Romania’s 20-Year Nightmare: Unraveling Socialized Health Care
America’s health care system represents one-sixth of the economy. The total U.S. gross domestic product is $14.1 trillion, and one-sixth means about $2.35 trillion. Considering that the length of a dollar bill is 6.4 inches, a trillion dollar bills laid end to end would make a chain 96,906,565.66 miles long — extending almost 4 million miles beyond the sun.[iii] This unimaginably immense amount of tax money was paid by “we the people,” who should at the very least have been given a say about how it was to be spent.
“We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it,” said Nancy Pelosi, at that time speaker of the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, talking to the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties. That was a first in U.S. history. That would have been the norm in the old Eastern Europe, whose Marxist governments were always clouded in secrecy.
A few years after Romania was blessed with a nationalized health care system managed by bureaucrats instead of doctors, the country’s hospitals became so badly degraded that there were frequent cases where two people had to be put in the same bed. Sauve qui peut became the catchword of the privileged Marxist nomenklatura, which took its own health care out of the hands of the hospitals destined to serve “the idiots,” as Romania’s president Nicolae Ceausescu called his people. The Communist Party seized the Helias, a hospital built by a Western foundation, and ordained that it exclusively serve the needs of the party nomenklatura. The Securitate, Romania’s version of the KGB, took over a private hospital (named for a Dr. Dimitrie Gerota) and transformed it into a medical center (renamed Dr. Victor Babes) exclusively destined to serve its personnel. So did the Ministry of Defense. In the 1970s, I myself even built a hospital for my foreign intelligence service, the DIE. The hospital had no name and it was hidden away in the Băneasa Forest near Bucharest, to be protected from the eyes of the “idiots.”
Death Panels, change you can believe in…
4 more years, no hope for America..
Random Blowhard’s message was demoralizing. I don’t know if he really is in a state of despair or is doing sykewar by pretending that the President has already been re-elected. I was proud to host a guest blog by Emergency Room physician James Pagano, and here is his short essay on ACA. In the comments section he lays out a program for fixing the problems in the health care delivery system. The link is here: http://clarespark.com/2012/03/29/james-pagano-m-d-on-affordable-care-act/. Roger Froikin’s comment is also worth your time.
What bugs me is the use of the term “Health Care” when discussing the issues that Americans have wanted improved. That is totally false.
Americans have never been complaining about “Health Care” —
The “issues” were with “Health Insurance” —
which hasn’t been allowed to function in a free market — and would correct itself if it had to deal with market competition.
Everyone who speaks or writes about the subject should STOP using the term “Health Care” and always — use the term “Health Insurance.”
Death Panels are an established part of our current system. My father died from chemo. He had lymphoma, and was treated successfully for a mass in his throat, with nuclear medicine. However, when it came time to treat the lymphoma in his lower abdomen, his case was reviewed by the “Cancer Committee”. Given the fact that the hospital had only one of the nuclear medicine machines, my father was relegated to off-prem chemo. This quickly resulted in a blood clot that eventually killed him. The hospital actually discharged him with the blood clot in order to free up a hospital bed. The physician who presided over his death said he buries many patients from the chemo clinic. By the way, a gentleman who arrived for the nuclear medicine treatments, several times I was present, told me he had the machine booked for the next year. He said that his foundation paid a good portion of the cost of the machine. The implication of preferential treatment was obvious.
True, hospitals are to a large extent socialist; one department subsidizes the others.
I ask you forgiveness ahead of time for asking this, but was there any possibility of getting him transferred to somewhere else and paying cash? Are all other places like this or would it have been too dengerous to move him?
It makes little difference what type of industry you are looking at, if it is run by Bureaucrats who are not continuously monitored, the endeavor will fall into chaos in short order. That is the nature of human beings, they all suffer from advanced hubris and inflated egos. They all think that they are way to important to actually work and so the Peter Principle ends up being the rule. ie.. Everyone is promoted to their level of complete incompetence.
This is normal rule of all bureaucratic organizations. And if you think this is not true then you have had very little experience in the large corporate or government world.
This health care promoted by Obama will be the biggest farce that ever existed in the United States within five years. And the citizens will pay the bill with their taxes and some will pay with their lives. Count on it…
Americans should be reminded — often –
that with our “old” (and sort of “still”) system — for now —
– if — they become victims of genuine medical malpractice — or if an insurance company violates their contract — they still have the courts to go to — and thereby there is great care taken that they be treated decently.
Once we have a system run by the government and bureaucrats — there will no longer be any dissuasive prevention or remedy for malpractice — lawsuits will no longer be in the picture.
(It appears that the trial lawyers who support the “change” haven’t really thought this through very well. They probably think they will be able to remain powerful, but they’ll be on the short list to go!)
