirley - just remember, those hotel stays and all the rest aren't really free. Someone has to pay for them. Did you ask what taxes were like?
I do think we have about the least efficient health care system of the developed world. Universal healthcare, though imperfect, will definitely be an improvement.
Noam - Well I'm not a single issue voter, so i wouldn't have voted for Hillary just b/c of any of her views on healthcare. I am happy with my vote for Obama and I am super excited to cast my vote for him on November 4th!!!
On the tax issue, i think that instead of asking about what other countries tax rates are that we need to focus on asking ourselves what the true costs are of our crappy ass healthcare system are.
why?
a) b/c other countries taxes are what they are for many different reasons, not necessarily b/c of what they spend on healthcare so i think its a bit misleading to just say "look at how high their taxes are" as a reason to dispute universal healtchare (which you didn't say, but i've heard this argument many times before).
and
b) we may have a lower tax rate, but what are we really spending on a healthcare system that doesn't work for everyone and doesn't cover everyone? looking at a tax rate enough... we need to look at this country is spending in other ways.
A few facts from Wikipedia on the topic of US spending on health and how it compares to one country that does provide universal care:
The U.S. spends much more on health care than Canada, both on a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP.
In 2005, per-capita spending for health care in the U.S. was US$6,401; in Canada, US$3,326.
The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 9.8%.
Total government spending per capita in the U.S. on health care was 23% higher than Canadian government spending, and U.S. government expenditure on health care was just under 87% of total Canadian spending (public and private).
so... we are spending lots of money on healtchare and yet we still have millions of uninsured? why not insure everyone and save some moulah?? then we could spend more on bullsh*t wars, yeah!
;)
Australians are just Englishmen with their brains removed.
If Australia is so great why are there so many Australians in the UK, the UK has free healthcare, we only pay 10% oIf Australia is so great why are there so many Australians in the UK, the UK has free healthcare, we only pay 10% of our salary to pay for it.f our salary to pay for it.
If Australia is so great why are there so many Australians in the UK, the UK has free healthcare, we only pay 10% of our salary to pay for it.
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