Some lawmakers are questioning whether there is enough legislative support to overhaul health care, but the public appears to strongly support it. Seventy-two percent of Americans surveyed support a government-administered insurance plan that would compete with private insurers, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. Americans also believe that the government would be much better than private insurance at providing medical coverage and holding down health care costs, and 57 percent of those surveyed said that they would be willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans could have health care.
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Uh-huh, Liars, damn liars, and statisticians. And the NYT.
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/11774-New-York-Times-McCain-Voters-Not-Americans.html
And here.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/06/21/nyt-cbs-stock-pro-obamacare-poll-obama-voters
And some uncooked numbers:
Most Americans believe that the nation’s health care system is in need of substantial changes. Four-in-ten (41%) say the health care system needs to be completely rebuilt, while 30% think it needs fundamental changes. About one-in-four (24%) believe that the health care system works pretty well and needs only minor changes.
But there is less support for completely rebuilding the health care system than there was during the early stage of the Clinton administration’s unsuccessful effort to revamp health care. In April 1993, a majority of Americans (55%) said the health care system needed to be completely rebuilt. As discussion of Clinton’s proposals progressed, support for completely rebuilding the health care system declined. By June 1994, just 37% said the health care system needed to be completely rebuilt.
Support for a complete rebuilding of the health care system is lower than in early 1993 among all partisan groups. Today, 53% of Democrats, 38% of independents and 28% of Republicans support completely rebuilding the health care system. In April of 1993, 70% of Democrats, 55% of independents, and 41% of Republicans supported completely rebuilding the system.
http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1534
= = = = =
And some here wonder why the MSM gets little more than a knowing and exasperated eyeroll, and so little credibility from so many . . .
Bool Sheet BrownLib…
Great news busting GMC…
Is it such a terrible thing for insurance executives skimming the top 30 to 40% of health care dollars right off the top? Just asking…….
GMC,
Somehow I doubt those statistics will have much meaning to all the cancer patients whose insurance was canceled when their diagnosis was made. And insurance executives got up before congress and defended their right to cancel those policies. Security, even with insurance companies, is always an illusion. Those patients were defrauded after paying premiums for years, and congress said it was fine.
Jed
Posted June 22, 2009 at 2:05 pm | Permalink
GMC,
Somehow I doubt those statistics will have much meaning to all the cancer patients whose insurance was canceled when their diagnosis was made. And insurance executives got up before congress and defended their right to cancel those policies. Security, even with insurance companies, is always an illusion. Those patients were defrauded after paying premiums for years, and congress said it was fine
————————-
It will be even worse under Government “rationed care.”
Get cancer and find that you are on a nation-wide humongous list of those waiting for that specific cancer treatment – awaiting for some Washington D.C. bureaucrat counting coins to see who gets what care.
Get cancer with no health insurance and it is a death sentence if you are poor.
Roughly one 6th of our people have no health insurance. One sixth is not mathematically capable of overwhelming the system. Clearly, the overwhelming majority understand this.
For-profit health insurance companies are like the buggy whip industry in the wake of the Model T.
Only with more money to lobby Congress.
I’ve said it before but not in a while –
The fatal flaw of treating health care as a market is disease and injury are not market forces.
You don’t get health insurance and go out and get a heart attack. You don’t avoid cancer simply because you can’t afford it.
Just as the high cost of health care in America is key to overall economic reform, the Myth of the Market is showing CONs just how wrong they are in so many areas of life.
A guy in a bar last Saturday showed me his Capital One credit card with a full-wide beaver shot of his ex-wife on the front. He says he never uses it — it has a 34% APR — but he got it because of the “make your own card” commercials on TV. The marketplace at work…
No “substance” again, huh, “okobserver?”
#
BlueJay
Posted June 22, 2009 at 2:21 pm | Permalink
Get cancer with no health insurance and it is a death sentence if you are poor.
Roughly one 6th of our people have no health insurance. One sixth is not mathematically capable of overwhelming the system. Clearly, the overwhelming majority understand this.
——————————
38 Percent of those who incomes are above 50,000 have no form of health insurance.
Could it be a matter of choice and how many Xbox games they haven’t purchased?
