mr brown dont forget about the lady who died at Kings in Los Angeles .....i think she was a psych pt in an ER full of other psych pt's.  They fired 6 people over that too.  well i too have had horrid experiences in the ER waiting one of my very good friends had to get CPR on the floor of the ER ...he lived 2 weeks and died anyways ....it was awful...he had no insurance and paid for everything cash....he was sick for several months before ending up in the ER that last time.  So yes you def don't have to tell me about the flaws with our care.  but i will tell you this ....its really not the system that's screwed up.....its the people in the system.  if you watch the King video anyone of those people sitting there could have offered some assistance...the girl who went home and had her baby could have gone with her boyfriend to another ER and yelled for help.....people need to take responsibility for their actions and i'm glad they fired people for their lack of brains but to say our system of healthcare is even in the same room with  the healthcare offerred in other countries is probably not quite an even comparison. Everytime i talk with one of my patients and they tell me what great care they have recieved i ask them if they have been hospitalized before and many say oy yes....so then i ask what is the difference between this place and the others? and they always say the same thing.....its the people...not just the doctors and nurses but everybody..housekeeping ,phlebotomists,x ray techs, dietary aides,unit clerk so i think its safe to say the people are everything in healthcare and we need more cuz us "oldies" are getting tired!!!!!!not to say we don't need a few daVinci robot machines ,an open MRI scanner, a proton laser machine but if you don't have great people to run the stuff you will still suck.