Do you believe that this Lawyer’s Bar ass kissing administration will prevent the lawyers from suing?
Maybe for “this administration” it’ll be too soon — or maybe not.
In any case, “useful idiots” (i.e. in this case, many trial lawyers) are usually the first ones to get “eliminated.”
The government doesn’t allow its citizens to sue it.
At some point this factor will kick in.
Since the Death Panels are QUANGOs you can bet your last pulse that lawsuits against the system will be eliminated.
NONE of the other nationalized health systems permit lawsuits against the ‘system.’
I think the left has already re-branded it as “compassionate homicide” or some such evasive weasel-term now… (therapeutic homicide?)
“American filmmaker Michael Moore glorified British nationalized health care in his 2007 documentary Sicko..”
He also glorified the Cuban health system and failed to point out the hospital in his film was for party members, not the Cuban public. I recall hearing that when his film was shown to Cuban doctors, they promptly stood up and walked out.
http://www.therealcuba.com/
Michael Moore’s scenes involving the Canadian health system were dubious at best too.
One of the scenes had an American tourist in Windsor, Ontario (just across the border from Detroit) go into a hospital ER there and get treated in under 15 minutes. This is massively improbable. (I’m strongly tempted to say completely impossible but I suppose there is always a remote chance that they went at a time when there just happened to be a major lull in demand for that ER.)
As a Canadian who has had to go to the ER on occasion and knows many others who have been to ERs for fairly important illnesses or injuries, it’s clear to me that the normal wait for treatment is several HOURS, not several minutes. I know of one case where an acqaintance of mine was left lying in a gurney in a hallway for many hours, basically from late the afternoon he arrived until well into the next morning. When the doctor finally saw him and examined the infection that was racing up his leg, there was an immediate provisional diagnosis of flesh-eating disease and a surgeon was consulted about amputation. (As it turned out, it was NOT flesh-eating disease and the amputation was avoided and replaced by a course of very powerful antibiotics.) I just mention this to show that the individual in question was NOT in the ER over a sniffle or other minor complaint but over something potentially life-threatening.
As for waiting for an MRI, a good friend’s wife had very severe pain in her shoulders that made it difficult for her to lift things and even dress. Her family doctor did every test he could do to get a diagnosis without success and finally determined that an MRI was the only way to be sure what was going on. He said his staff would call her shortly to confirm an appointment. A few days later, on November 7, the doctor’s staff called to tell her that the appoinment for the MRI was confirmed for November 1st. My friend’s wife was baffled; how could she have an appointment for November 1st when it was already the 7th? The doctor’s staffer explained that it was November 1st THE NEXT YEAR!
The reality in this province (Ontario) is that there are relatively few MRIs and even though they are reputedly run 24/7, there are long backlogs to get an MRI. My friend’s wife was distraught at the thought of having to wait a full year for the MRI and her final diagnosis; her condition was already giving her great pain and impeding her efforts at work. (As it turned out, a cancellation enabled her to have her MRI a little bit early: she only waited 4 months, not a full year.)
I read several years ago that either Canada or the province of Ontario had a contract with Detroit to provide certain types of healthcare to Canadian citizens. Is this true, do you know, Henry Reardon?
Just the difference in the amount of MRI machines in this country and countries with socialized medicine tells part of the story.
Another thing, US cancer survivor rates are way and above any in Europe and considerably above Canada, too though not by such a large margin. I’d like to see the stats in the provided link broken down into what particular thing it is that puts us so low on the actual health list. With us being #1 in providing quick treatment and being at the top in cancer survivors, what is it that keeps us so low? According to the link it doesn’t have a whole lot to do with health care itself.
Which link and rankings are you referring to? The WHO rankings that were bandied about in the media. They were phony, a ranking more of how much central government control over medicine there is vs the quality, etc. For example, from what I recall, there were 3 sections each with an equal share of the score. The first was how “equal” it as alleged to be. To make a long story short, if a country was said to have 85% of the people get excellent care and 15% average, then that country would rank lower than one deemed to have 100% get average. Less equal, see. The third section was the most absurd. The US ranked at the top on all sections related to the provision of actual medical care. Yet because it did not have a single, centralized database of everyone’s medical records run by the central government, it dropped down significantly. They actually said that in the summary of the section. Even though everything else was at the top, that lack of a database managed by the Federal Government caused us to drop way down in the list. And that was 1/3 of the total score. Forgot what the second section was.
But that’s why Cuba ended up so high in the WHO rankings. Everyone (except the bosses) gets the same deal, makes no difference how good, and the central government controls it. 2/3 of the score was 100/100 on that criteria.
