Posted on 01/19/2009 9:47:31 AM PST by oh8eleven
"IMAGINE HAVING to wait 18 months to see a specialist after you went to your GP with chest pain. Or having symptoms suggestive of cancer and waiting at least a year to see a consultant. Either scenario, were it to occur on a regular basis, would trigger a public outcry. For the three-quarters of a million people with a neurological condition, however, waiting 18 months to see a consultant and 10 months to have an MRI scan in order to secure a diagnosis is now the norm."
(Excerpt) Read more at irishtimes.com ...
Government run health care is no different anywhere.
Try finding a Medicare neurologist these days here in the US. Three month wait, if you are lucky.
And a Medicaid neurologist? Non-existent.
Of course, not mentioned in the article is that an Irish citizen can see a private neurologist and get a private MRI instantly. Such services are not however “free.”
Why does it take 10 months to get an MRI? So few machines purchased with the limited funds of a government paid health plan? So few operators of said machines due to low pay, or there is no money in the plan to pay for more?
What limits all this? The government just doesn't have the $$ to pay for these things? No one wants to work in healthcare due to the low wages? Can someon help me out hre so I have ammo against those I talk to who advocate universal healthcare?
As an aside, I can tell you this: My county free health clinic has a policy of only taking daily appointments. This means you have to start calling them at 8 am and hope you get through before all of the appointments for the day are taken. Of course, you are calling them along with a thousand other people, so it's always busy. If you do not get through in time, too bad! You'll have to try again tomorrow, as they do not accept appointments for anything but the current day.
Contrast this with you-pay-your-way healthcare: I call my Dr. and if I'm really bad off, I'll get squeezed in somehow, otherwise, I'm given an appointment for the next day or a few days from now.
Folks, government run healthcare is not the answer!
It took almost 2 months for my daughter to get an EEG after a grand mal seizure last year. That was in California with a PPO insurance.
It meant she was on crappy seizure medication for 2 months longer than we wanted.
The good news: Healthnet is very, very inexpensive. I pay $230 a year for full outpatient and inpatient care. $10 copay. Prescriptions are $3-$9. I get Healthnet as part of military retirement.
The bad news: service runs between fair and bad. It takes six weeks to get a doctor's appointment. It takes a minimum of six months to schedule a physical. When I go to the doctor I usually see a PA or NP. The doctor comes in at the end for less than five minutes and reviews, punches-up his Blackberry, and vanishes. It is impossible -- impossible -- to get the doctor's office on the phone. All communications must be done by fax. There is a delay each way. Getting a referal to see a specialist takes months. This is not good medical care.
Good. Fast. Cheap. Choose two.
I have MS. Initial visit to a neurologist can be a wait, unless your GP is willing to go to bat for you and say it’s urgent. But once the neurologist said, “Could be brain tumor or MS,” I had an MRI within days. And every subsequent MRI I’ve had, there was never much of a wait.
My understanding, from Canadian friends who have MS, is that the wait in Canada is caused by lack of machines, thus making the wait longer.
I’m a psychologist, used to be a nurse and have served on a Board of Health for many years. I’m not sure that I can answer your question precisely but will share what I know about centrally planned “care”. I’ll start with a personal example. My husband recently has had problems with lightheadedness. Initially we thought it was a virus but after it persisted longer than 2-3 weeks (with some chest pain), the NP thought we needed to do tests to rule out “the big dogs”. He had a cardiac cath and an MRI. It only took a matter of days to get these both done. We wanted to rule out CAD, brain tumors, etc. However, in reality the probability of either of these was pretty low and given that we haven’t found anything thus far, his lightheadedness will likely go away on it’s own (it will be self-limiting). If we were in Canada, Ireland, etc. we probably wouldn’t have gotten these tests so quickly. We might have been put on a waiting list and by the time his name would come up he would be better (most likely) or very sick or dead (much less likely). In public health we tend to look at the big picture and probabilities - doing the most good with the resources we have. Centrally planned health care is similar...how can we do the most good with the resources we have - think utilitarianism if you are into philosophy. Many neurological problems are rare (brain tumors really aren’t common) and/or can wait, so I imagine this is one explanation for why resources in this area are limited. Read Daschle’s book. He talks about having a “board/group” make decisions as to the “standards of care” and allocation of resources.
Am I getting close to understanding it? At least this is my impression of what people are saying. I fear for us if we come to that.
Why doesn't the government expand college grants and loans to those who attempt to enter the healthcare field, and why they are at it, give tax breaks to those colleges (mostly two-year ones) that offer AS degrees in healthcare.
I'm on a waiting list to get into the Cardiovascular Technician program at my local community college - 180 applied for 60 seats. As popular as the program is, and the real need for such technicians, they should be expanding the program.
I think the first reason is that when something is “free” more people will use it. So, I can’t stop people from going to the doctor (which costs dollars) whenever they want but I can control the use of expensive technology. Also, when someone or a group is managing health care resources (as the case in socialized medicine) they are more likely to allocate resources in ways that help more people (i.e., they prioritize). For instance, if I have a million dollars I could help more people by paying for immunizations than by purchasing more MRI machines. Younger people have more utility, as well (which makes investments in immunizations even more desirable). So if you are a five-year-old you can easily get an immunization but if you are a 55-year-old you will have to wait for an MRI. A 55-year-old with a brain tumor (or a possible brain tumor) does not have as much utility as 50 children. I’m not saying I agree with any of the above, it just explains the shortage. Not only do they limit the purchase of technologies that are expensive but also the training of personnel. If you have a large number of CV technicians you are likely to have more testing done. Of course, there could be other reasons for a lack of slots. In nursing, it is very difficult to find instructors and that often limits what colleges can do as far as enrollments.
In Canada, there is a quiet civil rights war going on. The Government Bureaucracy and the socialist scum who run the country contend that doctors have no legal right to provide ANY private care.
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Some states pay slightly better.
I don't know your circumstances or the availability of MRI clinics but I had one back in October with only a week's notice. But then again, we have lots of MRI facilities available here..........
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