Socialized Medicine: the horror stories

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My own theories regarding medicine are that what is mainly needed is what TR called "trust busting", the most major piece of which involves the trial lawyers' guild and the BS lawsuits which double the cost of all medicine in America straight off the bat. The trial lawyers' guild of course is one of the two major financial pillars of the dem party, the other being the NEA.

Nonetheless there is another data point which says that pretty much all I ever hear or read from countries which actually have anything like Hillary-Care is grief and heartache. One Canadian soldier noted that the govt. there would allow him to spend his own money on McDonalds food, booze, drugs, or any number of things which would harm his body but not on medicine to heal it, which is now a sort of a thought-crime in Canada. Reports from England are no better:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58379

THEIR GOVERNMENT AT WORK
Brits in record numbers go abroad for health care
Long waiting lists, substandard treatment, increasing threat from hospital superbugs

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Filmmaker Michael Moore praises the UK's National Health Service as a model for the U.S. in his latest film, "Sicko," but record numbers of British citizens have apparently not seen the movie and are going abroad and paying out of their own pockets to obtain better health care.

More than 70,000 Britons will have treatment abroad this year, the London Sunday Telegraph reported, a number that is forecast to rise to 200,000 by 2010.

In the first survey of its kind in the UK, Britons said long waits for treatment by the NHS and fears of the growing hospital-infection crisis were the primary reasons they chose to seek medical care elsewhere.

India is the most popular destination for surgery, followed by Hungary, Turkey, Germany, Malaysia, Poland and Spain. According to the survey conducted by Treatment Abroad, "health tourists" from the UK travel to 48 countries.

The NHS is coming under increased criticism for its failure to provide health care. Cases of the superbug Clostridium difficile have increased 500 percent in the last 10 years and are expected to climb above the 55,000 cases reported in 2006.

Long waiting periods for surgery have imposed a de facto rationing system on medical treatment. Last month, a British man was told he did not qualify for a simple surgery because he was a smoker.

Costs for the NHS have risen due to increased bureaucracy that prevents nurses from seeing patients and increased compensation to general practitioners that have seen their earnings rise over 50 percent in the last three years.

Health tourists are courted on the Internet by foreign doctors and hospitals that offer consultations online or with agents in the UK. Cost of a heart-bypass operation in India, including the flight and hotel, are less than half what the same would cost at a private British hospital. The shortage of dentists in Britain is being met by dentists in Hungary.

"The confidence that the public has in NHS hospitals has been shattered by the growth of hospital infections and this government's failure to make a real commitment to tackling it," said Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association. "People are simply frightened of going to NHS hospitals, so I am not surprised the numbers going abroad are increasing so rapidly. My fear is that most people can't afford to have private treatment - whether in this country or abroad."

In the survey, almost all of those who obtained treatment abroad said they would do it again.

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Well, indeed quite some Britons have treatment abroard. All paid by the NHS.

Quite a lot of Germans have treatments abroad as well, especially in dental surgery and with preventive stationary stays (those three to six weeks you get free). Our health funds pay for it - it's mostly done cheaper.

So what's the problem, you said?

And how many American go to Asia for surgery, to Mexico, Germany - you certainly know those figures as well. (Quite some thousanf/year get free health care in Britain, btw.)

And as for horror stories: I suggest, you start reading those about the gallbladder operation ...

When you'd read the pages 12-15 and the editirial in the quoted Snday Telegraph, you'd noticed that they say more than once "that people from abroad especially the USA must fell like in heaven with such a health system" (pages 12- 15, page 26).

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Ya gotta love gunga's sources. Here's another lead story from the WorldNetDaily site...

Quote:

WEIRDNETDAILY
Baffling 'demon' fires blamed on space aliens
Government report: Other-worldly 'secret weapons' responsible for strange ignition of home appliances
Posted: October 27, 2007
7:00 p.m. Eastern

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A leaked Italian government report concludes "aliens testing secret weapons" are responsible for a series of strange, spontaneous fires that erupted from appliances and other home furnishings all over the village of Canneto di Caronia three years ago.