The whole thing was absurd, but the way it works now is that some ideologues cook up nonsense like this, it gets peddled relentlessly in the media, and it just becomes a repetetive talking point you’ll hear “progressives” recite, even though none of them have ever even looked at it. Propaganda that used to appear in Pravda gets fitted out with a tweed jacket and a PHD, and it becomes a “study by experts”.
Health care is a provincial matter in this country, in the sense that each province has its own health system. The federal government has a role in setting standards and so forth but I don’t think the feds make agreements with other countries about providing services to Canadians.
I have heard that the Ontario government will sometimes send Ontario residents to the US but I’m not sure how that works. I believe it arose in the days when we were first getting MRI machines but had far less than the US and wait times were very long. Various Canadians, especially those in border areas, were well aware that you could go to Buffalo or Detroit or other places and get your MRI the next day and complained that some conditions just couldn’t wait months until a Canadian MRI machine became available. There was pressure for OHIP (the Ontario Health system) to allow urgent cases to go to the US for diagnostic work and the provincial government eventually agreed. But I’m not sure if any such agreement is still in effect nor do I know what diagnostic tests and/or procedures can be handled that way. I do know that the politicians, especially the ones on the left (which is the majority) are embarassed at having to send patients to a foreign country so I expect they are doing everything they can to minimize that.
I really don’t have much personal contact with the Ontario health system so I don’t have a lot of horror stories that I can tell from personal knowledge. There are news stories periodically about horrendous delays in ERs and long delays for various diagnostics and procedures but our MSM isn’t any better than yours as far as honesty and bias so I never know when they are blowing one case out of proportion to justify further expenditures by the health system and when they are actually discovering systemic problems.
Moore was a Hollywood creation with a lot of help from the pinko MSM.
Let’s emphasize right here, right now, that Miss Nancy and her co-Congressmen and-women and Senators also have their own separate medical plan, and while they could “pass it”….what a nice punning opportunity that is…..to see what it contained..another pregnant pun alert……we hapless Citizens are the ones who wait out the growing bureaucracy.
“All, from those working in Congress to those working in White House, granted themselves American versions of Helias and Gerota. None of them wanted to put his life in the hands of a nationalized health care system run by bureaucrats.
“Some 1,200 companies that had given grants to the Democratic Party and labor unions representing 543,812 workers also received waivers from part of the health care reform law.”
It’s been on my mind since Obamacare passed, and especially since the Supreme Court decision.
I can’t understand why EACH and EVERY ARTICLE written warning about ObamaCare doesn’t START with the REMINDER that
CONGRESS EXEMPTED THEMSELVES, their FAMILIES and WHITE HOUSE WORKERS from the plan.
If this was emphasized MORE, I think it might seep into the heads of those lost in a daydream about it — and might make them think!
Add to that the facts regarding the “exempted” favorites!
P.S.
Each and every time — without exception ….
ObamaCare from now on should be referred to and called:
CONGRESS EXEMPTED OBAMACARE
or
ELITE/CRONY EXEMPTED OBAMACARE
Pacepa’s perspectives are fascinating and, I’d guess, new to almost all of us. He may not know just how bad the British NHS is, nor about the ridicule that greeted Michael Moore’s propaganda. Few would point to the Brit/Canadian models as worthy goals.
I’ve had the misfortune to be admitted to inner-city hospitals in Los Angeles and, while working in the UK, in London and Birmingham. I’ve also been in an African bush clinic and offered a choice between the rusty needle and the broken one. Not statistically significant, maybe? True, but it sure helps makes sense of the endless, Kafka-like headlines in the Brit media about death in the dirty, windowless corridors of the NHS.
One difference that’s never covered by the MSM: the overall quality of US physicians and nurses in the inner cities, warts and all, is much higher than for their Brit counterparts. You’ll find excellent GPs in the UK, dedicated physicians raising families in safe rural areas, but in public hospitals in the cities, the problem is not the need to bribe but the need to find a physician who speaks English, didn’t get his degree via mail order, and isn’t a serial killer.
On the contrary, many ignorant Americans AND Canadians DO just that!
Even after their neglect nearly killed her, all that one of my (many) Canadian aunts could say was that she was thrilled with their system because it is “free”!
Ignorance is often willful.
Communist-era medical practices also led to an AIDS epidemic among Romanian children. Doctors gave small transfusions of adult blood to newborn children to stimulate their growth. When a donor was infected, many babies would be infected. The doctors and nurses were not fastidious about needle safety either.
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/waittimes/
Perusal of the Ontario (Canada) Ministry of Health waiting times page list is elucidating. Sure, its “free”. But you can die while waiting…
What convinced me 12 years ago that the system is wanting was reading in the paper that senior Canadian politicians were nipping down to Cleveland to have their health reviewed at the Mayo Clinic.
