Posted on 09/04/2007 2:08:51 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Advocates of a single, universal government health program had better hope they never develop heart trouble. Otherwise, they might find themselves confronting choices like those under consideration this week by Britain's socialized health care system.
At issue in Britain are drug-lined stents used in angioplasties to help prop open clogged arteries. Recent studies have shown that for some heart patients, drug-lined stents costing $2,300 apiece are no more effective than plain metal stents that cost $700 each. The potential savings of $1,600 per stent has so warmed the cockles of what passes for hearts among the bureaucrats who run Britain's health-care system that they have proposed ending coverage for drug-coated stents in all circumstances.
Britain's medical community is fighting the proposal. The British Cardiovascular Society has said it is "surprised, disappointed and very concerned" by the proposal. The group warned that eliminating use of the stents would force some patients to live with untreatable chest pain. Dr. Gabriel Steg, a spokesman for the European Society of Cardiology, told The Associated Press that drug-coated stents are still the best choice for some patients.
However, under the British system, the final decision is not up to doctors but to government bean-counters, who are more than happy to save $1,600 per stent at the expense of someone else enduring untreatable chest pain.
As the United States heads into another presidential campaign, more than a few of the candidates are offering health-care proposals modeled on the British system. However attractive such proposals may sound in the abstract, the question for voters is whether, the next time they seek treatment from a physician, they'd like to have a panel of accountants passing the final judgment on which treatments they can or can't receive.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
How long before the bean-counters conclude that it is much better, all ‘round, to just let heart patients die? After all, they are expensive to treat, and the money could be better spent elsewhere.
Oh, wait a minute. They are already doing that. That is why there is an 18-month waiting list for heart surgery in Canada...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
It is no accident that the push for socialized health care and the push for the “Right to Die” are happening at the same time.
Doctors should avoid drug stents in some heart attack patients, experts say
The Associated PressPublished: September 4, 2007
VIENNA, Austria: Doctors should think twice before using drug-coated stents in some heart attack patients, experts said Tuesday.
Dr. Gabriel Steg presented research at a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Vienna showing that patients who received drug-coated stents in an emergency situation were five times more likely to die after two years than those who received bare metal stents.
The tiny, metal-mesh tubes that ooze drugs are used in one of the world’s most common procedures, an angioplasty, which uses a balloon to prop open clogged heart vessels.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/04/europe/EU-MED-Heart-Attacks.php
Get a backbone people. Tell the government where they can stick it.
Democratic and Republican health care proposals both rely on health insurance. The Democrats would make mandatory participation in health insurance programs. The Republican proposals would offer tax credits for people to purchase their own policies. Both benefit the insurance companies, which are major campaign contributors. Neither addresses the supply of medical professionals and services.
Health insurance itself is part of the problem. People working for health insurance companies do not do so for free.
The government is to blame for the shortage of health care professionals and services. It is the government that limited the number and capacity of medical schools. It is the government that forced hospital emergency rooms to treat patients with no means to pay.
Until government regulations and restrictions are abandoned, the supply of medical professionals and services will be scarce, and costs will continue to rise.
The USA has one of the lowest proportions of doctors to population of all industrialized nations. The number of domestically born and trained medical professionals is alarming.
The answer to rising health care costs can only be found by identifying and changing those factors that effect supply. When these are corrected, even health insurance costs would decline. Not a great prospect for insurance companies or the candidates they buy, but good for the health of the nation.
I still remember CONSERVATIVE Margret Thatcher making the statement she couldn’t believe the USA didn’t have Socialized Medicine
She also made a speech at a USA HS where she told the students our 2nd amendment was obsolete
My opinion of her DROPPED after those two events
bookmark
That should get rid of about 90% of em.
Friggin bunch of traitors and tyrants!
Time will tell. Medicine is more an art than an exact science in many cases.
I had to undergo repeated heart caths to unblock the stents (including radiation procedures) they placed in the pre-medicated stent days. I just have one of those bodies that does not make use of stents.
Finally I had to have a bypass, albeit a very expensive and fancy one that was minimally invasive.
Insurance companies like "one solution fits all". It saves them money and keeps things easy to follow on a computer display.
Unless it's a third party payer paying with someone else's money.
How is this different than current American HMO's? They second guess prescriptions all the time, and burden dcotors with so much chickensh7t paperwork that I know several who have abandoned their pratices because of it. We have plenty of bean counters practicing Medicine here.
Normally I love to shred the British National Health, but in this instance we are living in a glass house...
My doctor told me that I only had a 1 in 200 chance of dying because of the implant. I said that I’d like those odds alot better in powerball than this death pool.
My druggie stent was two years ago and has performed flawlessly. I was on Plavix for only a short time and learned how leaky the body can be. Having to be on blood thinner more or less permanently would be a totally last ditch thing.
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