Socialized Medicine: A Warning from Across the Pond
Is socialized medicine the answer to your prayers? Free health care for all in the U.S.?
When I was a child in the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) delivered a good health care program. However, 60 years after it’s inception the NHS lags behind most European countries. So before you decide that socialized medicine is the answer to all your medical woes, look carefully at the NHS. The system is cracking under the pressure of an increasingly aging population. Cutbacks are a common theme and the cost of drugs and treatment determine whether you are allowed to have them. Oftentimes, drugs are rationed depending on their cost. A recent report by NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) stated that terminally ill breast cancer patients will not be able to obtain a life-saving drug because it is far too expensive. Hey, what does it matter? They’re gonna die anyway.
Currently, waiting lists are common for most things on the NHS, especially hip and knee replacement surgeries, which are on the increase as people live longer. You can sometimes wait up to 18 weeks just for a referral. It can then take up to two years to actually receive the operation; that is if you meet all the NHS requirements, which include weight and age. One unlucky 61-year-old was refused life-saving heart surgery because she was deemed too old by a cash-strapped NHS Trust.
The NHS is constantly funding studies to investigate whether patients who are overweight, smoke, or drink alcohol should receive medical treatment on the NHS. A recent report said:
Patients with illnesses deemed to be “self-inflicted” could be denied treatment under guidance introduced by the drugs rationing watchdog.
Heavy drinkers or smokers and those who are overweight could all be refused help.
Doctors can refuse treatment via the NHS if they deem your disease is self-inflicted. For instance, overweight patients are being denied hip operations in East Suffolk so that NHS hospitals can save money. Is this the kind of treatment you want? A paramedic left someone to die because he thought the patient was not “clean” enough. Then there’s the treatment Dan James received:
James believes the indifference with which her son was treated at two hospitals in the Midlands wasted 30 vital hours after the accident, in March 2007, which led to the 23-year-old becoming paralyzed from the neck down. When he was taken to hospital after a scrum collapsed on him, dislocating two vertebrae and trapping his spinal cord, James says “the terror on Dan’s face was apparent” but he still had the use of his arms and hands. Some 30 hours later, his hand function had disappeared after he had been moved unnecessarily, put last in the queue for an MRI scan and waited for four hours for an ambulance to transfer him to the spinal injuries unit at Stoke Mandeville hospital.
After my mother’s first TIA, I went online to do research. One site I ended up on was in the UK. I read how a “study” found that they needed to shorten the waiting time for follow-up after a TIA. I was horrified patients were waiting months, when here in the US it was merely a few weeks. (my mother was in to see her Doctor in three weeks.) The reason for the hurry? TIA’s are a warning, and are usually followed by a full blown stroke. If the warning is heeded, a full blown stroke can be prevented. In the UK, they had a high rate of stroke after TIA.
I wonder if AARP is happy about socialized and rationed health care for their members. They’ve been in the tank for the Democrats for years.
B-b-but…Michael Moore says the NHS is fantastic!
Isn’t there an entire separate medical system of private hospitals and doctors (like the elites of Harley Street) for those in the UK who can afford to pay out of pocket? And wouldn’t a similar system for the rich arise in the US if Obama rams socialized medicine through Congress?
Oh, wait. I forgot that the rich are quickly becoming an endangered species under the Obama administration. Nevermind.
“Free health care may sound appealing, but it can cost you your life.”
1. With regard to the first part of the sentence, I have never thought free health care sounded appealing. Of course, that may be because I figured out when I was about 16 (which is now close to a hundred years ago) that nothing is free. I may not personally pay for it, but that doesn’t mean it’s free. Sheesh.
2. With regard to the second part of the sentence….I know. That’s why I’ve always opposed any form of “free health care”.
“Free health care” is not a reality anywhere in the world.
“Free health care” is a 3-word phrase used by politicials and community organizations to entice and control those who can’t be bothered to actually figure out how to deal with real life.
The phrase “free health care” is, among other things, a warning shot across the bow of the producers of the world to get ready to be ripped off.
“Free health care” simply means that there are recipients of health care who are not paying for what they are receiving.
It’s not free. Never was. Never will be.
Has anyone who replied on here even own a Passport has anyone on here even been to a hospital “Anywhere” in the world
I live in Australia and we have SoCiAlIsT Hospitals it’s 1% of my income only 1% not 40 50 85% as some people are screaming about and the wait times are only days not weeks and it absolutely FREE get it FREE and no forms to fill in while bleeding on the nurses station just flash em my fantastic plastic and I’m in so what’s the problem ???? take a vacation see the world and wake up
Daren
Correction: “Free health care is a 3 word phrase used by politicians and community organizers…”
As I said in my article on PJM awhile back my dear friend Mil, age 76, was saved by a team of some fifty doctors, concultants, nurses, therapaists and other brilliant practitioners at St Mary’s Paddington and at the Hospital for Neurology in Queen Square over a four-month period 2008-09. Her care was conducted with the highest quality of devotion and care and cutting-edge equipment. Her brother, a doctor, flew over from Canada and said he had never seen such phenomenal wotk to bring a critically ill senior citizen back to life or met such brilliant pracititoners.
Mil, a painist, was paralysed and unable to talk in November. Two weeks ago she made her own way to my book launch in London and lastnight found her own way, outside London, to a Passover seder. She says she blesses the British NHS every day for ‘bringing me back from the dead’ and still providing her with superb aftercare. There are horror stories in every health system including that of my sister in Philadelpha, who after a fall had a botched operation in what was supposed to be an excellent hospital; she, also a pianist and opera coach, has never been the same since — so it is not just the British NHS that has bad moments.
This is just a test…my comments from 90 minutes ago still show as “awaiting moderation” and I didn’t say anything terrible. Really. I didn’t.
I wonder. . . is AIDS considered ‘self inflicted?’
Hey Carol,do you think a lory driver (truck driver)would have recieved the same attention?How about an average citizen, who didn’t have Doctors,Concert Pianists as relatives and friends who are book authors and such,a average citizen who is over 60 get the same attention? I’m sorry about the botched Philly operation,but here in the EEEVVVIIILLL GRREEEDDDYY AROGENT U.S.A.You can SUE the responible PARTIES! Try that in Canada or England, there you’re trying to sue a GOVERMENT.Try that and see what happens
Another factor that must be considered above the forementioned issues (which are very apropo) is the drug and medical equipment companies. The capitalistic system in the US drives a lot of drug research, which benefits us all. Also, will there be incentive to spend R&D money like the companies have in the past with a gubberment-run system? Will medical-equipment companies flourish if we drift toward socialism? You’d better hope they will.
In the previous post, I said “above the aforementioned issues”. I meant “beyond the…issues”. Sorry. Patients are the most important consideration, but patients and hospitals need drugs and equipment to do their thing, and care will suffer if the gov takes over and botches things up royally.
What would be revealing and is not covered here because it would destroy the case is do the citizens of these countries like or dislike their systems. Of course PJM never let any facts get in the way of their opinion
Mathematically, the “free health care” defers a private insurance plan to a taxed federal plan. This can be estimated on an average of incomes as a 16% tax increase. The onus of a federal plan is the efficiency of the system. My rule of thumb estimate for big government inefficiency is 600%. The unpredictable factor in the future of medical care is the potential losses of research and development when the free enterprise system is harnessed.
“Cradle to grave security” is self limiting and degenerative without the medical breakthroughs of self initiative in pursuit of big reward. Life is an organic process, therefore messy. It has been a long and dangerous journey from the swamp, but I wouldn’t want it to end now by being a battery in the Matrix, or a plate of Solient Green.
TANSTAAFHC
Causal factors, kids. This is what we keep ignoring.
Our thinking is tightly taped inside a box created by insurance companies and we keeping looking for solutions inside that box. There are none. We keep looking without a flashlight in a coal bin for a black cat that isn’t there. You have to go outside the box. The UK has already demonstrated this.