Its nice to see the USA catching up to the Canadian standard!
Have you ever seen the movie “THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS”. I haven’t, but recall Mark Steyn commenting on it.
“In the U.S., the doctor is king. This is crucial for saving people’s lives. If the doctor thinks there is something wrong with his patient, he can immediately start all kinds of diagnostic tests, get the results as soon as possible, and start treatment immediately.”
This isn’t true. In reality I have to go to a doctor that’s on my insurance company’s list or pay out of pocket. Any tests that my doctor wants have to be vetted by the insurance company or they won’t pay. Prior to Obamacare if I had a pre-existing condition I’d be denied coverage and forced to pay out of pocket. If I had a capped policy and had reached my policy limit, again I would be denied coverage.
When someone in this position reaches the bottom. Out of money, bankrupt and unable to work, it’s the state that finally helps through Medicare and Medicaid.
I believe we have an excellent healthcare system, but at some point the rose colored glasses have to come off.
Your only argument appears to be that everything you want isn’t free. All the other people who come here for our excellent health services are paying for it, why shouldn’t you? Because you are a Marxist, that’s why.
There has been a very good safety net for people with chronic conditions in this state for many years. No one has to go without health care and those who have no insurance and no money need only go to any emergency room in this country and be treated.
For some reason or another some people have health care at the bottom of the list of importance. I’ve seen this in members of my own family. A woman I know worked in a local store and once was in such terrible shape, (sounded as though she was going to cough up a lung) I said she should see a doctor. She said it was too expensive but a couple of sentences later she said they were leaving for Disney World the following week. What kind of Eloi attitude is that?
Lefty — It wasn’t always that way. In days of yore (60′s, 70′s) there were covered procedures (needed medically), and not-covered (i.e. cosmetic).
If it was needed medically, it was covered.
Doctors pretty much knew what was covered — or made a phone call to double check (as for i.e., pre-natal coverage). They didn’t have to wait for “approval.”
I don’t know exactly when it changed — but most likely, it’s when the government started interfering to “help.”
P.S. They also didn’t have to have huge staffs just for the purpose of filling out forms — driving up medical “costs.”
You do realize that, at least in the employer-sponsored plan world that 90% of people with insurance participate in, if you have coverage during the preceding 18 months with no more than a 63 day gap in there anywhere, and you move into another job with a new insurance company, all preexisting exclusions are waived. This has been the law since the 90′s. The claim that people cannot move from one job to another because of preexisting conditions, as I’ve heard the Obama people make frequently, is utter myth. They know it, the media knows it. I have no idea how you don’t know it, because it says so in black and white on every insurance policy. You get a new job, you present your “Certificte of prior coverage” from your old insurance company, and no PEC exclusions.
It also says my policy cannot be cancelled due to illness or the amount of medical care I get. (also, I believe, existing laws) It does say it can be cancelled if I committed fraud on the application. So, these are all things that already exist that Obama claims to be doing.
My lifetime limit is 2 million dollars. If I reach that number, you have my permission to shoot me. There is no annual limit. I’ve never had a policy in my life that had one and that’s been with many employers.
Right now this linkage of healthcare to complete social control is advancing all over the West through the Wellbeing initiative. The push away from a deficit approach to it being government’s Responsibility to provide for the physical, social and emotional wellbeing of Each Citizen. This is intrusive nonsense of course but it authorizes bureaucratic intervention in every individual domain. There is no zone of individual privacy or personal autonomy with this statist vision.
It is part of Obamacare and Obama’s Common Core education reforms are mandating Positive School Climates in the terms of those NCLB waivers the DoED is pushing. Because Congress will not enact the kind of statutory language Obama can misuse. At least not the full version.
The Positive School Climate research then cites Layard’s Happiness and Mental Health initiatives to remake children’s feelings from the UK and Seligmann’s Positive Psychology. If totalitarianism is trying to control the mind, we are there in this planned implementation. In fact the School Climate Center is the renamed Center for Social and Emotional Education.
So Obamacare, Obama’s education initiatives, and his pushes to control economic production and consumption through his Green Energy and environmental putsches gets you every bit of the function and control over people and the economy that any Marxist ever aspired to.
And since the US still has elections the betting is that not enough voters will recognize what has happened in time.
And for those of you who missed our top story, here is Garrett Morris from the School for The Hard of Hearing.
‘Our Top Story tonight, What’s his name is still dead and the healthcare plan still sucks….’
I fear the only way we’ll get rid of this monstrosity is the same way they got rid of Ceausescu.