The community on Sicily's northern coast was the center of international attention in 2004 when residents reported ordinary household items - electrical appliances, wedding presents and furniture - mysteriously began catching fire.

"We cannot risk a tragedy through these fires," mayor Pedro Spinnato told the Scotsman in January of that year, "so I have no other option but to evacuate the village. We have had electrical engineers in to examine cables and wires but they can find no explanation. It is not just electrical items, furniture is also catching fire for no reason. Already people are blaming the events on evil spirits and I am being asked to get the local priest to perform an exorcism."

In fact, as WND previously reported, a Catholic exorcist was consulted about the phenomenon. Gabriele Amorth, told the Italian newspaper Il Messagero, "I've seen things like this before.

Do you not find it odd, gunga, given that the US is unique in the industrialized west in being the one nation without some sort of universal healthcare, that all those other nations' citizens demonstrate absolutely no desire to rescind their healthcare systems? They keep voting in governments who promise to maintain the programs and never vote in parties who wish to dismantle. Do you have an explanation for this phenomenon?

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Well, indeed quite some Britons have treatment abroard. All paid by the NHS.

Quite a lot of Germans have treatments abroad as well, especially in dental surgery and with preventive stationary stays (those three to six weeks you get free). Our health funds pay for it - it's mostly done cheaper.

So what's the problem, you said?

And how many American go to Asia for surgery, to Mexico, Germany - you certainly know those figures as well. (Quite some thousanf/year get free health care in Britain, btw.)

And as for horror stories: I suggest, you start reading those about the gallbladder operation ...

When you'd read the pages 12-15 and the editirial in the quoted Snday Telegraph, you'd noticed that they say more than once "that people from abroad especially the USA must fell like in heaven with such a health system" (pages 12- 15, page 26).

Gall bladder operation?

Was that the case of the 89 year American woman, who went to surgery to have her gall bladder removed and ended up having a kidney removed instead? Anyone who's seen a kidney, knows that a kidney doesn't look or smell like a gall bladder...

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Miller wrote:

Gall bladder operation?

Was that the case of the 89 year American woman, who went to surgery to have her gall bladder removed and ended up having a kidney removed instead? Anyone who's seen a kidney, knows that a kidney doesn't look or smell like a gall bladder...

No.

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blatham wrote:

Do you not find it odd, gunga, given that the US is unique in the industrialized west in being the one nation without some sort of universal healthcare, that all those other nations' citizens demonstrate absolutely no desire to rescind their healthcare systems? They keep voting in governments who promise to maintain the programs and never vote in parties who wish to dismantle. Do you have an explanation for this phenomenon?

In other words, why do euroweenies keep on voting for socialists even as the later keep on finding novel and increasingly grotesque and obscene ways of selling them out? My normal answer to that would be sheep instinct. I could probably come up with something more complicated than that if I put several hours into it, but I've never really tried.

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I mean, aside from everything else, I'd have to assume that starting the day after Hillary-Care was implemented, I'd never have access to any sort of medical care again other than for whatever drugs I could order from India on my own and/or whatever kind of surgical procedures people in the same situation could manage with hunting knives and what not.

Hillary-Care would heavily favor groups of people I simply do not belong to, including mainly people with the time to spend days waiting in doctors' offices, and members of demoKKKrat wholly-owned voting blocks.

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You're talking utter nonsense gunga. Do your homework and check out
how many millions of Americans, and their children, are without any
healthcare coverage. They make too much money to be on Medicaid, not
enough to pay for the horrendous premiums that insurance carriers
collect.

Perhaps you'd rather talk about those Americans who were dropped like
a hot potato by their insurance carrier due to chronic illness and/or other
diseases that are costly. What are these poor people supposed to do?