This problem is all wrapped around managing risk, and where health care is concerned, a system has evolved that manages risk, by turns, poorly, too much, too expensively or not well enough. The system is completely broken, and the lion’s share of the blame falls on the inherent conflicts of interest involved in running comprehensive health care insurance companies (which, by the way, are the ones profiting most handsomely from the current, broken system).
If comprehensive health care insurance had not forced the cost of health care to skyrocket at multiple times the rate of inflation, you wouldn’t NEED insurance to cover the vast majority of health care costs. In that case we’d be talking about the number of people who can afford health care, not being bombarded with propaganda about the hyper-inflated number of people who are “uninsured”.
If quotidian health care costs had kept pace with other commodities over the last 40 years, you could plan for them the same way you plan for buying a car, buying a house (or paying 1st, last, security on a rent), paying for your daughter’s wedding, etc. – all big-ticket expenses that we PLAN for – we don’t INSURE against them.
Insurance is for managing RISK. And there should be no RISK involved in paying for the vast majority of health care.
Comp. health ins. has to go. Reinstate the direct, producer-to-consumer relationship between health care providers and consumers, and eliminate the proxy monopoly formed by comp. health ins. companies. We need to get back to catastrophic-only plans, where needed, and make it illegal for insurance companies to refuse anyone for those. Administer those plans at your town or city, not your employer.
There’s plenty of other things to do about this. Turning an utterly broken system over to an utterly corrupt government is not one of them.
Who among us, even those ‘in the business’ can understand what is happening anymore?
Private practice of medicine in the US is, for the most part, nonexistant. What we have now is corporate medicine.
I spoke with a pediatrician, a urologist, a veterinariary surgeon, and several radiologists just in the past few weeks. They all want to get out of the corporate trap they walked into. We talk now in low tones, sharing information, looking for an out that no longer exists.
Some thoughts I recall:
“I am allowed only 8 minutes per patient”.
“They told me to recommend more biopsies and interventional procedures because they are more reimbursible. Do you have any contacts to get me to where I can do what is in the best interests of the patient instead of the bottom line? I cant stand this anymore. I want out.” (answer – there is no ‘out’ anymore).
I was personaly told within the past 48 hours to recommend diagnostic tests, proven in the literature to be less effective, with delay in diagnosis extending to days or weeks, because “well – that department needs revenue, and the other one has trouble keeping up with the workload”. Guess I need to rework the data and come up with another report. Taste of bile in my mouth. Havent done it yet.
“This is not why I got into medicine – I don’t care about the money now. Do you know anyone whom I could contact about a position?” (No I do not, every position I know of is covered by a medical mega-corp).
I am very much in the business. I cannot get my wife scheduled within a 25 mile radius for a simple annual screening mammogram even if I offer cash money for the test and interpretation. “Our system does not allow for self pay.”
“But she can show up with cash money for her test, or whatever you like, just get it done please.”
“No”
“let me speak to your supervisor, I am sure we can work this out”
Yep, NHS and anyplace on the planet you want to look, you will find medics doing what they do with what they have.
Perhaps the medical profession has been lax and needs a kick in the butt. So now the rules have changed and the players are big-goverment big-corporate big-money.
We want to play this out as some sort of political game but is goes much deeper than that.
Spindok
I read 38 mammograms on Monday.
Unfortunately, the majority of those who voted for Obama have vocabularies limited to words such as: free, take and uhm….well you get the picture. Regardless of the downside of socialized medicine, they will never get beyond the word “free”. So it stands to reason that we will not be making any decisions on health care from a purely objective view.
Most people only consider health insurance a priority when they don’t have it. However, in difficult times, this insurance is the first expense to be dropped from their budgets; long before the trips to the nail salon, eating out, new cars etc are given up. And these are the people who are going to determine socialized “everything.”
“EEEVVVIIILLL GRREEEDDDYY AROGENT U.S.A.You can SUE the responible PARTIES!”
Yeah! Sue them! Sue them ALLLL!!! That’s attitude is the solution, not part of the problem.
While NHS may not be the best choice, the current system, which requires that some families go bankrupt and lose eveything because their kid developed cancer, is not the answer either. Cost need to come under control within our healthcare system. A doctor should have to spend 0 minutes of their time talking with insurance companies and explaining why sush and such was needed, instead of the vast amount of time they spend now trying to defend their actions.
Spindok, the medical profession has been lax and needs a kick in the butt.
But that’s a tiny aspect of the overall problem, and one that would fix itself if we didn’t have comp. health ins. companies acting as a proxy monopoly between providers and patients – patients who are increasingly denied the opportunity to pay directly for services.
This is the blinding clue: “Our system does not allow for self pay.”
Think about that.
What this really means is that the system does not allow the consumer to have any relationship whatsoever to the actual cost of their own health care. Interestingly, and on a rather frightening level, this is about equivalent to the citizens’ relationship to the cost of their government.
For every other commodity (no, I’m not talking about brain surgery – just quotidian care… like mammograms) there is a direct relationship between provider and consumer. In the health care world we have this corrupted, complex relationship where the insurance company negotiates prices, but has no real incentive to keep costs low – certainly not the incentive that the consumer has, which keeps every OTHER commodity low enough to afford on a routine basis. This explains how health care costs have been allowed to increase at rates multiple times that of inflation for decades, and also explains how corporate medicine has managed to replace what we used to have 30-40 years ago, when people paid out-of-pocket for most services.
And it’s a vicious cycle. As the costs increase, fewer people can afford health care without socialized medicine, which is what comp. health insurance is – the State just isn’t running it… yet. Eventually, the costs increase to the point where even insurance companies can’t afford to insure everyone, and of course the State steps in to take the whole broken thing over. Yeah… that’ll ‘fix’ it.
Socialized anything is bad news.Are we a bunch of sheep going blindly to the slaughter?
The US has government run Socialist systems all over namely the Police the Fire Brigade ew ScArY they must be all socialist Commies you can’t trust any of them and they certainly won’t do anything for you will they
Come On everyone if it works for the police the fire brigade and Oh lets not forget the VA hospitals maybe there is something in it has anyone heard a soldier complain about poor service at a VA hospital ?????
Socialized medical Health care system?? Having more people in ‘suits’ telling those in the trenches doing the work and those getting the service how to do it and what you’re entitled to recieve? Please! Born at a military base, married to a medical military officer, working in the medical field for over 25 years in the private sector gives me a lot of insight to “private” verses “government managed” health care. I have had first hand experience of what restrictions you will face and limitations you will have and the hoops you will jump through when the government runs your health care options with our military health care. And you can always ask a veteran how hard it is to get what you need at the quality you need when you need it these days. The hurdles and increasing waiting times our veterans face for their health care is appaling! I watched my father die at not quite fifty years old, after serving his country, in a VA hosptial surrounded by doctors and nurses who cared but didn’t have the resources to treat what he really needed to survive. They just didn’t have that option for his treatment. And I have also watch in my job in the private sector see more government control and regulations increase over the years, creating paperwork and red tape for medical staff tieing their hands and choke off the amount of time and money devoted to patient care to pay the salaries of the regulating ‘suits’ telling us they have all the answers. We better pray we don’t to have this as an option. Or that you will be deemed ‘worthy’ of the funds the government spends for your health and survival. Those with little education, chronic long term health issues or unablity to contribute financially to those who (politicians and their cronies) will be making the choices of who get what had better beware. Check out the idea Tom Daschle has for national health care..he has this all spelled out the idea of national health care. It could be your spouse, child, parent who is not ‘worthy’ of funds being spent to help or save them. Not my idea of America. Not my America.
Will there be more ‘quota’ doctors? Free means long lines and waits.
Our current insurance system has produced a belief that the patient has little or no financial responsibility for his or her own treatment. We try to insure for everything – from routine check-ups and routine care to treatment of life-threatening illness. All our health care dollars go to the insurer and come back to our providers less a handling charge. If we paid for most of our own medical care and insured for only catastrophic illness or injury, the cost would be a lot less. This would put patients in a position of financial responsibility for the vast majority of their own care and insurers in the position of actually insuring against unexpected and overly expensive risks. Of course, socialized medicine will take any choice like this away from the individual and place all our health care decision with bureaucrats.