You are most likely correct about ridding ourselves of America’s evil leftist/eco-freak/pro-jihadi power elite. It will most likely take several wars of secession to get out from under it. I don’t plan to be living anywhere near here by that time. I am a “seasoned citizen”, I have been warning people about what is going on for many decades, and if that isn’t enough to prevent the breakdown, I figure I’ve already done my part and deserve to live out my final years in peace.
That said, the whole point of Ion Mihai Pacepa’s article is that the evils of the national health care system persist long after the dictator has been deposed. It is exceedingly difficult to start from nothing and rebuild a free-market, civil society.
That said, the whole point of Ion Mihai Pacepa’s article is that the evils of the national health care system persist long after the dictator has been deposed. It is exceedingly difficult to start from nothing and rebuild a free-market, civil society.
–
Why should it be so hard to start from nothing? As long as you don’t accept the obligation to give everyone the same benefits they had under the socialist system – or charge them a fee that covers those benefits – I don’t see that starting over should be that hard.
The quality of doctors (their mentality) and the hospital system will be ruined from years of looking to bureaucrats to tell them what to do — doctors will have become (workers for the gov’t) lackeys of the system (and unionized!) — instead of independent thinkers aspiring to excellence.
How long do you think it will take for this to become the status quo? Four years? (It’s already begun with a certain number of doctors re Medicare/Medicaid.)
In addition — there is within the ObamaCare bill (as I read about soon after it was passed — by someone who actually read it!) — instructions for Medical Schools — and Licensing. Emphasis will be placed on “diversity” as opposed to merit — (in other words “affirmative action”) — lowering general standards for medical degrees, if necessary, to achieve “equalization” of opportunity (for doctors!).
That’s just for starters about the quality of medical students who will become the doctors —
those educated with the idea that it’s the gov’t and bureaucrats who come first — not the patients.
Forget about “First Do No Harm.”
Sadly the mass publik uneducated kids up to mid 40 something will never read this fine article. Do we still have issues with pre-existing condition and coverage limits, while duh yeah but quite railing against the short comings and contribute to a solution. There is ample opportunity for positive open market solutions.
The first is trot reform. Quite looking for a utopian solution or else you will morph into a progressive. Texas painfully went through tor reform and the lawyers/democrat howled and gnashing of teeth was a daily news headline. In the end it was worth the pain. Unfortunately it seems Americans lack the gut to go through any pain at all, otherwise big pharma would not be advertising so heavily so such remedies.
Open state-line competition like auto insurance. Give people the option of opting out if SS like in Galveston. But both parties KNEW the game was noticed and quickly closed the loop hole.
So have you folks figured out that BOTH parties want us financially and socially enslaved???? If not what will it take for you folks to wake up and tell both parties their rhetoric no longer has any credibility but only action leading to the will of the people. The same is true of the mass media, turn them off watch their number drop and revenue…until the politician and the media feel the pain nothing will change and the road to serfdom continues: fast by Democrats, slow by GOP pick your poison.
I agree with your post. The House and the Senate could have passed bills that would have made those things possible and we would not have to swallow the huge TAX (not the mandate they keep decrying). Tort Reform was badly needed here in Texas. I truly believe that we have a great medical system in this country. We have a Congress running off the rails. Why didn’t they cap Big Pharma? We are one of the few countries in the world where Big Pharma companies are not capped. This would have been a very nice thing to see in this country. Seriously, my prescription for a 30 day supply of Singulair is over $400. Why?? I fail to see the logic for such high prices for such small pills for anyone.
Please, I don’t want to hear about capping any companies on this mostly conservative website. The reason drugs cost so much in this country is because the new drugs are mostly all discovered in this country. Will aspirin help you as much as Singulair? No. But if pharmaceutical laboratories are capped and stop researching new drugs, it may be you’ll be reduced to that.
Also, why would the government put a cap on them when they’re huge campaign donors
P.S. Big Pharma is a Leftist term.
Such tripe. Please, think.
There is a reason the FDA makes drug discovery so expensive.
You think it’s an accident?
Your saintly corporations have been captured by government criminals- that is what a board of ‘outside overseers’ does, hostile takeover.
‘Agency guidance’.
Far too many corporations are now mere agents of the State.
A CEO’s real job is to keep the protection money coming.
The de-facto owner, the State bosses, ALWAYS ‘need’ more money.
Across the industry more money is spent on ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION than is spent on research — to include ALL of the government mandated testing (to stop torts).
And the vast bulk of that budget makes its way to TELEVISION…
And the pockets of the Leftists in the MSM.
=====
EVERY state funded medical system promptly terminates ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION. There have been no exceptions.
Likewise. every state funded system prohibits tort lawsuits — because a government system is of a perfected morality and has sovereign immunity.
