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Comment by alemhnan | Hacker News Reader

quite racist

That's not racist. Italy is not a race. It is an indictment of the medical competency in Italy based on his perception of their system. I wish people would stop throwing that term around so loosely. If you don't like what he said, then actually form a coherent rebuttal. Not that his comment was much better than your own... just making a point here.

I find it interesting to read that "Foo is not a race." I thought it was pretty established that "race" is a dodgy thing, at best. Such that any collection of people that have been together for a long time would ultimately qualify.

Back to the readings for me, it seems.

You could consider "Italian" to be a race; but Italy is just the country where Italians happen to be from.

I think every person reading malpractice is huge in Italy, took that as Italians are huge in malpractice...

And, I still see race as a dodgy concept.

If Italian is not a race, it surely is a tribal identity that transcends the borders of Italy the country.

As an Italian whose wife is working in the public health care system my views might be a little biased.

Not that Italian system does not have its problems, but we have quite high life expectancy [1] and our system was ranked second in 2000 by the WHO [2] and apparently is still quite efficient [3].

And, by the way, it cures just anybody the same, from super rich people to illegal aliens.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_rank...

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/u-s-healt...

Just to play devil's advocate though, there are many factors that influence life expectancy outside of the medical system.

Italy seems to have a large confluence of positive factors: 1st world country, relatively healthy traditional diet with fresh fruits, vegetables, and seafood, mild Mediterranean climate, and a culture that emphasizes close familial and social ties.

Of course this is true. Indeed I was not surprised to see the high life expectancy, but more to see the efficiency of the system close to Japan and Israel ones.

I was not making any claims of the Italian medical system. I have no idea how they stack up. I was taking objection to the parent post claiming that the grandparent post was making a racist statement. If you guys are doing great in Italy, then awesome! :) Maybe you guys could share some notes with the United States, particularly when it comes to cost... we need serious help.

I totally agree with you. I'm not the best person to ask for advices, but this guy [1] knows tons about how to run hospitals on budget. The only problem is that he is perceived as very leftish in Europe, so I guess that in the U.S. his opinions will never ever be acceptable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gino_Strada

I am italian... it's not racist... the italian news if filled with malpractice and a title like that wouldn't look out of place, sadly.

EDIT: and just to be specific, it's the news the problem more than the actual sanitary system. Which does have flaws, but is painted way worse than it actually is.

No one writes headlines like "man undergoes surgery, everything ok" unless it's someone really famous. So yeah, you get headlines about malpractice, but I found the remark to be kind of cheap snark.

Italy's health care system is actually pretty decent. Source living in Italy many years.

No of course not, but that doesn't mean that the news should milk everything that goes bad, which creates a distorted perspective.

Italian here. Health malpractice is everywhere, it's just that the Italian media often pick up stories of malpractice because they sell better. Malpractice is usually properly fined and punished. The real malpractice is in how the national healthcare system is managed, at a political and financial level.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2016/11/careful-who-you-call-r...

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