Toni – Funny I just talked to a Army doctor last week who said what was great about being a doctor in the military was that he could make the best decisions for his patients while on the outside it was all about the money
I have worked for 20 years in the frontline of the N.H.S.
The concept of calling insurance companies to ask what test or intervention we could do is shocking.
In the U.K it is part of our psyche that health shouldn’t totally rely on ability to pay.
It’s like the police and fire brigade,you wouldn’t want them only help people who have paid insurance.
To have so many children un-insured in the U.S and punish them for having irresponsible parents ,to us is terrible.
To lose your house because you become ill is disturbing.
You must all hate eachother.
I could reel off statistic’s to show the positive side for balance but what do i know i only work there.
We moan about the N.H.S like we do the weather .
We know it isn’t perfect and has problems.
The N.H.S was created following ww1/2.
Rich people and poor people fought together as equal’s.
It was unfair that only the rich people had access to health care that would improve their quality of life after fighting for their country.
France and Sweden’s system seems better. However nobody wants to follow the U.S system.
25.Mags…I was reading your post to become more informed until I got to the line, “You must all hate each other.”
That is the only motivation you can ascribe to our desperate desire to maintain individual independence? (which in a competitive environment drives quality UP)
I don’t have to get in a government line to buy groceries. I don’t have to get in a government line to buy gas.
I will NOT get in a government line to GET free groceries OR free gas. But you want me to brush aside everything that makes the American heart beat and get in line for free (no such thing) health care.
I didn’t read the rest of your post.
I guess I’ll try a similar generalization about your precious NHS:
You must all be very, very lazy with a highly developed welfare mentality.
Mags, you can tell us all the sob stories you want (and we can tell you all our tales about the horrors of socialized medicine), but in the end it doesn’t matter. The NHS is horribly mismanaged, inefficient, and wasteful. I for one never want my health care run by the same bureaucrats who run our inefficient Social Security Adminstration, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the failing Dept. of Education, etc. (on and on and on I could go).
“To have so many children un-insured in the U.S and punish them for having irresponsible parents ,to us is terrible.
To lose your house because you become ill is disturbing.”
We have few uninsured children, or adults, in America, far fewer than the 47 million that you probably believe there are. Plus, we have government systems in place for those too poor to buy insurance–Medicaid. (Talk about another inefficient program, but it’s there for folks who need something.)
The real problem with affordable health care in America is that we really don’t have proper insurance competition, as we have for car insurance, homeowner’s, life, etc. You get a job, and usually you’re forced into whatever your employer offers. No options, no selection.
“I could reel off statistic’s to show the positive side for balance but what do i know i only work there.”
Again, statistics don’t really matter (although the UK does have higher mortality rates from breast and prostate cancer than the U.S. does). What really matters is that the person who believes his or her government can provide anything efficiently and effectively is probably not bright enough to realize when they’re getting very sub-par health care.
Shadow..Wonder how long your Army doctor has been an Army doctor and has he seen the inside of a VA facility? Yep, he has the freedom of not having to see a patient every 15 minutes to make the ‘quota’ of patients the private sector has to see to keep the doors open and administration happy. And, yes, agreed that in some cases, military doctors are not bound as much as the private practice docs are to what they order based on $$$, especially if they are in a larger facility and it’s routine. But our family is assigned to a remote area. Move away from large facilities and away from the basic routine needs and it’s a whole different story. And I have lived on both sides of the military option, with my spouse’s medical military career and as a dependant. We had an injury in our family that required extensive, multiple, and complicated treatments. We had facilities, some within 30 minutes of our assignment, that could offer services necessary. Our military insurance REQUIRED us to travel 4 hours plus each way, several times a week, to cover the treatment. and we were at their mercy and discretion of what could and would be covered. And I know from working in the private sector so long that most providers dislike working with military insurances because they are complicated, pretty unyeilding, slow in response, and pay very minimal in comparison to private insurances. We have been refuse as new patient in our many remote relocations because the providers don’t want to take on new military insured patients. And ask anyone who has been in the mlitary for many years how their benefits are decresed from when they signed on compared to today and how much more they have to contribute to have less now than they did when they started. the military is just one example of how dismal a government-runned health care system will look like.
“to deny treatment to heavy smokers, drinkers, and the obese”
I have no problem with that part of it. I think our insurance companies here should be able to deny to pay for things that are self-caused. If you choose to inhale carcinogens multiple times a day, you need to save up for the care you will need later as a result. Seems fair.
Mags: you think it’s unfair to go bankrupt or lose a house due to severe illness. I think it’s unfair that my standard of care will go down-along with most peoples-just so that some can get some care “free”. Why should more of us die, so that some can keep their houses? Sh*t happens in life. You get cancer and go broke. You make a bad investment and go broke. An airliner falls on your house. There will always be people who go broke. Government can’t and shouldn’t try to stop that. It’s the gamble you take for living.
All of which is a moot point, because there is no amount of taxation that can pay for socialized care in a nation with closing in on 100 million illegal aliens. Not possible. CLose up the border, and costs will go down, because hospitals aren’t taking such a huge loss on these people who don’t belong here.
We pay cash for every ailment and [knocks on wood] we’ve never been sick much at all to even need a doctor. My dentist will make a pretty penny off of some dental work I’ve put off for years but we will pay cash for that too and be done with it.
My concern is, for people like my husband and I who can afford to pay cash for our health care…how exorbitant will those prices become once the government mangles it? A Tylenol costs around 35 bucks now if you have the misfortune of being in the hospital and needing one.
If our hospitals become anything resembling the DMV then we are all screwed.
Getting ‘old’ is going to mean ‘SOL’ for people like me.
- … 100 million illegal aliens.
Is that documented somewhere? I’ve seen numbers closer to 1/10th that amount. Or… maybe that’s ‘per year’.
Dirigo, Maine’s socialized insurance program, is on life support.
“What would be revealing and is not covered here because it would destroy the case is do the citizens of these countries like or dislike their systems. Of course PJM never let any facts get in the way of their opinion”
What would be even more revealing is a look into why moonbats never seem to bring up the quality of the socialized healthcare programs already available in the US. Because Medicare and the VA are such glowing examples of all that is right in healthcare, am I right?
#14 and 23
I agree with you regarding comprehensive medical insurance. We need to scrap the middleman making the money and get back to catastrophic insurance. We actually used to be able to afford to go to the doctor without medical insurance, back in the 50′s when I was a kid and in the 70′s when I became an adult. Several years ago the general practioner that I was seeing confessed that because of the state of the HMO’s and insurance he wished he had become an engineer instead of a doctor.
Toni 20 years – great doctor who cares. I wonder what you would say to those who have lost their insurance – Oh I get it “let them eat cake. I have mine” If we have a moral obligation to provide health care to all then the system has to change. Under the current system, it is in the insurance companies interest to deny coverage to increase their profits. The VA system has much lower administrative cost than any private system. The health care system in the UK is very popular with the majority of Brits
momof3,
Your comment reflects the reason why other countries don’t want your system.
Would it be ‘shit happens’ if a house burnt down killing everyone because they didn’t have insurance?
Is it not up to the government to provide fire fighters?
It’s your attitude that confuses the world. The U.S is happy to spend their money on war,so you can be ‘safe’ but can’t help your own.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthy_life_table2.html
We believe that people have a fundamental right for life.
Your lack of humanity towards even your vulnerable is sad.
Health care also helps society. Losing jobs and houses will have an knock on effect.
I have said that we have problems,i wouldn’t just blindly support the N.H.S, i know what i’m talking out.
Maybe you should reflect on problems in your own country before judging us.
The health care system in the UK is very popular with the majority of Brits
Because they have been fed a steady diet by the BBC and the rest of the media and they don’t know anything different. Any slightest hint of bringing the private sector into the NHS warrants who raft of programs claiming that in the US the poor are left to die on the streets et al. And yes I have someone from a pro-NHS organisation stand up at a conference and say exactly that.
hey mags, you’re the one who jumped in judging us by saying we must all hate each other….I won’t bother with the continuing generalized labeling in your latest post.
