[speaker001:] um so what do you think
[speaker002:] um I lived I lived in Sweden for two years and in Sweden they have socialized medicine and so I saw some of the good and also I saw some of the bad that results from such a program
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker002:] uh some of the some of the good obviously that nobody has to worry about health care
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] so it's a very it's a very uh comfortable I mean our people are very comfortable in the sense that you know there's no medical emergency that's going to make you destitute for life
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] um the bad was more apparent I think at least for me because I think it affected people's lives on in a way that you could see one one thing that I noticed is it's very very convenient to be alcoholic in Sweden
[speaker001:] oh really
[speaker002:] because it's treated as a disease now I don't know if that necessarily has to be part of socialized medicine but uh if you're if you're alcoholic then you're treated as if you're on disability long-term disability and so there was very little incentive for people to get out of that
[speaker001:] hum
[speaker002:] also um another thing that that I noticed that was very strange I was uh I would go down all these uh I remember this one row of houses and they were uh row houses or townhouses all connected together so it was like lower middle-class housing well it'd be lower middle-class housing here it's probably
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] middle-class housing there um and there was a taxi driver that lived in one of these and there was a doctor that lived in one of these the one guy was a doctor and one was a taxi driver and so
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] their their incomes were about the same
[speaker001:] hum
[speaker002:] whereas here there's a great incentive to be a doctor because there's a great financial reward and that that didn't exist in Sweden
[speaker001:] right right
[speaker002:] and uh overall I guess their their health care suffered a fair amount from just the fact that the doctor salaries were lower and it was it was less professional and it was treated more like a like a taxi driver type job then a then a doctor type job
[speaker001:] yeah I that is uh that is something I've heard I I had a friend uh that I worked with that was from Sweden and that was uh probably the major the major concern I have is that you know we are leading in the technology realm of of medicine just because it is such a great incentive to to get into uh the medical field but at the same time um it's real hard I mean my husband works for a company that provides insurance and so you know I'm real you know it's like well you know you know there's got to be better ways you know to do some things but you know I hate to uh the the competition in in a lot of ways is is wonderful just because you can choose your doctor and and uh they have to compete to be to be good and to be knowledgeable but at the same time there's a you know they're regulating themselves and and the hospitals are charging just enormous amounts for products that they don't have to pay very much for my I have a brother who's a vet and for something that he can get you know wholesale and I'm sure they can get a lot cheaper because they they hospitals buy in such a bulk rate um
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] you know they could charge you twenty dollars for a dollar fifty item and that's ridiculous and I don't think that is that is um abnormal in any means to be doing things like that and
[speaker002:] you don't think it's abnormal
[speaker001:] I don't think that is that is uh abnormal for hospitals to be doing that at all
[speaker002:] oh I see you're not saying it's right you're just saying it's common
[speaker001:] it yeah and so it it it's I think I to me I think uh something that's going to help our medical uh arena is for um uh and I don't know how to I don't know how to do this but I think people are too lawsuit happy and I mean things will happen and and you've got to uh keep up or you've got to realize that you know uh it is just men or women that are that are making um decisions and they will make mistakes and  you know if if people you know uh there are some people that I'm sure make mistakes because they just don't keep on top of it but there are other things that just happen that you can't you know you can't say you know well if you had just done this you know things would have done differently and um I don't know I I think the fact that malpractice has gone up I think has raised our prices just dramatically um in in the in the last number of years and I think that's something that if if they could work on
[speaker002:] yes
[speaker001:] the cause of that and