“Regular” –
Perhaps you CONs should offer an Opt-Out taxing plan for things such as sewers and fire departments.
Heck. My house hasn’t caught on fire for ages. Why should I pay for other fires?
I could disconnect the sewer and spew raw sewage into the street and save a lot on taxes!
I think it was Will Rogers who noted how CONs seem to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Primate boy,
Your analogies sux as usual.
“Regular” refutes with –
“Primate boy,
Your analogies sux as usual.”
If only Stephen Douglas had thought of that back in the 1850s when he was debating Lincoln!
He’d be president today!
(Or… then. Whatever…)
Monkey why can’t you ever argue with substance instead of ridiculous words. As usual you bring nothing to the discussion.
And just for the record – Will’s best quote was
‘Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.’
Wish that were still true today.
reggie,
“Get cancer and find that you are on a nation-wide humongous list of those waiting for that specific cancer treatment – awaiting for some Washington D.C. bureaucrat counting coins to see who gets what care.”
Hey, at least your on some waiting list besides the grim reaper’s.
I’ve talked to people from Canada and England, and none of them complain about their system- even their conservatives think it’s great! Try listening to them and not what your insurance company tells you- you might get the real story!
I’ve talked to people from Canada and England, and none of them complain about their system- even their conservatives think it’s great!
=========================================
I bet they are healthy.
Steve Jobs didn’t have to wait long for HIS liver transplant, is America a Great Country, or What!
Of course he didn’t get it in his home state of California, had to fly down to the pro-bus. non union state of Tennessee.
GMC – thank-you bunches for links to the snopes type evaluation as well as the actual questions the NYTimes (about to go broke newspaper) actually asked.
Despite the headlines, it is not a slam dunk that Americans favor healthcare reform.
Interestingly 82% have and like they healthcare.
The majority were NOT willing to pay $500 more taxes in order to provide care for everyone.
And some of the questions were worded to get the totals the libs want: Very concerned; somewhat concerned; concerned (he11, that’s a setup to get at least 50%). But even at that – many of the questions indicate most of the respondents have good healthcare and cost isn’t the driving force.
Headlines count when that is all sheep read.
Phantom
Posted June 22, 2009 at 3:13 pm | Permalink
Of course he didn’t get it in his home state of California, had to fly down to the pro-bus. non union state of Tennessee.
Huh. So you are saying your get better sevice from a non-union sector?
Go figure.
“I’ve talked to people from Canada and England, and none of them complain about their system”
Well your “sampling” doesn’t count for squat. I too have talked to people from Canada AND England. When stationed at a joint command, I met the Brits in the dental office – all of them anxious to get their teeth fixed without a delay or refusual.
At the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, I have sat with Canadians waiting cancer treatment they could not get at home (while visiting my father).
But my words here are no better than yours. I will have to resurrect all the posts on Canadian Healthcare and the pr
Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor, and the medical care he receives
January 22, 2009
As we know, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy has an advanced stage brain tumor, and was recently hospitalized for a seizure.
Seizures are a common side effect of malignant brain tumors, and often controlled with a variety of anti-seizure medications. There will be times where seizures can break through medication control, leading to the frightening episode that occurred on Inauguration Day.
Family physician Doug Farrago asks some pointed questions about the stellar care that the Senator receives, observing that “he travels around with a team of physicians,” and, “most patients in [Senator Kennedy's condition] usually are in hospice care.”
Senator Kennedy should be commended for his efforts to bring about health care reform. But is the care he is receiving, including instant opinions and access from revered institutions like Massachusetts General Hospital and Duke University Medical Center, representative of the kind of care he’s advocating for the American public?
—————–
Not a new web entry but very indicative of the hipocricy of the left. Kennedy is writing a bill that will limit our choices while enjoying the best healthcare his money can buy.
Why this the left fooled by this joker? What will the result of his plan be. Read the Daschle plan to get an idea. They drafted it together.
Alright.
Is it more important to have a good health care system which works well or to simply do whatever everyone wants?
Instead of arguing about what is more “popular” lets talk about what will work better.