You are completely clueless as to what extent we “help our own”.
Do you know how many millions of sandbags were filled in Fargo, ND last week?
Do you know how many people took off work today with only a couple of hours notice to go to Valley City to produce another 200,000 or so sandbags because of another flood crest coming to that community?
Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised TODAY in ND just by a couple of short comments on the news by corporate heads?
Do you know how many hundreds of homeless in Seattle, WA were given shelter and food for many days by churches when unexpected cold weather hit in December?
Do you know how many homeless shelters are newly built in the last 18 months in the northern tier of states?
Do you know how many homes are built and given away by commercial builders in this country to families who have suffered trauma, either financially or through medical/death losses?
Do you know how much the average charitable giving of the American taxpayer is?
Didn’t think so.
Just accept it: England is going down the tubes to Islamists and Socialism. We don’t intend to, at least not without a really big fight.
Does this article mean that government healthcare is bad per se, or just that Britain is inept at providing it? What do the continental Europeans do differently?
“Would it be ’shit happens’ if a house burnt down killing everyone because they didn’t have insurance?
Is it not up to the government to provide fire fighters?”
The government doesn’t provide them. Our tax money does. let’s be clear on that, right off the bat. All government does is take our money, keep a large chunk, then pass the rest on. OUR money. Fire departments came about when cities were wood, and burned down easily (chicago, anyone? New Orleans?). They were provided so the country didn’t go down in ashes. Not to benefit whoever lived in that house with the candle left on.
Second, I’d see it as more of a people-living-in-hurricane-zones-with-no-insurance comparison. They choose to live there, choose to spend their money on cell phones or nice cars or eating out or whatever, then expect us to pick up the tab when the obviously foreseeable tragedy hits. Even the poor; renters insurance can be as little as $50 a YEAR, yet they can’t be bothered. They expect us to care more for their things than they do. The vast, vast majority of uninsured in this country are that way because they choose to be. They choose other items over insurance, and expect us to foot the bill for their lifestyle choice. Excuse me if I don’t feel bad for them. The truly poor have medicaid and sChip.
So, might someone have to choose a smaller house? One car instead of two? Sure! That’s life, prioritizing where our money goes. If your health isn’t your priority, why on earth should it be mine?
Oops, forgot to point out fire departments are city/county funded and run, not Fed. Smaller and closer to home is ALWAYS the best place to run programs, not in DC.
France keeps pts in the hospital for 3 days after a simple gallbladder surgery but don’t give pain meds.
Yes Shadow, we would all like to suspend economic reality and be able to do exactly what we like all the time without any cost benefit considerations. I would REALLY love to quit my job and teach college coeds how to do keg stands, but alas the real world confronts me.
I would bet that the military doctor friend of yours (if he happens to not be the sock puppet on your left hand) would be more unhappy being constrained by a political bureaucrat than an insurance company. Providing medicine in a combat hospital is a very different animal than providing medicine for an entire country and the kind of care they provide is not provided in countries with socialized medicine.
My wife is an Aussie and they have a Pub/Private system. Basically you are required to purchase health insurance, either from a private party or from the government. Basically you can hunt for private insurance and then the government insurance fills in the rest.
If she were here she’d explain that better.
Anyway, she thinks our system is odd, but at the same time it works. We’ve paid more out of pocket for her pregnancy then her cousin’s are in Aussieland but she’s had about 4 times the tests and sonograms than she would get down under. (Again just compairing between cousin’s pregnancy and hers.) She’s also confused by our insurance billing system, but I said everyone is so it’s okay.
Seriously though, they’ve got some odd problems with their system, as do we. Personally I don’t think America can do social medicine “right.” Because we haven’t done any government program “right.” They’re problems with ALL of our government programs, why are we adding another one?
There is no such thing as “free health care.” Europe does NOT have free health care – they have government/employer/employee subsidised health care. The government contributes via taxes on the people. The employer contributes through mandatory contributions. The employee contributes two ways: by paying those taxes exacted upon them by the government and with lower wages, compensating for the amount the employer is mandated to pay.
Under Obama’s campaign version of his health care plan, those without insurance could sign up for the government sponsored program. Those who aleady have group insurance benefits through their employer could opt out of the government plan.
Fine. Great. Except that those who have a group plan provided through their employer are, indeed, paying for health care with reduced wages to compensate for the cost of said health care paid for by the employer. This means they would end up paying DOUBLE for health care: 1. increased taxes to pay for the government plan; 2. reduced wages to pay for the employer provided group plan.
All cost issues aside, we need to remember who would be running this whole shindig: the U.S. Government. If you like the efficiency of the work of government employees, then I guess “free” health care is just the ticket. Just remember: government efficiency is an oxymoron. Free health care is also an oxymoron.
For many Americans, “socialized health care” is an ideological hurdle too high for most to jump. We envision ourselves as “rugged individualist” – complete with a stack of mythology to back it up.
This article is like countless others I’ve read over the years… cherry pick a few problems with the NHS, then claim SEE! Socialized medicine doesn’t work! This proves it!! God Bless Freedom! Let’s bring some proven generalities to the argument: Life expectancy in the UK is longer than in the US. Infant mortality in the UK is significantly lower than in the US (American conservatives care about life-from conception to birth.) Life expentancy after first heart attack and first cancer diagnosis is also higher in the UK than in the US. And perhaps most important of all… British people are much more satisfied with their health care system than Americans are.
Articles like this are simply the mouthpiece of insurance companies who see a threat to their gravy train. Why have Americans allowed insurance companies to crash the health care party, and then have the gaul to start acting like the host?
Bongdoper….put the bong down and read the piece again. The authoress is in fact a Briton. She is not a mouthpiece for the insurance companies as you put it. But someone experienced with the real NHS not the fantasy one you seem to believe in. And you didn’t bother reading my comment either.
Lots of statistics, but no links. Care to share them? I happen to know that the UK has a terribly rate of cancer detection, for example, one of the worst in Western Europe. Oh yes and certain parts of Glasgow have a lower level of live expectancy for young males than the Gaza strip.
Bongdoper, don’t even give us that baloney about infant mortality stats. Infant mortality is measured in different ways in different countries. Do you really think Cuba has a better IMR than the US? Really? Another thing is that women with high-risk pregnancies come to the US for the births because our medical care is better. Guess what? Some of those babies still die! So we get Canadian deaths counted in our stats.
Some countries don’t count it as a live birth if the kid doesn’t live longer than 24 hours:
“A 2006 article in U.S. News & World Report claims that “First, it’s shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other countries report as stillbirths. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless.[4] And some countries don’t reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality rates.”
As in all such programs, remember that the government doesn’t have any money and never has had. That’s why they keep taking ours.
I appreciate Goy’s comments (19).
Exactly the problem. Show up at the office with $1000. cash in hand. Your policy is not listed in what the clerk can access. Ask how much the mammogram, or cholestrol panel costs (blank stare and we are thinking about calling security now, even if you ask nicely) Explain that you have changed jobs and have new insurance but you dont care about that today. You are willing to pay whatever…
This will not happen this day or any other. We will find another solution.
I also appreciated the post by (24) The Shadow.
The military has been using this as a successful recruiting tool for more that 20 years. It works and is very tempting. My dad was an army doc for most of his career. I did a good part of my training in US Air Force hospitals.
Yet there are frustrations there as well. The budget is insane.
“We need a new MRI, this one is ten years old and I am missing half the knee and shoulder stuff. Orthopedics won’t even talk to me anymore.”
“We gave you a new reporting system last year.”
“But I didnt need a new reporting system. I am reporting crap. I told you that. I need better tools”.
“But we bought this.”
Same story different corporation.
Bottom line is…medics want more than anyone can deliver. We only produce so much each day. That will not change. Demand will always outstrip supply.
