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Comment by pyre | Hacker News Reader

Yea. I can see people on both sides saying crap about this.

Pro: This wouldn't happen with government healthcare because there would be standards in place (i.e. the 'mobility test' would be standard everywhere not just in 'cutting edge' facilities)

Con: In government-run healthcare, she would have been forced to stay in that hospital so as to minimize the costs of treating her (i.e. no expensive transport from PA to Boston). The government would be taking away her individual rights to take ownership of her situation.

The healthcare debate is a lot more nuanced than the 'Arg! Socialism!' or 'Arg! Health insurance is evil!' crowds make it out to be.

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Well, it's more like the pro is that there is no profit motive to keep her there. The staff would be delighted to get rid of her to a bigger facility elsewhere. I live a kilometre north of a large hospital in Sydney, Australia and we get helicopters coming in all hours of the day and night, presumably doing just that.

The "con" would probably be that there would be no facility for spinal surgery in a rural area in the first place. She would not be able to choose to be treated there and she's getting on one of those helicopters.

Well, it all depends on the 'type' of government healthcare that happens.

If hospitals are still privately owned, but the government basically starts it's own 'insurance company' that covers everyone that isn't part of the private insurance company plan (similar to Germany) then it's possible that a rural area could still have spinal surgery experts. Even if the hospitals are all government-owned and run (similar to the UK method of healthcare), it's still possible to have spinal surgery experts in a rural area. It just would depend on what was cheaper. Is it cheaper to have a spinal surgery-trained staff at the rural hospital or to fly everyone 300 miles to another hospital? (Or the 3rd option of having staff at a different hospital, but making sure that it is less than 300 miles away -- i.e. spread out facilities that can handle such injuries so that there aren't hugely expensive transit costs for treatment)

With a government healthcare system, it won't simply be a cost/benefit analysis. There is also the all important question to be answered: "does this create jobs in my congressional district?"

Interesting. Yeah, it does sound like if either group has their way, it very likely could have a side effect of preventing this particular scenario from happening again.

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