The Maine Public Broadcasting Network
Listen Live
Classical 24
Search
Sick Around the World
Tuesday, November 10 at 9:00 pm  

FRONTLINE journalist T.R. Reid travels around the U.S. examining the nation’s broken health care system and exploring the prospects of a fundamental overhaul.

In “Sick Around the World,” FRONTLINE teams up with veteran Washington Post foreign correspondent T.R. Reid to find out how five other capitalist democracies -- the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland -- deliver health care, and what the United States might learn from their successes and their failures.

Reid's first stop is the U.K., where the government-run National Health Service (NHS) is funded through taxes. "Every single person who's born in the U.K. will use the NHS," says Whittington Hospital CEO David Sloman, "and none of them will be presented a bill at any point during that time." Often dismissed in America as "socialized medicine," the NHS is now trying some free-market tactics like "pay-for-performance," where doctors are paid more if they get good results controlling chronic diseases like diabetes. And now patients can choose where they go for medical procedures, forcing hospitals to compete head to head.

Additional Resources
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/
ReturnReturn!



Become a Fan of the NEW MPBNNews Facebook page. Get news, updates and unique content to share and discuss:

Recommended by our audience on Facebook:
Copyright © 2012 Maine Public Broadcasting Network. All rights reserved.