Spindok
I also liked
canada is considering punitive medicine also. smokers, the obese. they caused or contributed to their own illness. on the other hand, socialists are always leftists. so there is no consideration being given to the 99% of abortions performed which are for convenience. not even mention of prohibiting payment for someone who has received multiple convenience abortions. they will stay covered. as will sexually transmitted diseases, drug addiction (just not cig.), alcholism and related illnesses. but because they do feel other people’s pain they will continue to pay for hair transplants for cosmetic purposes, and breast augmentation, so you can feel better about yourself.
by the way, prescription drugs are not covered, nor is dental work, nor eye exams, nor glasses, nor hearing tests, nor hearing aids, etc., etc. you pay out of pocket for those and much more. thought you should know. my out of pocket medical expenses last year amounted to just over $3,400.00. none of it was patient caused illness, just life.
if we are going to assign treatment based on patient responsibility, what about the woman who falls down her own stairs? if no one pushed her, then she certainly did something wrong. have you ever driven 10mph over the speed limit? if you do and have an accident, why should you be covered? did you eat the proper amount of fruit, vegetables and bran throughout your lifetime? if not you have contributed to your own heart disease, colon cancer, arthritis and who knows what else. why should i who have done all the right things pay for you? do you exercise every day? you better start and you better to able to prove it.
@32. Andrew Ian Dodge: - Dirigo, Maine’s socialized insurance program, is on life support.
And Massachusetts’ law that transformed health insurance from an employee benefit to a statutory entitlement led to a system which, last time I checked, ended up costing its taxpayers almost twice as much as the voters were told it would. Of course, as with everything else involving our corrupt federal government, we can magnify similar problems at the federal level by at least an order of magnitude.
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@36. mags: - Maybe you should reflect on problems in your own country before judging us.
Maybe you should grow a brain, purchase a clue and practice a little of your “multiculturalism”, “tolerance” and “diversity” before coming in here and judging Americans with a statement as patently clueless and brainless as “You must all hate eachother“.
- Would it be ’shit happens’ if a house burnt down killing everyone because they didn’t have insurance?
This ‘shit’ happens all the time. Insurance does not prevent it. Oftentimes firefighters can’t either – and it has nothing to do with insurance. Geez!! This is a perfect example of how the morally adolescent left can’t think critically or rationally about anything. Your thought process is totally governed by emotion and guilt, not reason, and it leaves you vulnerable to idiotic, false analogies like this one.
- It’s your attitude that confuses the world. The U.S is happy to spend their money on war,so you can be ’safe’ but can’t help your own.
Oh do give this “the world” crap a frakking rest, okay? We’re really, really tired of hearing clueless useful idiots reciting the media’s mantra about our image. When you people learn to think for yourselves instead of regurgitating the BBC’s, Reuters’ and APs’ latest propaganda, you get an opinion. Until then, kindly keep your parroting to yourself. If the US only cared about Americans being safe, we would withdraw all troops to within our borders, put a fence around the country, finish the missile shield and watch the rest of you eat each other alive. Obviously, that’s not what’s happened though.
Check our federal and State budgets, sweetie. And check the billion$ collected by American charities – good luck even counting the charities themselves, let alone the amount of money they collect to help others. When you can even comprehend the amounts of money the U.S. sends to the poor and to other countries – both officially and UN-officially, from individuals and via charitable NGOs – get back to us with a post. Until then, kindly mind your own damn business. Europe has been depending on the U.S. to protect it from the USSR, and now Russia, since WWII. Any idea how much that has cost? THAT is the money we should be passing out in the streets to Americans, not the funds that have been spent to oust tyrants like Saddam and to squash professional homicidal maniacs like al Qaeda and the Taliban. You are in very, very serious need of a reality check.
- We believe that people have a fundamental right for life.
Wrong. You believe that someone else should guarantee your quality of life. It’s the entitlement mindset you acquired as an adolescent and/or at university. Growing out of that mindset requires a moral maturity that you don’t exhibit, based on your posts. It is not someone else’s responsibility to provide for you – for ANY of your needs. It is yours.
- Your lack of humanity towards even your vulnerable is sad.
Really? Any idea how many hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on taking care of the “vulnerable” in the U.S.? Any idea how much of that is wasted or stolen due to corruption, ineptitude, bureaucratic inefficiency and leftist policies based on emotion, not reason?
Here’s just one tiny, depressing ‘for instance’… American taxpayers provide 100% support, through SSDI, for people who are “too depressed to work”, people who are “too obese to work”, people who are “disabled due to past drug abuse”, people who are labeled “suicidal” by a broken social services system and not allowed to work, even if they want to – that’s to say nothing of the people who are genuinely infirm, disabled, unemployed or uneducated – even when they insist on popping out another kid every 10 months. I have had direct experience with idiocy like this and had to leave the system because the insanity was just so overwhelming and depressing. One small example: former drug abusers were provided with travel vouchers – $75 per trip, two trips per visit – so they could visit our clinic for group therapy (also paid for by the taxpayer). Therapists in that same clinic – some disabled and unable to drive – had to find their own transportation. The State AND the clinic refused to help them because they were gainfully employed. So you tell me what’s “fair” about that. You can go peddle your “humanity” to someone who will pay YOUR bills for you.
- … i know what i’m talking out.
That’s got to be the most comically ironic thing I’ve read today. But then the day is only half over.
Here’s the bottom line, ‘mags’. The cost of purchasing basic, primary health care goods and services should not be so high that it presents a financial risk. In fact, most of these costs do NOT present such a risk. But people the world over – especially here in America – have been brainwashed into thinking, for some inexplicable reason, that they can’t possibly afford health care without insurance. This is where the problem lies: peope have been duped into worrying about the cost of insurance instead of screaming bloody murder about the outrageous cost of health care, which has skyrocketed at rates multiple times that of inflation for decades – apparently, everywhere. The ONLY entities that have benefited from this have been the companies selling comprehensive health insurance – they have, in effect, created the problem.
Insurance is a tool for managing risk. That is its only purpose. A proper reduction in the cost of quotidian health care – to bring it BACK in line with all the other commodities that require no ‘insurance’ – will eliminate the need for ‘comprehensive’ health insurance entirely. Health care issues that involve significant expense – expenses every family should be planning for, like having to buy a new car, move to a new residence, buy a new home, pay for a wedding, etc. – can be covered with ‘catastrophic’ policies. These were the ones we had when I was a kid – when no one went broke paying for health care out-of-pocket – and which are still available today.
The left needs to pull its collective head out of its butt and start seriously thinking about why some people can’t get good health care. The reason is the cost, not the lack of insurance. Bring the cost back down, through free market economics, and the rest of these problems go away – especially the one we’re now facing, which is how deep into our personal lives and liberties the professional political class of ticks will burrow, using a guarantee of our health as an excuse.
“Exactly the problem. Show up at the office with $1000. cash in hand. Your policy is not listed in what the clerk can access. Ask how much the mammogram, or cholestrol panel costs (blank stare and we are thinking about calling security now, even if you ask nicely) Explain that you have changed jobs and have new insurance but you dont care about that today. You are willing to pay whatever…”
Are you talking about the US? Where? I’ve never in my life been told I couldn’t pay for my own stuff. They do usually require you pay first though.
(53) momof3: “Are you talking about the US? Where? I’ve never in my life been told I couldn’t pay for my own stuff. They do usually require you pay first though”
Ohio.
Believe it or not.
No appointment. We will not schedule you as self-pay.
Spindok
(51) Frank
“canada is considering punitive medicine also. smokers, the obese. they caused or contributed to their own illness.”
The very heart of the problem Frank.
Now we have ‘deserving’ or ‘causation’ as a criterion for proceeding with diagnosis and treatment. Just imagine this as you are being sorted out in the ER.
Which cancer do you have? Pancreas? Did you drink? Well I did in my thirties…
Look folks. You present and get the same. Deserving does not enter this equation. There are no moral judgements here. You want that?
Crap. Where are the other medicals here who feel the hair rise up in the back of their necks at the very thought of making moral judgements about the cases before us? This is not what we do and you know it.
Morality happens on our own time and if we do not fight this we will be overrun.