I’ll just repeat what our tour bus driver in Canada told us two summers ago. ‘Our healthcare is great for me. I’m young and healthy’. He was 27.
He also paid a 47% tax rate on his salary.
Yes this is what I want for our country. You betcha ya!
enjoying the best healthcare his money can buy.
You sure it is his dime? Betting we are footing that bill.
Amway,
Recent polls in England find 82% of the population favors their heathcare system. there is no movement there to go back to a private system. Even their hardcore cons know it’s a third-rail issue.
Sure, boob jobs and tummy tucks and lipo have waiting lists. Maybe they should here too.
anti: go to http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12523427. I recognize what he’s saying for I experiened it for a few years and my extended family still does with no gripes about their system. The horror stories I see on blogs amuses me somewhat until I realize Americans are being hurt every day by the insurance/pharma/HMO machine. Bear in mind that in most places outside the US, physio will be the 1st approach, weight may have to lost and a process of therapies applied before invasive surgery is done. I noted in the bio of Dom Delaouise that he had to wait over year for joint (elective)surgery at Duke University, until he lost weight. Canada publishes her elective wait times, it’ a bench mark with which to improve, the US does not publish drag times beween complaint, seeing a doctor and elective surgery completion. At least I could never find an idependent comment.
Our health care system certainly needs a lot of improvement…but the direction to go is 180 degrees away from socialism, as fast as we can run.
What the socialists never tell people is that their meddling to-date is responsible for most of the problems seen in the American health care system…and that further meddling will make these problems grow and create new ones.
Massive government regulation in the health care industry has brought on increases in health care costs in order to comply with these regulations.
The government is already responsible for 50% or more of the health care spending in the United States through programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and more. The federal government is notoriously lenient when it comes to paying for expenditures, so costs of treatments get inflated, and many times tests and treatments are prescribed simply because the health care industry knows the government will cough up the taxpayer’s money to cover it.
I lived in England for three years and saw nationalized health care up close and personal. I experienced it first hand a few times, one of those sitting in an empty waiting room for hours vomiting into a garbage can waiting to see a doctor after getting food poisoning.
The wait times for treatment and famous waiting lists of months to years in England and Canada have become known to most Americans, and awareness of the same problems in other socialist countries such as Sweden is growing.
Massachusetts also began an experiment with socialized health care a few years under Governor Mitt Romney. While initially touted as a wonderful utopia, reality is now beginning to seep out and we are seeing the same cost explosion and increased wait times that befalls every other socialist experiment in the world. Why do we never, ever learn???
http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/03/poll-most-americans-satisfied-with-health-care-system/
—————-
Jed unlike you I will give a source for my post. This poll taken in March by CNN showed 80% of American are happy with their health care.
“A new CNN poll finds that more than 80% of Americans are satisfied with the quality of their health care.
And even after all the media-hyped whining about capitalism, costs and an expectation that the government should make everything “free,” the poll still found 52% satisfied with the cost of health care.”
Where is the disconnect here. It appears to be with the left like BJ who want something for nothing. Why are we even talking about trashing a system that works for over 95% of the population. This would come at a tremendous cost to our children and grandchildren.
Sheeple line up for the bell to ring and the food to drop.
“In real terms, this means the government looks at you, your situation, and the cost of treating you, and if the government determines you aren’t a good investment…you don’t get treated. If you are severely disabled, old, or otherwise considered a “poor investment” of the government’s money, you are simply denied treatment.
A leading British bio-ethicist has even recently argued that old people and the mentally infirm have a “duty to die.” That could mean Grandpa Jack, or Aunt Trudy, or…you. (Though it certainly couldn’t happen to you, right?) Remember that the next time you consider reaching for your pom-poms to cheer for socialized health care.”
—————–
Another quote from article by a person who was under socialized med in England.
How many of you are willing to let a Washington cronie make your med decisions?
Ted Kennedy would be deal now. He didn’t fulfill his ‘duty to die’. How many of you are ready to fulfill this duty so Obomacare can go forward?
GMC–
Odd . . . your “uncooked” numbers of 75 percent favoring health care overhaul mirrors the “horribly skewed!” NYTimes-CBS poll almost perfectly, 72 percent in favor of health care reform.