Lucky for you gunga, that you can afford good healthcare (although I assume your employer is paying) and you won't get sick any time soon, as gawd forbid, if you should do so, there isn't any soul that will pick up the tab for you. Then you might learn to be an altruist after all - who knows!

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how do "horror stories" about socialized medicine add up, against the one we have here? 1 in 7 people are uninsured.

of the 6 in 7 that are, countless can't get anything they actually need from their insurance company, resulting in misdiagnosis, loss of homes, and death. and what kind of propaganda trumps that? russians invading and taking our toilet paper? i believe we do the same thing for other necessities, like oil.

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Polls of satisfaction with various health care systems in nations around the world consistently show US citizens significantly LESS satisfied with our disfunctional PRVATE health care systems than citizens of all other industrialized nations with their nationalized systems.

Public health statistics show the US consistently near the bottom of all industrialized nations in measures of public health. We're down with some third world countries in several measures. The only statistic in which we lead is cost per patient. In that one we are WAY ahead of everybody else. But we don't get our money's worth.

Compared with other industrialized nations, we pay more and get less for it. Sweden, which right wingers for some reason often cite, pays about 2/3 as much as the US per patient as a percentage of GDP (but their GDP is smaller per capita than the US). In absolute amounts per patient, the US pays TWICE as much per person as Sweden. They live longer there. Their people are healthier. Their infant mortality is lower.

For a change, try reading something other than the slanted right wing crap that's all you post, gungasnaKKKe. Try getting the whole picture for once. I guarantee you WorldNetDaily doesn't present it.

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I think that you can find - coming back to the title of this thread - 'horror stories' in every system.

In our town (80,000 inhabitants) - we only have three doctor practices specialised on rehabilitation and preventive & social medicine.
So, you have a long waiting list to get dates there: at the most favourite specialist, it's nearly three months.
But that doesn't mean you were without help: any other doctor can prescibe a three week rehabilitation 'kur' [staying in a clinic in a health and curative spa as preventive therapy] as well - these are just the specialists ....

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Funny thing, I watched the hearings in 93 as much as I could stand to and never heard anything intelligent coming from any side or anybody; just more schemes to throw ever more money at our present system which is like throwing gasoline on a fire to try to put it out. Moreover it seems clear enough that insurance companies and vast beaurocracies add nothing useful to the picture.

My own solution, such as it is:

1. Get rid of the BS lawsuits and eliminate the part which John Edwards and the trial lawyers guild play in the picture. Granted this would collapse the demoKKKrat party, I could live with that. Establish a general fund to try to compensate victims of actual malpractice for actual damages and if a doctor screws up in some indefensible way, revoke his license. That would cut medical costs in America in half for starters.

2. Eliminate unneeded bottlenecks to the extent the problem exists. When I was in college, medical schools were keeping 30% of incoming classes while it was clear enough that the people in the 80'th percentile would have made perfectly good doctors. I doubt that has changed; it should if it hasn't. Same with anesthesiologists.

3. Invite the whole world in to sell drugs in America if that's what it takes to bring prices down. Americans pay many times the going rate for too many drugs.

4. Eliminate the concept of triage or at least introduce some conception of reality into the process; that idea might have made sense during WW-II, but all too often it no longer does. A normal kid needing repairs from a bicycle accident should not have have to wait for hours while an endless parade of crack babies, heroin overdoses, and illegal aliens are seen. Those with lifestyle problems and the indigent should be seen, but they don't always need to be first in line.

Do all of these things and a few others like them, and it's far from clear that you'd need any sort of socialized medicine or any other sort of rationing system.

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You're talking still about the situation in the UK, right?

I mean, I've been to GP practises there, and know quitea lot more people who go there, teachers e.g., but it seems to be a bit different to what you describe.

And besides that: your Sunday Telegraph quote doesn't mention it, too.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

You're talking still about the situation in the UK, right?
....

No. The US. NOW at least, the original article was about England.

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So it was only an opening for complaining about the health situation in the USA and point to the horror stories there.