Of course, tort lawyers are 100% Democrat — and ultra high impact contributors, to boot.
It takes approximately 15 years and about $500 million to bring new drug on the market. And then drug companies only have 10 years to recoup their expenses and show profit, before patent expires and cheap generics will kill their profit margins.
Whether you like it or not, the only way drug company can pay for development of new drugs is to charge lots of money for them while they can.
Your choice is really very simple – either you have new drugs and pay for them or have no new drugs for cheap.
15 years and $500 million- it must be a law of nature.
New and orphan drugs absolutely have to be that expensive,
it cannot possibly be forced collusion by State actors.
It always took that long and cost that much, even in 1895, right?
I am not sure what you getting at. The average cost of new drug is about $500 millions, that is a known fact. Average time to bring it to the marketis about 15 years, it’s another known fact. There are many reasons why it is, and you can like or dislike them, but that is besides the point.
As far as 1895, it did not cost that much then. Patent medicine was very easy and cheap to develop, anyone could do it. If you want to go back to treating deceases with leaches, bloodletting and ketchup, be my guest.
The big money is ENTIRELY spent making the new issue tort proof — as best as possible.
As you can see from TV ads — they still don’t catch all of the problems.
( Even antibiotics induce allergic reactions — it’s a tough task to out master nature. )
It is my strong impression – so please correct me if I’m wrong – but the vast majority of the cost of developing new medicines is the immense amount of testing that has to be done to ensure that the medicine is safe. All the various tests that have to be passed take literally years just to execute and then further time to evaluate.
Obviously, nobody wants medicines that don’t work or have nasty and unexpected side effects. Still, I have to wonder just how necessary all the different tests really are and how many are very expensive and not very effective at finding problems. I have no technical knowledge in this area but wouldn’t it make sense to put together some kind of blue ribbon expert panel that could examine the regulatory process and decide how much of it is necessary and how much could be simplified and even eliminated? If the regulatory process can be streamlined with little or no harm to the process of finding problem medicines, maybe we can reduce the costs and the time to get the medicine to market substantially. That would seem like a win for everyone.
I do not know exactly what breakdown of costs is, but you are probably correct. Another big part of cost is that majority of drug starts are unsuccessful, and those losses have to be recouped somehow.
Costs aside, am pretty sure that 10-15 years time frame is mainly because of testing.
Regulatory requirements are what is driving the drug discovery process. This industry is probably the most regulated industry in USA, even more than air/space and defense, in my opinion.
I have not been involved directly with drug discovery, but I have pretty good knowledge of medical equipment development process, and it is really strict. But I am absolutely agree that something like that is very necessary. Our regulatory compliance officer use to say to us, engineers, – “Would you feel safe to use this equipment on your own child?”
While for some that thought is enough to ensure that corners are not cut, for many is not.
But no matter what your intensions are, the only way you can be sure that what you did is going to work is through V&V – Validation and Verification, i.e. testing. And good careful testing takes a lot of time.
I am not getting into any theories regarding FDA and industry collusion and all other stuff like that. The main thing is that majority of new drugs in the world comes out of US drug companies, so it means something is being done correctly. Whether it could be improved upon or not is a different story.
Much of the drug research is corrupt and incompetent. For a real scare, read: Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science.
I linked to this article HERE. I strongly suggest that others do the same, as well as post the link on Twitter, Facebook, and so forth.
That would work well.. trouble is, since the current resident kinyun is a puppet, as soon as he’s been, uhm, redirected, there will likely be another at least as bad as he is to tie onto the strings.
What is needed is for WE THE PEOPLE to wake up, rise up, gear up, and insist once more that WE are the sovereign. That will require the majority of Americans to take responsibility for their own fates, something “the system” has made marginal, at best, and intolerable in most cases. The Colonists were aware of, and made sxcellent use of, four “boxes”… the soap box, the letter box, the ballot box, and, when those three failed, the cartridge box. When once we take those first three seriously, we will never need recourse to the fourth. An astute look at the candidates the “system” puts forth for our approval tells much: we have had only one in recent memory who has any clue as to what is going on in our health care system, and what to do to fix it. But he is “unelectable”. Why? Because he threatens the status quo, the system, the business as usual model we’ve tolerated. He, being a physician, knows far better than most Americans what is wrong with “the system”, and wants to fix it. The ruling elites are horror-struck by his ideas…. and have marginalised him. The two-party machine have also dealt with him according to their own fears of loss of power.
I hope we will not go the way of Romania, England, Canada, Cuba, and others. But perhaps it will take that to increase the pain level to the point of intolerance and efffective action. Sadly, by that waypoint on the course, the cartridge box will be the only one not rendered ineffective.
