Quote Originally Posted by Fengzi
Why? Corruption and the fact that a good specialist was hard to find. The $30 wasn't exactly for his treatment. It was paid directly to the doctor for the priviledge of being his patient. My father-in-law had a tumor on his liver and the local docs pretty much just told him to get his affairs in order becasue his time was up. But someone who went to school with my bother-in-law knew somebody who knew one of the top liver guys in Asia (supposedly).The good doc said he'd operate but there would be a charge. Of course the $30 payment had a fancy name, can't remember it exactly, but a box of shit is still a box of shit even if you put a fancy ribbon on it. This has actually become a huge problem in China. Even with socialized medicine the problem is the same. The wealthy get treated and the poor don't.
OK, now I'm confused. Here you wrote $30 but up above you wrote $30K, which was what I was responding to in asking about the disparity. Did they refer to it as a sort of "honorarium"? That's a fancy name for a fee, from what I've heard. Whatever it was, how'd your father-in-law do with his treatment?

I'm afraid that fact about the wealthy in China getting treatment and the poor not being able to is likely to still be the case here, too, even if we get a new health care system. I'm afraid that's one of the unfair bottom-line inequities, and my gut tells me it won't change here, either. At least not in a lot of cases.
birdgirl73 Reviewed by birdgirl73 on . Sicko Which is of course Michael Moore's new movie abou the healthcare system of America. Sicko - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia He even goes to Cuba to try to prove that their system is better than ours. So what do YOU think? Rating: 5