Ideas are more powerful than guns. If we don't let our people have guns, why should we let them have ideas?
-- Josef Stalin
Posted on 01/25/2009 8:11:53 PM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
America's medical system is an expensive mess, but one reason that's the case is because it doesn't go out of its way to deprive people of needed care to save money. Great Britain spends far less, but you'd better hope that you don't get seriously ill and require extraordinary treatment.
The family of a woman with an inoperable brain tumour raised over £130,000 to send her for treatment in America - only to discover that the NHS could have referred her if her local trust had realised it was possible.
The case reveals an "information lottery" in the NHS - a variation on the postcode kind - where access to treatment is dependent on who patients (and their doctors) know, not on their clinical need.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Nationalized health care? Do you LIKE the DMV?
Same people under whose hands the analog-to-digital TV conversion has gone completely FUBAR...
...if Americans think health care is expensive now, just wait ‘til it’s free!
There’s a lot of fraud in our health care system in various forms and it starts from the suppliers of medical equipment all the way up to some insurance companies. Yet no one addresses that.
Cut the fraud and cut the cost first.
The way to cut medical costs is to limit liability. A friend who does heart and lung transplants pays over $100,000/year just in malpractice insurance. And, having experience in the British NHS, I’d like to clue Americans in......Socialized Medicine denies care all the time. That’s something they rarely tell you when trying to sell nationalized health care.
The Socialists don’t care so much about our having health care as they do about having power over us. I guess we’ve finally become too stupid to figure that out.
It is a myth that people in EU have better health care than we do. Much of that misconception is based on “live birth” survival rates. Turns out that in other countries “live birth” is determined by weight, length of newborn. We try to save all. They don’t which distorts comparison.
It is a myth that US citizens don’t have health care. They are uninsured, but they are not denied medical treatment and do not die on the streets unattended. The problem is not health care it is insurance. Insurance is misused as payment for primary care. It should be for extraordinary events.
Another factor is the power of the AMA which acts as a union prohibiting intermediary levels of medical care which would increase the number of practioners and thereby decrease costs. Case in point was the struggle of midwives 20 years ago.
Trial lawyers are contributing a great deal to the cost of medical treatment in this country and is one of the factors that should be considered in bringing down costs.
And, yes, the current system is rife with fraud which is easily managed when the bills pass through several systems and are rarely checked.
Works great in Germany, France, all the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and Japan.
Only reason you get the reports from Canada and Britain is because American reporters cant speak other languages.
The system works wonderfully elsewhere. The German combination of public/private care is the most ideal. You still have the full range of choice and everyone is covered and it costs 3% less of GDP than in the US.
Oh yeah, lawyers can’t sue docotors for everything.
Universal health care only works with Tort reform. Anything else will be a complete disaster.
...A ten month waiting list for abortions...
Don’t be comparing the Nuremberg Rallies to last week - not even close!
Despite what the media claim, there were only 552,000 in Washington last week, A poor comparison to Hitler’s events.
Now, now; be fair. Unlike Hitler, Zer0 can't shoot people for failing to sing his praises...yet.
If you like how the US Postal Service is run, you’re going to love nationalized health care...
“Works great in Germany, France, all the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and Japan,”...
Sure, and what are the tax rates in those countries compared to the USA?
That’ll never happen. It violates the 2nd undeniable truth about liberalism.
The only freedoms that liberals support and protect are those involving sexual behavior choices. In the case of these freedoms, rule one applies - liberalism is simply making the responsible or innocent pay for the consequences of the irresponsible decisions of others.
Absolutely true, originalbuckeye. I lived in the UK for many years and can attest to what you say. I have no time to elaborate at the moment but, suffice it to say that the NHS -- and the whole concept of socialized medicine -- is appalling and should never be implemented anywhere.
Overall taxes completely irrelevant because we are only talking about health care. I am not suggesting adopting other European practices.
The right questions are what percentage of GDP is spent on health care, what percentage of people are covered and what is the life expectancy?
In each country the answers are (in order): less than in the US; 100%; longer than the US. In other words, better results for less money.
Your next comment about the US have the best medical technology and people coming for special treatment to America has nothing to do with the overall mass health care system. It is the result of America's vastly superior university system which produces the best research in nearly all fields. The health care system is a mess. But, keep in mind it cannot be fixed without Tort reform.
We in the US don’t have a health care access problem. We have a health care payment problem.
And, how can overall tax rates not be relevant to this discussion? What proportion of taxes go toward national health care in European socialist countries? The entire GDP of Europe is less than that of the USA, and in fact France, Italy and Germany have less per capita GDP than all but five of the states of the USA. Tax rates certainly are an issue in this case.
You also left out rationing, which is a real issue in the UK NHS, Canada, and other EU countries. Americans will never accept rationing (ie, “cost-effectiveness”) as the NHS, NICE and other agencies propose.
I agree tort reform is the key here. I see it everyday, as my wife is a general surgeon who pays dearly for malpractice insurance, despite never having an action against her in nearly 25 years of practice. If we take away the “deep pockets”, we can eliminate a huge cost burden.
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