Quote:
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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
More Icelandic Healthcare coverage
Of note here is that there are waiting lists for surgery, in a country of 300,000 there are still waiting lists for surgery. What kind of surgery is uncertain and unknown from the article.
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This is from page 5 from a publication dated Feb., 2005:
Quote:
http://archsurg.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/141/2/199.pdf
Surgery in Iceland
Gunnar H. Gunnlaugsson, MD, MS; Margret Oddsdottir, MD; Jonas Magnusson, MD, Ph
....CURRENT STATUS
In Iceland there are waiting lists for certain types of surgery.
Today waiting lists exist for eye surgery, tonsillectomies,
hip and knee replacements, and major back surgery.
There are only normal working lists for other types
of elective surgery. The waiting lists have shortened during
the last 2 to 3 years, and the aim is to eliminate them
completely. All patients with cancer undergo operation
within 1 to 3 weeks of their diagnosis. Roughly one half
of the admissions to the general surgery wards are on an
emergency or urgent basis. Patients with cholelithiasis
who seek the emergency department with symptomatic
gallstones are as a rule admitted and operated on within
24 to 36 hours. Almost all cholecystectomies and about
two thirds of appendectomies are done laparoscopically.
Laparoscopic surgery is advanced. Almost all Nissen
fundoplications, gastrointestinal bypass procedures
for morbid obesity, and adrenalectomies are done laparoscopically,
as are most splenectomies. Cancer surgery
is routinely performed as an open procedure. Esophageal
resections are done by the gastrointestinal surgeons.
Since we do not have surgical residents beyond
the second year, all “major” surgery is performed by experienced
surgeons. Interventional radiology is also advanced.
The majority of procedures for aortoiliac disease
and about 20% of elective procedures for abdominal
aortic aneurysm are done through the endovascular route.
Some operations appear to be more frequent in Iceland
than in many other countries when presented as a
number of procedures per 100 000 inhabitants. Icelandic
neurosurgeons, for example, perform about 400 lumbar
microdiscectomies annually (133 per 100 000 inhabitants);
in 1981 they were the first of the Nordic surgeons
to start doing discectomies with the use of the operating
microscope. In 2003, the number of coronary artery procedures
(percutaneous coronary interventions plus coronary
artery surgery) was 806, or 272 per 100 000 inhabitants.
For the frequency of some other operations, see the
Table.....
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Contrast Iceland's universal health care benefit with the US system that bankrupts even some who require medical treatment and believed themselves to be adequately insured. The crisis of more than 45 miliion uninsured, a number that is growing, and the burden of monthly insurance payments of a large number who pay premiums for individual coverage, is in the US, not in Iceland.
I cannot fathom what your point is, Cynthetiq? Is it simply that "you've got yours", so that indicates "anyone can get their's?"