Also, your Newsbusters link didn’t explain why fully 50 percent of those self-identifying as RepubliCONs also wanted a health care overhaul.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/etc/tapes.html
Here’s a source that’s a little better than my friend’s brother’s cousin. A PBS-Frontline investigation of five other countries with gov’t run health care.
ANNOUNCER: In the middle of our national debate, Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid journeys to five countries–
T.R. REID, Correspondent: Have you ever paid a medical bill?
BRITISH WOMAN: No, never.
ANNOUNCER: –and finds out how other rich free-market democracies provide health care for all.
T.R. REID: How many people in Switzerland go bankrupt because of medical bills?
PASCAL COUCHEPIN, President, Swiss Confederation: Nobody. It doesn’t happen. It would be a huge scandal if it happens.
*****
The Brits pay for health care out of tax revenue, so the government owns the hospitals, like this one, the Whittington Hospital in North London. The doctors who work here are salaried government employees. Does that sound like socialized medicine? Well, according to the hospital CEO, David Sloman, the Brits like it that way.
DAVID SLOMAN, CEO, Whittington Hospital: I think people are proud of it. Ninety percent of people who use the NHS think it’s good or excellent, so people think very, very highly of it. People who don’t use it don’t think so well of it, actually.
T.R. REID: [on camera] Would you say most British people go their whole lives and never get a medical bill?
DAVID SLOMAN: Every single person who’s born in the U.K. will use the NHS at one point in their lives. The majority of people will use it as the only provider of their medical care, and none of them will be presented a bill at any point during that time.
T.R. REID: [voice-over] No medical bills. Sounds sweet to me. And here’s something else that’s different. There’s no medical bankruptcy.
This is Jeremy Cadle. His son, Tom, is being treated for leukemia at the Whittington. At least he doesn’t have to worry about going broke.
JEREMY CADLE: He’s had eight weeks in hospital. Apart from the times when he needs chemotherapy, we’ve got community health care that comes in on a weekly basis to take his blood. Hasn’t cost us a penny. You know, it’s astonishing the care you can get.
T.R. REID: Of course, it’s not free. The Brits pay much higher taxes than we do to cover health care. But even so, does it sound a bit too good to be true? To find out, I sought out a long-time NHS watcher, Nigel Hawkes of The Times, for a more critical perspective.
[on camera] Look, this all sounds really sweet. Does it work?
NIGEL HAWKES, Health Editor, The Times: It works in some respects. I think primary care, the family doctor service, is pretty good. And emergency care works quite well. Where I think it can fall down is on elective care– hip replacements, heart operations, this kind of thing. It used to be on the order of 18 months to get a new hip. That’s been greatly reduced by the current government over the last 10 years. It’s down to certainly less than 6 months, and for most people about 2 or 3.
*****
Thanks to the Bismarck model, everybody in Germany is offered health care. While the rich are allowed to opt out and pay privately, about 90 percent of Germans choose to stay in the national system. And that system is famous not only for covering all the basics, plus mental health, dental and optical, they also pay for alternative therapies, like homeopathy. They’ll pay you to go to a spa. The system’s even been known to cover belly dancing lessons.
[voice-over] As in Japan, the delivery of health care is largely a market affair, carried out by private doctors and private hospitals. I visited Dr Christina von Kockritz, a family doctor practicing in the small town of Kladow, south of Berlin.
[on camera] If I call your office and say, “Oh, my shoulder kind of hurts. I’m not sure what’s wrong,” how long would it take me to see you?
CHRISTINA VON KOCKRITZ, M.D., Family Practitioner: Well, two weeks.
T.R. REID: Two weeks?
Dr. CHRISTINA VON KOCKRITZ: If it’s serious, same day.
T.R. REID: Serious, same day. If I come in here and you look at my shoulder and say, “Well I think maybe an orthopedic specialist should look at it,” then how long would I have wait to see the–
Dr. CHRISTINA VON KOCKRITZ: It’s different. Perhaps another week or two, yes.
