Japanese woman dies searching for care

AP via Yahoo! News ^ | 12/28/07 | CHISAKI WATANABE

[FormerACLUmember]

While Japanese Medicare for the elderly must seriously suck, we are only a few years behind.

The Baby boomers are in for a serious shock when they discover that US Medicare (into which they will be involutarily dumped) provides no coverage.

[snowsislander]

Here are a few details that somehow the AP left out of this tragic story (from JapanToday; please be advised that the link here is to a page that may try to automatically print if you visit it):

...

There were 13 emergency hospitals in the Osaka area, but the fire department said the ambulance didn't try them because the woman was in a stable condition. She only became critical at the last minute when her blood pressure rose.

Officials of the Osaka prefectural government and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said they will investigate the case to see if the cause of death can be linked to the delay in getting her to a hospital.

...

(My emphasis added.)