Spindok
Andrew Ian Dodge: “Oh yes and certain parts of Glasgow have a lower level of live expectancy for young males than the Gaza strip.” This is probably true. Again… people cherry pick facts to support a dubious conclusion. There are no doubt isolated pockets of humanity in the US where life expectency is very low due to the poor habits of the inhabitants. I’m not sure what that proves.
I stand by what I wrote: Life expectancy in the UK is longer than the US, and – British people are more content with the quality and administration of their health care than Americans are.
Also, lets compare apples to apples. A common mistake some Americans make when they vilify “socialized medicine” is to compare the broad spectrum of what is available in the US to ONLY the NHS in Britain. In addition to the NHS, which EVERYONE has, British people can aslo choose to augment it with private insurance, or simply pay out of pocket for private care.
But no one in Europe has the worry that many Americans do, namely, how they are going to pay for the lottery style bill that will accompany a major hospitalization. Europeans (and Japanese, and Australians, and Canadians, and New Zealanders, etc.) long ago agreed to help out everyone in their countries with universal health care. It’s an idiological hurdle that Americans have been propagandized against most of their lives. It’s Godless Socialism, people helping other people… and Jeezus would hate that!
Goy,
Other countries also have social program’s to help their vunerable. Individuals are generous also.
The N.H.S is not ‘free’. It is free at point of delivery.
Not everthing is covered. Some are subsidised.
Prescription drugs are £6.90 i think now.
In-patient drugs are free(chemo etc).
This means it’s affordable so you go early with symptoms and know that you are going to get the treatment.
I am a midwife,sadly for me there has been patients in the U.S. unable to fund their anti-depressants for post natal pychosis with tragic results.
I try to explain ,as somebody working in the health service other aspects,including my view on your countries system,and you bring up ww2?
For the record,Europe has been greatful for your help. Does that mean we cannot critise you or disagree with you?
Is their a statute of limitations on that? The U.S. didn’t join in until Germany and Japan declared war on you.
We had to pay as well .
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/article1264220.ece
I know the problems we have in the U.K. This isn’t a left wing policy.If the Conservative win the election they will match spending on the N.H.S.
Myself ,my family and friends from all aspects of society have never been on any of handouts.
Obese and smokers ,it not rationed as such. We offer help to address this so they don’t drop dead during surgery and sue us.
The U.S is divided politically. It is not like that here.
As a country ,rich or poor we all cannot accept that health is based on ability to pay.
Even people who go private for all their health needs,still agree with their taxes going towards the health system.
It gets abused which drives us mad. I am in the frontline,the problem with immigration/asylum seekers is causing huge problems.
From my own experience, it is very annoying when patients from Afghanistan who have been here 3 months complain about air conditioning!
(THEY LIVE IN CAVES!)
However you have public and private schools,don’t you?
Look at France’s health care, to think that America could not learn from any other countries system seems a bit daft.
It’s you lot that are brainwashed about ‘socialised medicine’. Only you call it that.There is a huge chunk of knowledge missing,people seem unable to explore this.
Ignorance isn’t the problem, it’s the illusion of knowledge.
Health care in England is not “Free” – people pay into the system with deductions from their paychecks from the day they get their first job to the day they retire. But when they need care it isn’t available. Many years ago, a friend in his 50′s was diagnosed as needing a bypass operation. He was told to report to hospital on a date in February, but when he arrived no bed was available – come back on a date in May. In May admissions were clueless – he should have had the operation in February and no bed was available. Don’t call us we’ll call you. His health deteriorated. He worked for a trucking firm and when a driver was ill, was required to fill in. Because of his heart condition he lost his commercial driving license, and soon after lost his job. He could no longer make house payments, had to sell his house, and his son had to leave university to get a job. FIVE YEARS LATER he collapsed, was taken to an emergency room – and finally got the operation he needed AND HAD PAID FOR WITH CONTRIBUTIONS TO NATIONAL HEALTH ALL HIS LIFE. He is recovering, but has lost about everything because of National Health.
A friend in SE England was walking to church with her mother in the 1980′s when both were hit by a speeding car. They were taken to hospital with multiple injuries – broken collar bone, broken ribs, broken arm etc. No beds were available. They had to be taken on to a private hospital, and pay the bill in full.
Government involvement in anything is a disaster. We don’t need socialized medicine in the U.S. Back when my husband was in the U.S. Air Force I fell off a ladder and chipped a bone in my elbow. It took 5 hours at the military hospital to get a diagnosis; the doctor wanted to hospitalize me and operate late the following week, and opined that I might regain 90% of the use of my right arm. I walked out and consulted a qualified local surgeon, who looked at my rapidly swelling hand and bulging veins caused by circulatory interruption, said “emergency,” and operated next morning. I regained 100% of the use of my right arm. Military medical care sucks. Anything the government gets involved in sucks.
@57. mags: - Other countries also have social program’s to help their vunerable. Individuals are generous also.
Couldn’t care less. Those countries don’t justify your judgmental declarations up above.
- The N.H.S is not ‘free’. It is free at point of delivery. … In-patient drugs are free(chemo etc).
Wrong. None of that is free. It is all paid for by someone, somewhere. Eventually, you’ll figure that out.
…you bring up ww2?
HUH?? I didn’t “bring up” WWII. I used it as a reference point, regarding events since that time, not during. Try reading it again. As for Europe being “grateful”, this is patent nonsense. Europe has used the money it didn’t have to spend on defense these past 60 years to fund more entitlement programs and nurture a socialist federation of countries not unlike the U.S.S.R., with Brussels playing the part of Moscow. In the meantime, the European media has been demonizing America for years – pretty much ever since the day Al Gore failed to carry his own home state in the 2000 Election.
- If the Conservative win the election they will match spending on the N.H.S.
That’s actually a big part of the problem here too. Our professional political class has abandoned any pretense of respect for their constituents or ideological loyalty – especially the GOP. They are basically doing whatever they think it will take to buy the votes that will keep them “elected”.
- Look at France’s health care, to think that America could not learn from any other countries system seems a bit daft.
Look at France’s energy production. You’d think our political class would learn from that too, but they don’t seem to. Go figger. Anyway, we don’t need to “learn” from a country that has one/fifth our population and a completely different economic system. There’s nothing wrong with our “system” that couldn’t be fixed by eliminating the comprehensive health insurance proxy monopoly and allowing free market economics to bring costs back into line with what most people can afford – just like it does with everything else we pay for.
- It’s you lot that are brainwashed about ’socialised medicine’.
Not at all. We already have socialized medicine here. But we call it “comprehensive health insurance”, just like you call yours “NHS” – to avoid calling it what it is. At present ours is not directly run by the government, but given the direction it’s going, that’s the only thing that sets is apart from the NHS. Either way, better take this issue up with the author, who appears to disagree with you. What I do know is I’m not responsible for paying for anyone else’s… anything. That includes their health care. If the government decides it disagrees, I’ll be more than happy to cut my earnings back to the point where I don’t pay taxes. At this point I can easily live on that.
My friend in SE England, a retired schoolteacher now in her 70′s, was told last year she needed a cataract operation – but it would have taken 18 months to schedule it under National Health. She obtained private insurance after her former disastrous experience, and has had the surgery done privately.
Goy, Thats was my mothers name.
‘Wrong. None of that is free. It is all paid for by someone, somewhere. Eventually, you’ll figure that out.’
I was not implying that tinkerbell spreads her fairy dust over the N.H.S.
Obviously it paid for by taxes. You can get to see your doctor within 24 hrs knowing that if you needs meds it will be £6.90.
If you have a chronic illness you are exempt.
Therefore not losing your job,your house and some your family,never mind your life.
That scenario has bigger impact on soceity then providing health care.
‘the European media has been demonizing America for years – pretty much ever since the day Al Gore failed to carry his own home state in the 2000 Election.’
I cried on 9/11,’shoulder to shoulder’,did you see the que’s around the world to sign condolence books?