T.R. REID: What if the orthopedic specialist said, “Well, we have to operate on your shoulder”? Do you know how long I would have to wait for that?
Dr. CHRISTINA VON KOCKRITZ: Not too long. Three weeks.
T.R. REID: Three weeks before I could get in.
Dr. CHRISTINA VON KOCKRITZ: A guess, yes.
T.R. REID: [voice-over] That’s about the same waiting time as the U.S. It’s faster than Britain, but not as quick as Japan would be.
To finance health care, Germans pay premiums based on income to one of 240 private insurers. They call them “sickness funds.” A worker earning $60,000 would split a $750 monthly family premium with her employer. It’s more expensive than Japan and the U.K., but still a bargain by U.S. standards, about two thirds of ours.
Prof. KARL LAUTERBACH, Member of German Parliament: It is a system where the rich pay for the poor and where the ill are covered by the healthy.
T.R. REID: [voice-over] This is Professor Karl Lauterbach, a member of the German parliament and one of Germany’s foremost experts on health policy.
Prof. KARL LAUTERBACH: So it is a nice social support system which is highly accepted by the population.
T.R. REID: Katie Haaser is one of those patients. She’s having her third baby.
KATIE HAASER: I’m very satisfied with the system, especially during my pregnancy. I think it’s maybe not perfect, but it’s the best I can imagine.
T.R. REID: What does she pay?
KATIE HAASER: Actually, nothing. I don’t have to pay anything.
T.R. REID: [voice-over] While pregnant women pay nothing, there is a co-payment for most patients. But you’ll love this. It costs 10 euros. That’s about 15 bucks. And you only have to pay that once every three months.
[on camera] If you lose your job, what happens to your health insurance?
Prof. KARL LAUTERBACH: Health insurance continues with no change if you lose your job. We do know very well that people who become unemployed are at an increased risk of becoming ill, and therefore becoming unemployed is about the worst time to lose health insurance. So therefore, everyone who loses a job remains in exactly the health insurance system that he is in.
T.R. REID: [voice-over] German insurance plans actively compete among themselves for customers, even though they’re not allowed to make a profit. So what’s in it for them?
Prof. KARL LAUTERBACH: Sickness funds do not want to perish. They want to survive and grow, and the management is better paid if the sickness fund is growing. So I think the German health care system is a nice third way between a for-profit system, on the one hand, and let’s say, single-payer system on the other hand.
T.R. REID: It all sounds good to me. But how does the German system compare with ours? To get a U.S. view, I went to McGury’s Cafe in the former East Berlin to meet Mike McGury, an American whose been living in Germany for six years.
[on camera] Good to see you. It’s been since Kladow. Wow, I love the new bar. It looks great. [speaks in German] [laughs] That’s all the German I know. I want a big beer.
MIKE McGURY: Oh, that’s all you need! [laughter]
T.R. REID: Do you ever have to go to the doctor? I mean, you’ve used the health care system?
MIKE McGURY: Oh, absolutely.
T.R. REID: Yeah. And what do you think? How would you rate it?
MIKE McGURY: Top notch.
T.R. REID: Oh, really? How come? What’s good?
MIKE McGURY: You have many different choices, and the cost is a fraction of what is covered in the States. Most of your prescriptions are covered with very, very small co-pays.
T.R. REID: And how’s the quality? I mean, do you think you’re getting good health care here?
MIKE McGURY: Excellent. Actually, I see no difference as far as quality goes between here and when I was in the States.
T.R. REID: Really?
MIKE McGURY: Yeah.
T.R. REID: [voice-over] Surveys show Germans are satisfied with their health care. The system is also efficient. Medical providers and sickness funds negotiate standard prices, and this cuts administrative costs. They’re only around 6 percent. That’s a quarter of what they are in the U.S. And drugs are a bargain here, too.
Prof. KARL LAUTERBACH: The same drugs are way cheaper in Germany than in America because, obviously, if all sickness funds negotiate with the drug companies for a single price, then the market power of the sickness funds is fully used.
Regular– a regular user of gov’t funded health care (the VA) whines and moans about . . . uh . . . gov’t funded health care for others.