I see. Clever.

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Quote:

In other words, why do euroweenies keep on voting for socialists even as the later keep on finding novel and increasingly grotesque and obscene ways of selling them out? My normal answer to that would be sheep instinct. I could probably come up with something more complicated than that if I put several hours into it, but I've never really tried.

Australians are 'euroweenies"? Canadians? Brits? A slur (like 'ugly americans' for example) doesn't explain anything, it just allows the user the shallowest pretense of explanation.

username's point that polling consistently shows Americans less satisfied with their medical systems than the citizens of these other nations ought to alert you to some purposeful or ideological myopia on your part. There is every reason to assume that once america implements some similar sort of national system, then american citizens, just like everyone else, will find it an important improvement in their lives and they also will not vote to rescind.

Quote:

I mean, aside from everything else, I'd have to assume that starting the day after Hillary-Care was implemented, I'd never have access to any sort of medical care again other than for whatever drugs I could order from India on my own and/or whatever kind of surgical procedures people in the same situation could manage with hunting knives and what not.

Hillary-Care would heavily favor groups of people I simply do not belong to, including mainly people with the time to spend days waiting in doctors' offices, and members of demoKKKrat wholly-owned voting blocks.

Your assumptions here are not sensible. What you claim as inevitable consequences of such a system do not hold true elsewhere.

You have the fortunate opportunity, in an international discussion board such as this, to actually talk to others who have personal experiences for themselves and their families living within some sort of nationalized medical system. Those personal experiences, broad and numerous, constitute real lived knowledge...not theoretical musings or ideologically-driven assumptions. People really care about quality and access to medical aid.

It would seem rather obvious that if americans are the least satisfied with their medical system then the reason they are is because their system is failing them.

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Tens of thousands of people die in Canada every year. If that is not evidence of the failure of socialized medicine, i don't know what would be. I'm with Gunga Din on this one. Hand me a beer, 'K, Gunga?

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How many Euroweenies can dance on the grave of a pinhead?

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I can only so the "Schieber", a simple dance similar to the one-step.
If more than three dance that on the grave of a pinhead, it's only done here in a circus.

Circus. So back to the topic.

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gungasnake wrote:

Funny thing, I watched the hearings in 93 as much as I could stand to and never heard anything intelligent coming from any side or anybody; just more schemes to throw ever more money at our present system which is like throwing gasoline on a fire to try to put it out. Moreover it seems clear enough that insurance companies and vast beaurocracies add nothing useful to the picture.

My own solution, such as it is:

1. Get rid of the BS lawsuits and eliminate the part which John Edwards and the trial lawyers guild play in the picture. Granted this would collapse the demoKKKrat party, I could live with that. Establish a general fund to try to compensate victims of actual malpractice for actual damages and if a doctor screws up in some indefensible way, revoke his license. That would cut medical costs in America in half for starters.

2. Eliminate unneeded bottlenecks to the extent the problem exists. When I was in college, medical schools were keeping 30% of incoming classes while it was clear enough that the people in the 80'th percentile would have made perfectly good doctors. I doubt that has changed; it should if it hasn't. Same with anesthesiologists.

3. Invite the whole world in to sell drugs in America if that's what it takes to bring prices down. Americans pay many times the going rate for too many drugs.

4. Eliminate the concept of triage or at least introduce some conception of reality into the process; that idea might have made sense during WW-II, but all too often it no longer does. A normal kid needing repairs from a bicycle accident should not have have to wait for hours while an endless parade of crack babies, heroin overdoses, and illegal aliens are seen. Those with lifestyle problems and the indigent should be seen, but they don't always need to be first in line.

Do all of these things and a few others like them, and it's far from clear that you'd need any sort of socialized medicine or any other sort of rationing system.

It's hard to remember a post with so many inaccuracies and foolish suggestions rolled into one!

Cycloptichorn

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Socialized Medicine: the horror stories

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