‘We are all Americans’
The same after Katrina.Which Bush refused.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/dis_hur_kat_int_aid_res-hurricane-katrina-international-aid-response
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/dis_hur_kat_int_aid_res-hurricane-katrina-international-aid-response.
‘They are basically doing whatever they think it will take to buy the votes that will keep them “elected’
I think that is called democracy. I thought you were big on that.You have killed enough people in it’s name.
‘Anyway, we don’t need to “learn” from a country that has one/fifth our population and a completely different economic system.’
So why are you comparing the U.S and the U.K?
To believe that you can learn nothing from other countries,their experience and history is so arrogant.
How many Americans go overseas for accpeted medical treatment? i know some go for treatment not allowed by the FDA, but how many of us go overseas for heart surgery and other types of treatment? I have met many people from different countries who come here to get treated. I have even met a british woman who came to San Diego so she could get treatment in Mexico.
Yo, my friend goy! I’ve missed ya at our previous discussion! You never answered my latest rant, so I decided to bring much of it here, as it is relevant to this discussion.
The premise that health care in America is expensive because health insurance carriers waste money on themselves, not on you, is false. If it were true, then the rise in health costs would be primarily attributable to rising premiums, not actual rising health COSTS (the cash differential in between being used to feed the industry). Yet the Congressional Budget Office declared in 2008 that Hospital and physician costs are the largest proportion of cost, and “most of the long-term growth in total health care spending has resulted from growth in either or both of these categories.” Why the rise in hospital/provider costs? “About half of all growth in health care spending in the past several decades was associated with changes in medical care made possible by advances in technology.” And while there has been a rise in health insurance costs, the CBO also reported in 2008 that ADMINISTRATIVE costs for private insurance only represent about 12% of premiums, i.e., 88% was NOT.
If there were some form of giant industry-wide conspiracy to raise the cost of medicine, it would have to include the U.S. government, whose programs (Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP/VA) account for over 45% of health care expenditures. So unless you’re willing to assume America’s largest insurer, the US government, is part of the conspiracy, the argument falls flat.
Goy thinks we can all pay our health costs out of pocket (and don’t need insurance), that we should PLAN for health costs like we plan for replacing a car. Insurance is used to manage risk. And though “quotidian” healthcare costs are manageable, we all run a risk of major healthcare costs, which can be very high. This is NOT like replacing a car. I may not know when I’ll replace my car, but I do know the cost. Replacing a car is predictable in the sense that unless you’re well off, you know it will NOT be more than $50,000.It’s essentially capped. If you’re uninsured, health care costs could be 50k, but they could quickly balloon to 300k or more. Add to this lost wages, particularly if you’re in the hospital for weeks on end. And during your convalescence, your spouse may need to help you at home, so he/she may have to take time off work as well. Healthcare costs are more akin to the cost of replacing a house. Do you have homeowners insurance? I bet you do, because you know that, though unlikely, if your home were ever to burn down you’d be hard pressed to replace it. Same goes with health care. The fact is, in 2001, medical causes were cited by about half of bankruptcy filers in the US. I bet replacing a car didn’t even make the top ten.
Why have costs gone up so fast? Technological advances, high cost of labor (much of medicine, unlike other fields, CANNOT be mechanized), high cost of litigation (or costs incurred for fear of litigation), as well as the high cost of end-of-life care. I’d add perhaps overuse as well. We’ve become accustomed to having “free” medicine (e.g., the ER) or seek treatments that benefit our lives, but perhaps are not essential (Viagra?). The pharmaceutical industry pushes new drugs that are slightly better than the old ones, but cost triple (in part to cover R&D, litigation, but also to increase their bottom lines). Ultimately we get into the law of diminishing returns: progressively smaller increments in benefit vs. large increments in cost.
There’s also the shared cost (though goy claims otherwise) of covering the uninsured. When I go to the hospital, my insurance is “overcharged” to offset the cost of non-paying customers. Guess who the insurance company is going to pass on that charge to, as higher yearly premiums? From Wikipedia: “The costs of treating the uninsured must often be absorbed by providers as charity care, passed on to the insured via cost shifting and higher health insurance premiums, or paid by taxpayers through higher taxes.”
So how do we cut costs? Someone commented on the possibility of making all insurance carriers non-profit, an interesting option, though I don’t know if legally the government can force them to do so.
Evidently some savings could come from streamlining the insurance industry. There are hundreds of carriers in the US, many using their own forms and codes. Streamlining the billing/claim process by standardizing forms/payment rules/codifications, and making the entire process electronic (vs. paper) would save millions. Tort reform to reduce the direct and indirect legal costs (including unnecessary tests ordered more for lawyers’, not patients’ benefit) could do the same. More competition (from out-of-state carriers) could drive down premium prices. I personally would advocate higher sin taxes, including snacks, to make those who incur greater risk pay a higher premium.
And no, despite what “goy” says, I would not socialize all of medicine. The resulting inefficient bureaucracy would make costs only rise faster. But some form of government health program for the underclass is necessary. People should pull their own weight. The point is, some CANNOT (the elderly, the disabled). Given the staggering costs, which have NOT risen because of insurance company schemes, the government is the only institution that can help these people. I agree that each of us should be repsonsible for our health. But some individuals are unwilling to do so, and make dumb decisions in their lives (like smoking/overeating). Yet they still benefit from government programs. They should not be refused treatment, but shouldn’t we find a way they put in a little more into the collective pot (through sin taxes)?
Government run public health is also essential to stop the spread of diseases which could affect not only the uninsured, but all of society. Consider government-sponsored free STD clinics to stop the spread of syphilis, government clinics for DOT therapy for TB -to make sure patients actually take their meds and stop spreading the disease, government sponsored vaccines, like the flu shot for the elderly, or the nationwide campaigns to vaccinate kids for polio, or measles in the 1950s (some funded with private money), and the Ryan White funds for low-income AIDS patients. (The latter will not be cured, but can greatly reduce their risk of transmission if on treatment)
Ultimately, the cost of healthcare will still be expensive. You can’t get world-class healthcare on a shoe string. Cost-cutting measures, at least in the public domain, would have to start cutting benefits. One approach was the so-called Oregon Plan, whereby funds were distributed in a utilitarian fashion. Programs that served the “greatest good” (e.g. vaccines) were funded first. Expensive programs that benefited the few (e.g. a heart transplant, which costs hundreds of thousands, and helps only one person) were left at the bottom of the list. At some point on the list, the funds would be estimated to run out, and anything below that point would NOT be funded. It’s a draconian measure, whereby some would not receive public funds for expensive procedures. But then again, while the government should provide basic healthcare, it’s arguable if things like transplants would qualify as “basic.” Perhaps here’s where private funds (charities, foundations) could kick in.
Perhaps there are other solutions (love to hear “goy’s” input, if it were anything other than “get rid of the insurance companies”).
We will have to face difficult choices. The current left-leaning government will likely make things more, not less expensive for all of us. My advice? Get the best insurance you can afford, and get it while you’re young. It may mean having less cash for other personal endeavors, but in the end, health insurance should be a priority -your life may literally depend on it.
As a post script, don’t fall for goy’s use of CIGNA as an example:
Goy rants on how insurance companies use my money to pay for executive pay raises, employees and their benefits, as well as conutless properties and subcontracted services. Surprise! You’ve just described any of a number of large US companies! The Big Three auto makers, for exmple, must cover teh cost of large CEO salaries (and their famous corporate jets), unionized employees and their benefits, including health benefits and pensions, as wellas a large array of subcontractors, all with the cost of selling YOU a car. The subcontractors he demeans, including those overseas, are usually contracted because they are cheaper/more efficient, so it costs LESS to employ them than to do the work “in house.” This includes “clearinghouses,” which insurance companies use to encourage electronic billing and CUT the COST of manual processing, many which today are FREE for providers.