Democrats try to change the people so they will vote for democrats. Republicans try to change the government so the people will vote republican.
Democrats change the government so they can corrupt the people, while the Republicans maintain what the Democrats have done in order to enjoy the benefits of a corrupted people.
Our health care system definitely has problems, but Obamacare is not the solution.
The problem is lawyers and law. Everywhere there is failure, lawyers are involved. You can’t buy insurance across state lines. Why? Laws, written by lawyers (working for politicians who are mostly lawyers or have JD’s). Malpractice litigation = high cost to practice medicine. Why? Obvious – law suits filed by lawyers. Every place there are restrictions, inhibitions, adversity to risk (medical innovation for example) there are law makers and lawyers at the core, rotting the system. Then there’s the lawyer defense ‘You won’t hate lawyers when you need one ..’ which is totally bogus, the only reason you ever need a lawyer is because of another lawyer. Everywhere in society there is waste fraud and abuse a law has enabled it by forcing citizens to feed it with money. The operative word is ‘force’. The current system is broke due to the rule of law, i.e. force. Obummercare is worse force, much worse.
In a small town, one lawyer will starve. Two lawyers will get fat.
What is happening in Romania is a travesty.
However, I think it is incorrect to draw equivalences from what is happening there, to the experience of our country. I have a number of objections to the comparisons being made.
Romania has been impoverished for over a century, as a result of being torn apart by nearly a dozen wars, and then economically exploited as a Soviet satellite. As a result, there are ways in which it better resembles a developing rather than developed nation. This means there is a significant asymmetry between the relative wealth of the nations being compared. One side effect of this is doctors and other medical personnel leaving the country in large numbers (as well as many other economic migrants). This would impact both the delivery and quality of medical care in Romania *regardless* of the method used, private or public.
Secondly, the author draws a false equivalency in comparing Romania’s medical system with similar systems in other nations. Right off the bat, in examining it, Romania proportionate to GDP spends 1/2 of what Britain does, 1/3 of Germany, and about *1/6th* of what the US spends on medical care. I am not advocating that spending rise to US levels, but it is an easy conclusion to draw that a system seriously deprived of resources will have serious difficulty, however well organized.
I will leave it at that, but these are just the two immediate and key flaws in the author’s article.
Then, I guess its not really so bad in Romania after all.
There you have it:
“Oh, if somehow it is not working, then just spend more!”
When a nationalizaed Health care has to account for the bureaucracy also, it’s easily to see the spending will be always and always increasing. If that’s the measure of efficiency, they will come with “oh we need this increase in the taxes”, “oh, there is no enough ‘social spending’ you see?”
Many of the WHO figures on medical spending are faked and fudged. France, e.g., is touted as spending “only” 11% of GDP. But the “Social Services” dept spends about 25%, and is almost entirely health care. Then the US ~15% doesn’t look so bad!
Again and again I say; health care will be rationed. All of us will get old or die. The old are already being euthanized in Holland and England. Denial of care for those over 65 will accomplish the same thing here.
Wake up, America!! This is not just your grandmother we are talking about, it is you. We must do whatever it takes to stop Obama and his murdering gang.
just remember…..socialism is for the people, not the socialists!
I agree with Mr. Pacepa’s statement in that the economic crisis was the main task to fix and improve. The main thing is always the main thing. What we got was a President that could not lead on fixing the economy and among other things can’t negotiate very well. But why negotiate with Republicans when it is evident you are pushing another agenda? What is most insidious with “nanny state” policies is the mentality it breeds among its people. And that mentality of, “the state is my sponsor, why should I initiate anything” permeates for generations. Just like the old mentality they continue to struggle with in post-Soviet nations. I am hoping that Obama’s own statement, “Recovery is around the corner,” will be fulfilled on November 6, 2012. After all, the definition of recovery is: “the process of recovering from an destructive habit.” America’s destructive habit has been 3 1/2 years too long.
In this country the food and drug administration takes up to 10 years and up to $500 Million dollars to decide if a drug can be approved and used by doctors
and a if a doctor prescribes a natural product that has not been approved, he can lose his liscense. One out of every 5000 candidates do actually get approved and a lot of them have to be pulled out of public use because they caused injuries or death even though they were tested for up to 10 years. Lots of natural products can’t be approved by the FDA because the drug company doesn’t want to spend $500 Million dollars to take it through the process since they are not patentable. Is it the same way in Romania and Russia?