If you’ve ever used THe VA Hospital and medical system, you understand why so many people who do are
so against government run medical care.
Capn this one statement is so in error it skews your whole drawnout interview:
“Prof. KARL LAUTERBACH: The same drugs are way cheaper in Germany than in America because, obviously, if all sickness funds negotiate with the drug companies for a single price, then the market power of the sickness funds is fully used.”
Can you tell me which country does the lions share of medical research and markets the lions share of new medications. How is it funded?
There is so much more to this than one interview that happens to share your opinion. Don’t be caught in the dark when the train leaves the station.
HappyHeathen
Posted June 22, 2009 at 2:04 pm | Permalink
Is it such a terrible thing for insurance executives skimming the top 30 to 40% of health care dollars right off the top?
*************************************
Is that some sort of declarative statement, or just a wild supposition?
If ya got facts, show them and the link to where everybody else can find them
Looks to me like it’s just the bush 28%ers that are opposed, and they don’t really count anymore.
You can bet if a socialized medicine country didn’t like their socialized coverage, they’d revert back to the old ‘make a killing’ system.
You could probably buy a brain in kentucky, just pay the donor a few bucks.
Or, was it Tennessee, six of one half a dozen…
okoberver: I have first hand expriences in the matters of health care and taxes that’s why I can identify with the item in the Denver Post to which I referred. Where do you get this stuff? “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” I think we got a few of the gods “works in process” on this thread. Those folks sitting in Arizona BYW are probably Snowbirds on vacation or fleeing the winter snows of Canada, just about all of them retirees….one’s my cousin, just continuing with therapy started at home. Did you check the cancer outcomes in the Denver Post article, or did you bother to read it!
Remember the wait times in Canada for healthcare? It’s already here in Massachusetts which has a state universal program:
“A survey of five medical specialties in 15 large metropolitan areas found that new patients can wait weeks for an appointment, suggesting the need for more physicians.
People in Boston experience the longest wait times, averaging 70 days to see an obstetrician-gynecologist, 63 days to see a family physician, 54 days for a dermatologist, 40 days for an orthopedic surgeon and 21 days for a cardiologist.
Boston’s position comes as no surprise, surveyors said. The demand for doctors has soared since Massachusetts implemented its health system reform plan in 2006 to provide insurance coverage to hundreds of thousands of uninsured residents.”
Be careful what you ask for….
Hawaii Drops Universal Children’s Health Care Plan
“Private Coverage Crashed
Toni Schwartz, public information officer for the Department of Human Services, affirmed enrollment “skyrocketed” at the expense of private coverage under the Hawaii Medical Service Association’s Children’s Plan, which experienced a staggering 95 percent drop in enrollment after the free program began.
Parents of only 88 children chose to remain as paying customers in the Children’s Plan, which costs $55 a month, as even a $55 plan proved to be no match for free health insurance. Lawmakers did not envision demand would be so high.
Last year, the Hawaii Medical Service Association, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, partnered with the state to launch Keiki Care, which was supposed to be a three-year pilot project serving a “gap group” of an estimated 3,500 uninsured children. The “gap group” was identified as families whose income is at or above 300 percent of the federal poverty level, making them ineligible for existing state or federal coverage.
The “no-cost” plan touted medical, drug, and dental coverage, no charge for immunizations, a $7 copayment for physician office visits, and a $5 copayment for generic drugs, much less than copayments for employer-sponsored insurance.”
1. Private Insurance enrollment dropped as everyone rushed to what was free.
2. State could NOT afford it. Too expensive.
3. Emergency rooms were crushed with everyone streaming in for minor colds, coughs, and flu.
Economists Warn Of Worst Fiscal Crisis In Mass. History
“BOSTON — Prepare for three to five years of state spending that’s even less than this year. Economists delivered that grim message at an emergency hearing on state revenues Tuesday.
They offered a few suggestions about how Senate budget writers should respond in the bill they plan to release next week.
“Let me begin by wiping egg off my face,” Alan Clayton-Matthews said at Tuesday’s hearing. “These economic models have fundamentally failed.”