Goy goes off on how many properties CIGNA owns, and how much its CEO earns ($15 million) to prove how all health insurance companies waste money. How odd he singles out CIGNA’s (and Caremark’s) CEOs, who happen to be two of the top three highest paid CEOs in the health insurance industry. The CEO of industry giant Humana averaged less than ONE-FIFTH this amount, at 2.7 million. It still sounds like much, bt it’s called BUSINESS in America. This is a quote from Forbes:
“After a 38% collective pay raise in 2006, chief executives of the 500 biggest companies in the US…took a pay cut of 15% last year…In total, these 500 executives earned $6.4 billion in 2007. AN AVERAGE of $12.8 million APIECE. (My emphasis) By the way, Safeway’s and Marriott’s CEOs each averaged 20 million over the past 5 years. Still want to shop/lodge with them? These salaries may be upsetting, given the recession, but’s hardly an ill unique to healthcare.
In terms of CIGNA’s business model, here’s a quote that may enlighten you, from Wikinvest:
“…three-quarters of Cigna’s health insurance business isn’t really insurance. Cigna manages health plans for companies who self-insure, agreeing to pay employee’s helth care costs. Employees get Cigna cards and access to Cigna’s negotiated rates with doctors, and Cigna handles billing. BUT THE EMPLYER BEARS THE RISK OF PAYING FOR CARE when employees get sick… Over 75% of Cigna’s 2007 enrollment consisted of self-funded ADMINSTRATIVE-ONLY plans… Cigna also differs from its competitors in that over 68% of the company’s pretax operating income came from INVESTMENT INCOME… almost four times that of other large national health account providers.” (My emphasis)
CIGNA receives more than it pays out because 75% of it’s “affiliates” really arent. It is a compay, which in order to stay afloat, must generate income. It does so partly by INVESTING (e.g. in properties it later sells “for profit”).
The beauty of the free market is that you (or perhaps your employer) have a choice in dozens of different insurance carriers. Don’t like CIGNA? Don’t buy their insurance! Organize your fellow employees to petitiona change in carrier!
As a post script, don’t fall for goy’s use of CIGNA as an example: (chopped into pieces, so that it would post)
Goy rants on how insurance companies use my money to pay for executive pay raises, employees and their benefits, as well as countless properties and subcontracted services. Surprise! You’ve just described any of a number of large US companies. The Big Three auto makers, for example, must cover the cost of large CEO salaries (and their famous corporate jets), unionized employees and their benefits, including health benefits and pensions, as well as a large array of subcontractors, all with the cost of selling YOU a car. The subcontractors he demeans, including those overseas, are usually contracted because they are cheaper/more efficient, so it costs LESS to employ them than to do the work “in house.” This includes “clearinghouses,” which insurance companies use to encourage electronic billing and CUT THE COST of manual processing, many which today are FREE for providers. …
….Goy goes off on how many properties CIGNA owns, and how much its CEO earns ($15 million), using his personal experience as a CIGNA temp worker to prove how health insurance companies waste money. How odd he singles out CIGNA’s (and Caremark’s) CEOs, who happen to be two of the top three highest paid CEOs in the health insurance industry. The CEO of industry giant Humana averaged less than one-fifth this compensation, at 2.7 million. It still sounds like much, but it’s called BUSINESS in America. This is a quote from Forbes:
“After a 38% collective pay raise in 2006, chief executives of the 500 biggest companies in the U.S.… took a pay cut of 15% last year. …In total, these 500 executives earned $6.4 billion in 2007, AN AVERAGE of $12.8 million APIECE. (My emphasis) By the way, Safeway’s and Marriott’s CEOs each averaged 20 million over the past 5 years. This may be upsetting, but it’s hardly unique to healthcare….
…Here’s a quote from Wikinvest, which may enlighten you on CIGNA:
“… three-quarters of Cigna’s health insurance business isn’t really insurance – Cigna manages health plans for companies who self-insure, agreeing to pay employee’s health care costs. Employees get Cigna cards and access to Cigna’s negotiated rates with doctors, and Cigna handles billing, BUT THE EMPLOYER BEARS THE RISK OF PAYING FOR CARE when employees get sick. … Over 75% of CIGNA’s 2007 enrollment consisted of self-funded administrative-only plans… Cigna also differs from its competitors in that over 68% of the company’s pretax operating income came from INVESTMENT INCOME … almost four times that of other large national health account providers.” (my emphasis)
CIGNA receives more than it pays out because 75% of it’s “affiliates” really aren’t. It is a company, which in order to stay afloat, must generate profit. It does so in part by INVESTING (e.g. in properties it later sells “for profit”).
The beauty of the free market is that you (or perhaps your employer) have a choice of dozens of different insurance carriers Don’t like CIGNA? Don’t buy their insurance! Organize your fellow employees to petition a change in carrier!
Chileno,
A very interesting open minded evaluation of the problems of health care.
‘Socialised Medicine’ is a term Americans seem only to use. It is not just supported by ‘socialist’s',which again a word not used much.Politically you can not put us in boxes like you can in the U.S.
The N.H.S is strongly supported in theory.Obvious problems are debated daily.Elections here are won and lost on education and health.To improve the system not get rid of it.
We not stupid people,just different on how we view the needs of society around us.
As i work in it ,i see the problems. No way can it be cradle to grave.Much is targeted at pre-emptive care,immunisation,contraceptives,std’s,screening,smears,mammograms,prostate,bowel cancer,diabetes before they need to be hospiltalised .
Sin tax is debated,help is offered to obese and smokers to improve their quality of life,but would it mean people doing dangerous sports are liable?
The abuse of the N.H.S at the moment is of immigrants flooding the system.However at no point to any of us feel we shouldn’t treat them as human beings.
It’s OUR action’s that reflect’s a nation. I am proud of that .
Despite the Europeans being generally satisfied with their system, it’s questionable whether Americans would. It does not fit the American psyche. We are “rugged individuals,” who were always taught that this is the land of opportunity. If you work hard, you will get ahead. Optimism and ambition drive us, and it’s why immigrants from all over the world looking for a brighter future flock to America. Government intervention is often seen as unhelpful, limiting our freedoms and hampering our rise up the economic ladder.
Our healthcare system has its problems, but it’s still remarkable. Many cross the border from Canada and Mexico to get treatment in the US. The Canadian system, so the saying goes, works fine, as long as you keep the American system next door. For most routine health issues, it works fine. But if there is an urgent matter (e.g. a painful knee that needs replacing, or a suspicious nodule that needs a biopsy), and there’s a 3-month waiting period, many cross the border and get treatment quicker in the US.
“…but would it mean people doing dangerous sports are liable?” I pick on smokers and the obese because currently these two groups are severely taxing our health system. We don’t have an epidemic of football players or skiers driving up healthcare costs, but we do have a diabetes epidemic doing as much, mostly caused by obesity. Heart disease continues to be the number one killer in America -to which obesity and smoking both contribute. Besides, how would you define/tax dangerous sports? It’s like trying to define/tax “dangerous” vs. “safe” sex practices. But it’s easy to define/tax a cigarette (which is toxic even in moderate amounts) or a low-nutrient snack.
Chileno,
There is private hospital’s here paid through insurance and employment cover.
However,say you go to have your baby in a private hospital and problems occur and deliver a very premature baby.
The private hospital refer’s them back to the N.H.S .
This keeps the extra insurance low because they won’t have to be charged over a million pounds for the complication.
Some treatment may be quicker in the U.S.A ,but only if you can pay.It doesn’t account for the million’s with no access to help.
The U.S isn’t alone in it’s belief of working hard to achieve your goals.
We recognise that people can fall on hard times be irresponsible parent’s and develop chronic illness.
It is sad to see that it is ‘Un American’ to believe health is based on ability to pay.
It seems a very selfish reasoning and does not reflect well on your countries up bringing.
It is not right to say we want Big government controlling us. It is what value system we have as a society .
I do agree with all the ideas you’ve presented to your post. They’re really convincing and will certainly work. Still, the posts are too brief for starters. Could you please prolong them a bit from subsequent time? Thank you for the post.
I do agree with all of the ideas you’ve introduced in your post. They’re very convincing and can certainly work. Still, the posts are too quick for newbies. Could you please extend them a little from next time? Thank you for the post.