Health services are rationed in one manner or another in every economic/political system. Its always a question of philosophy–on what basis do you decide who gets how much health service, and who does the deciding? In a free market system, people who are wealthy enough can get anything they want. The less wealthy buy insurance that puts limits on what is covered, from zero limit on up, and the insurance price goes up accordingly. The poor can afford very little to no insurance. They would depend heavily upon the charity of the better off. The implied philosophy is that the more money you have, the more important you are to society. Or, to put it another way, your wealth is a measure of how much value you’ve added to society through your work and/or inventiveness. For those not wealthy, the family and the insurance company decide what is covered/affordable, and this determines when death is the final answer.
In a socialist system, there is no insurance company, since the government is the sole insurer. Instead of CEOs in an insurance company making coverage decisions in a competitive environment, you have unaccountable bureacrats making the decisions, and their primary interest is minimizing cost and, probably also, taking the patient’s political loyalties into consideration. In the vast mojority of cases, decisions will be based on only one criterion–is everyone of a particular age being benefitted equally? And how much life do they probably have left to live? No value judgements are made. That means that a lazy lout who is 20 years old will be valued more than a retired doctor or other person who has led a productive life.
In addition, as is abundently clear in older socialist health systems, fewer people desire to enter the highly controlled, underpaying system, resulting in shortages of qualified doctors and other specialists. To minimize cost, the bureauacracy will skimp on equipment and facilities, leading to a decline in the quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery.
The free market system may not be perfect in some people’s eyes, but socialized medicine is unquestionably worse.
I would make one edit to my above post–The lazy lout wouldn’t be 20, more like 40. After all, 20 is too young for someone to prove their mettle.
Dear Johninohio,
Aptly said! America is not perfect nor are we exceptional people, however; our traditional philosophy of government is indeed exceptional. It provides and gives room for the variables of human incentive, initiative and drive to succeed and excel. A side note — I have one of the lowest priced HMOs, but when my doctor found early stages of cancer, I was in surgery in no time. He saved my life, as he found much more cancer than he thought. Yes, “Doctors are kings.” My doctor always tells me — with a big smile — “I saved your life.” Yes, I suppose you did, doc. Thank you!
I posted this article to my facebook page, this is a response I shall copy and paste:Romania is NOT going to go ahead with the privatization scheme that we have here. The privatization was halted Jan 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Romania
Well, folks, is this right or wrong?
Reintroduced in March, with public hospitals instead of private.
Romanians will eventually be able to buy good health care, which is now impossible (as it doesn’t exist).
you can call them economic protectors, or death panels or what ever you want, but when people are telling us that they will be judging quality of care by age, and determining treatment by possible length of life, then judgements are being made on cost basis and if you are the one not getting the care, it could be called a death panel.
And people better wake up, because all systems are made for the mass, not the individual. So if you are 80, and need a kidney, you may find out that you won’t get it, and will spend the rest of your life on dialysis. That may not be a death panel, but it is a panel that is going to harm your life experience.
And can’t wait until doctors close offices and 30,000,000 people then want care.
The rules of health care.
You can have quality of care, you can have speed of service, or you can have costs.
But you only get 2. and that is how it works, get used to the night mare that is about to start.
And was looking at my health care going up, and thought that obozo told us that with his plans the costs would go down. Another lie, from obozo, our liar in chief.
“The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”
Oh, yes, it should definately be shown by all Republicans as part of the election campaign.
Alas — I don’t think most Americans would believe it could ever happen here — but they should believe it! It’s already begun!
You wrote about “baksheesh” in Romania … and France. In Japan I witnessed it in full force and effect. It’s not even any kind of secret — not considered “baksheesh” or anything sleezy — just considered the normal way of doing things for those who can afford it. There’s little doubt in my mind that all “elites” and those of “means” in countries that have “national health” system — ALL pay baksheesh to get better service from doctors and hospitals.
This “utopian” idea of “equality” — doesn’t and won’t ever exist — socialized medicine will just make it worse for everyone — and will ruin — as you say — the entire system — placing the power in the hands of invariably incompetent and corrupt bureaucrats — instead of where it belongs — with the doctors and patients.
The European Health Insurance is probably what had vaguely been in the mind of Obama, when he launched ObamaCare. It shows two things: that the present inhabitant of The White House has a strong contempt for people in general. The other thing is that he has got the European welfare-state style wrong. The various critics above precisely has all the faults mentioned. That misfortune we do not need to carry on in America.
In England, one cannot have dialysis after 55, heart surgery after 65. And if you have macular degeneration, you must go blind in one eye before you can have treatment in the other.
Do we intend to tolerate this in our country or will we do something about it?
Beware the treaty with the UN on gun regulation.
We are becoming a nation of wimps.
Thanks for the great article. I also recommend the documentary “Burzynski” to people, concerning the story of one man vs. the FDA. It’s streaming for free on Netflix.
I meant to say it’s streaming on Netflix. You have to pay for it. However, I think you may be able to find it for free on youtube.
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