Wait a minute. Doesn't Italy have socialized medicine?
Wouldn't it be superior to the free market medicine found in the US?
We have three healthcare systems in America. If you divided the population into three tiers based on socio-economic levels (and to some extent the states they live in - in Kansas, Missouri, and California only the top 2-3% have first tier care).
If you fall into the first tier -- you have ample personal reserves, good insurance coverage with out of network benefits or a healthcare spending account and a hospital/surgical indemnity policy, and possibly are a member of a boutique medicine clinic -- you have the best healthcare in the world and it is two to three times better than what you'd get anywhere else in the world.
The second tier (from about the 20th to 80th percentiles) have access to healthcare through insurance coverage that has limited out of network benefits and a provision that it's reimbursements are tied to the government's fixed prices for Medicare and you are responsible for any difference in costs if you go out of network for care. People in this group basically already have social medicine, it is just administered by private companies like Blue Cross, United Healthcare, Humana, etc. These people get adequate care, but the insurance companies make it so difficult and expensive for doctors to deviate one bit from the basic standard of care that it is the rare patient that gets the best care available. The patients in this group get care comparable to what is available in Canada and Great Britain, etc.
The third tier is uninsured or undersinsured with so little in the way of personal reserves that they may actually be worse off than people who qualify for Medicaid. These people often can't afford to see private doctors and end up in public indigent clinics or emergency rooms. After seeing these doctors, they often can't afford the medicines prescribed for them. The people in this bottom group have some of the worst healthcare in the developed world.
The reason this is all so disgusting is that we spend so much for healthcare that everyone of us should have top tier care. The third party payors and hospital-pharmaceutical complex combined with a government that doesn't understand the industry they are regulating cause so much waste and misallocation of resources as to make it laughable. That's why I don't support any of the single payor models for universal healthcare.
With all that said, something tells me Mr. Speaker would have access to the first tier sort of care, and was much better off coming back to the U.S. There is another guy in this country with XDR TB who is more of a second tier guy and he has been locked in a negative pressure room in this country for almost six months. He is not being flown to Denver. And other than the occassional profile on Lou Dobbs' show, no one seems to notice.
I think an illegal alien in this country would get better treatment.