So, what to do. In past recessions, the legislature has packaged cuts and tax increases to close budget gaps, and that seems likely again this year. But even the 25-percent sales tax increase the House approved last week still leaves a hole whose depth and breadth seem to grow daily.
But State Treasurer Tim Cahill said the state can and should trim areas that lawmakers have traditionally tried to protect.
“I’ve been saying this for years,” he said. “Even though the goal of covering every individual in the state is noble, it may not be doable in this environment. You’ll probably have to cut local aid; you may have to cut education. Those are the three big ticket items in the budget and you’re not gonna do it with cutting waste, cutting fraud and trimming around the edges.” Cahill, as he said, has consistently questioned whether the state’s landmark health coverage law is affordable.
“There will be cuts in health care, also,” Panagiotakos said. “In health services. There’s no way of getting around it, it makes up too big a part of our budget not to touch it.”
But if the state trims subsidies or benefits, can it still require that all individuals have health insurance?
“I don’t know. I mean that’s a talk that we will all have, and we’ll see where we end up,” Panagiotakos said.”
Why is this book in it’s 18th edition?
Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada, 18th Edition
Date Published: October 7, 2008
Author(s): Michael Walker
The Fraser Institute’s eighteenth annual waiting list survey found that Canada-wide waiting times for surgical and other therapeutic treatments decreased in 2008. Total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed, fell from 18.3 weeks in 2007 to 17.3 weeks in 2008. This nationwide improvement [lots of laughs] in access reflects waiting-time decreases in 7 provinces, while concealing increases in waiting times in Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland & Labrador.
Among the provinces, Ontario achieved the shortest total wait in 2008, 13.3 weeks, with British Columbia (17.0 weeks), and Manitoba (17.2 weeks), next shortest. Saskatchewan exhibited the longest total wait at 28.8 weeks; the next longest waits were found in Nova Scotia (27.6 weeks) and Newfoundland & Labrador (24.4 weeks).
The fall in waiting time between 2007 and 2008 results from a decrease both in the first wait—the wait between visiting a general practitioner and attending a consultation with a specialist—and in the second wait—from the time that a specialist decides that treatment is required to treatment.”
Socialized Medicine: Wait in Line Buddy! And there is NO one to complain to:
“Queuing
Queuing is a controversial measurement, not least because there may be many explanations for the queuing, many of them medically justifiable, so that aggregate queuing figures may conflate those whose waiting poses no health or other risk with those whose health may be impaired or may suffer pain while waiting.
That being said, in a system in which health services are free at the point of consumption, queuing is the most common form of rationing scarce medical resources. And since patient satisfaction plays no part in determining incomes or other economic rewards for health care providers and administrators in the public system, patients’ time is treated as if it has no value. There are no penalties in the system for making people wait.
I would also like to point out that while we talk a lot about queuing in the Canadian health care system, and we talk as if we know how many people are waiting and how long they wait, in fact we do not know this at all. Ironically for the largest single program expenditure of governments in Canada, we know astonishingly little about what we get for our money. As my colleague David Zitner, Director of Medical Informatics at Dalhousie University in Halifax and Health Policy Fellow at my Institute, likes to say, no health care institution in Canada can tell you how many people got better, how many people got worse, and how many people’s condition was left unchanged by their contact with their institution. None of them can give you an answer. No one knows how many people died while waiting for needed surgery. No one knows how many people are queuing for any particular procedure or how many people cannot find a family doctor. Mostly we have guesswork, anecdote, and subjective measures, not objective ones (such as the Fraser Institute reports mentioned earlier). We do not even know how long someone has to wait before he or she has waited “too long,” because the health care system does not establish official standards for timely care– although presumably even Mr. Romanow would agree that someone who died while waiting for care may have waited a tad too long.
All of this is due, as I argued in a major paper I co-authored in 2002,10 to the conflict of interest at the heart of Medicare, in which the people who are the ultimate providers of health care services in Canada are also the people charged with regulating the system and quality assurance. Since no one is a competent judge of his or her own performance, and no one likes to be held accountable for his or her work, the result is that the health care system simply does not set tough standards or collect the information that would allow us to hold the system’s administrators accountable for their stewardship of our health care and the billions of dollars that they spend. The people who would collect the information are also the people whose performance would be assessed if useful information were made available. There appears to be no legal obligation on governments actually to supply the services they have promised to the population as their monopoly supplier of health insurance. This is an appalling double standard, as no responsible regulator would permit a private supplier of insurance to behave in this way, as a recent background paper for my Institute makes clear.”
