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MaduroBU wrote: ↑Sat Mar 02, 2019 11:50 am The US healthcare industry, in my opinion, needs more free market forces.

This is the root of the problem that caused Obamacare in the first place. The free market has not been able to work in healthcare for quite some time.

RoyGBiv wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2019 8:34 am

Vol Texan wrote: ↑Thu Feb 28, 2019 11:24 pmMedical care is the places I've visited in Thailand is just a good - I can personally attest to that.

If I ever go "walkabout", my wife knows to look for me in Chiang Mai or Phuket.

As much as I enjoy visiting SP, I'm not a big fan of cow-towing to the "benevolence" of government. I'm not sure I could behave myself to SP standards indefinitely.
The food on the Malaysian peninsula is amazing. My favorite culinary region on the planet.

The US healthcare system is best in the world because the people who work in it are "motivated" and relatively "unconstrained". Motivated by every human incentive, from greed to altruism. Unconstrained in an entrepreneurial sense. Their rewards, whatever that may be, are directly linked to their efforts. The things that don't work in US healthcare, are, IMO, linked to government efforts to "manage" the system.

YMMV

Well said. Singapore is great to live as an expatriate or as a PR, but I'd never want to be a citizen there. And yes, Peranakan cuisine is my favorite in the world - and the people are wonderful as well.

But you wrapped this up succinctly with a return to the OP's idea. What makes everything great in America is based on capitalism, and that's why the trend toward socialism has been, and will continue to be, the catalyst to our decline and downfall as a world power. Capitalism has done more to deliver people from poverty than all the socialist and communist experiments combined, and has raised the quality of life the world over. How we've let the educators brainwash our next generation into believing capitalism=bad and socialism=good is beyond me. I fear that the scales have tipped too far, and our options for returning to situation 'normal' are more limited every day.

bbhack wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2019 1:51 am And suing doctors is not a sport in those places.

Yes sir! In that, we will agree completely.

I love the US, but I couldn’t pile on the, “everything here is always better than everywhere else all the time “ train.

For some time, we’ve had a legal problem here in the US that set the stage of high prices that led us to the horror of Obamacare.

Let me preface this by stating I don't want any nationalized health care system. I wish we could go back to a simpler time - before Obamacare, and before employer-provided insurance was the norm.

But not every place in the world outside of the US is a horror story.

Early 2012, I was headed home after a three-day trip to Duri, Indonesia. My route had me spending the night in Singapore, which was great with me - I love the place. I'd lived there for a year and a half back in '10 and '11, and had lots of friends there.

But I was sick as a dog from the moment I arrived. Something I'd eaten back on the island of Sumatra wasn't sitting well with me. I tried to rest it away, but my body wasn't having any of it. I've traveled a lot, and I have a pretty strong constitution (ask the guys from the Houston SW Breakfast: I usually tell the waitress to surprise me and I'll eat whatever they bring - I do the same the world over. But this time I was in a pretty bad place. I finally got out of the bathroom in my hotel around 6pm, and I called my family physician's office from when we'd live there, hoping to get an after-hours number.

To my surprise, the doc answered, and told me, "come on in, we're open until 8pm, like we are every Sunday". I hopped in a taxi, and took off for Serangoon Gardens to see the doc.
I was in the office no less than 5 minutes when I got called back. He did his exam, and quickly wrote me a prescription. I took the prescription to the front desk, and the nurses there filled it for me, and charged me a total of $75 SGD, which was the equivalent of about $61 USD at the time.

$61, for the Sunday evening doctor's visit PLUS all three prescriptions. Not a bad day at the doc's office, I tell you.

Another time, when I was still living there, a colleague of mine called me while enroute to Singapore. He'd taken the direct flight from Houston to Singapore with a quick stopover in Moscow for crew change and refueling. Shortly after takeoff in Houston, he bit down on something and broke a crown. He called me in Moscow to tell me what's up, and I told him I'd get him taken care of on the ground when he landed. This was Sunday afternoon Singapore time, and within 20 minutes I had a dentist on the line with me telling me she'd be able to see him when he landed in the morning. Before he took off in Moscow, he received an email from me with an early morning appointment time, and a reservation from the hotel to the dentist's office (arranged by the dentist, not by me) via taxi to get him there after checking.

I don't know how much he paid for it, but he seemed EXTREMELY happy with the service and the financial arrangements.

Medical care is the places I've visited in Thailand is just a good - I can personally attest to that.