Get used to hearing this word.
Ask this question: “Why is there such a thing called a Wait Time Alliance in Canada?”
Supporting Canada’s family physicians
The public has spoken; is anybody listening?
Cal Gutkin, MD, CCFP(EM), FCFP, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer
Canada today is paying the price for decades of poor health human resource planning. The good news in this sad saga is that, after nearly a decade of appeals to governments of all stripes, the cries of our worn-out doctors and nurses finally might have been heard.
Of course, they were heard only when the most important voice, that of the people of Canada, joined the chorus. Multiple public polls, Statistics Canada reports, major health care commissions, and the Canada Health Council have reinforced the same message: access to care for many medical concerns is unacceptably poor; wait times for patients are often way too long; and to correct these problems more technicians, pharmacists, nurses, and doctors (especially family doctors) are needed.
In its 2005 report, the Wait Time Alliance recognized that access to care for patients with any medical problem begins with their seeing a family doctor. More than 80% of Canadians say they prefer access to health care through family physicians, and two thirds declare that their family doctors are their most important caregivers. Starfield’s research shows that access to primary care and to family physicians is vital for better patient and population health outcomes. Yet, in 2003, more than 2.5 million Canadians told Statistics Canada and in 2004 five million reported to our Decima survey that they did not have a family physician.[that is 12% of the population] An estimated 3000 more family doctors are required to meet Canadians’ needs.”
Access to Doctors and Medical Technology
On this measure, Canada performs badly. In 1996, this country had 2.1 practicing physicians per 1000 population, while of the comparison group only two (Japan and the UK) had a lower ratio: Australia (2.5), France (3.0), Germany (3.4), Japan (1.8), Sweden (3.1), Switzerland (3.2), UK (1.7) and U.S. (2.6). Thus, even in countries with lower per capita spending than Canada, there is greater access to physician services.
With respect to medical technology, Canada’s performance is also unimpressive. In a study12 comparing Canadians’ access to four specific medical technologies (computed tomography [CT] scanners, radiation equipment, lithotriptors, and magnetic resonance imagers [MRI]), with access by citizens of other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, Canadians’ access was significantly poorer in three of the four. Despite spending a full 1.6 percent of GDP more on health care than the OECD average, Canadians were well down the league tables in access to CT scanners (21st of 28), lithotriptors (19th out of 22), and MRIs (19th out of 27). Moreover, access to several of these technologies worsened relative to access in other countries over the last decade.
Not improving – worsened!
There are more MRI’s in Iowa than in the entire country of Canada. Think about that. Iowa is a small state!
Canadian Medicare Is Fairer Because No One Gets Better Care Than Anyone Else [dumbing down].
“If you are on worker’s compensation; are in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the military; if your company has its own salaried physicians; if you use a private hospital like Shouldice (which specializes in hernia surgery) in Toronto or one of the country’s private abortion clinics; if you are a member of the medical professions or know someone who is; or are just articulate and determined or famous and connected; if you travel to the U.S. or any one of a number of other places, you can get better, faster, or more satisfactory care than someone who just lets the wheels of Medicare grind on.
“Multiple tiers” is a slippery concept. For some, if some people can get a service by paying for it, while others who cannot pay do not get access, that constitutes multiple tiers. On the other hand, there are people who oppose tiers because of an ideology of egalitarianism. Thus, two people with similar conditions may both get treated, one more quickly through private payment, the other more slowly (but within appropriate norms for their condition) by Medicare.
We are not talking about people being denied care based on ability to pay, because anyone willing to wait will eventually get care (although we possess no figures on how many die while queuing for public health care). The complaint is rather that someone got care more quickly. That is a very different objection: No one should be able to get faster treatment than in the public system, even where such faster access does not affect the quality or timeliness of the care obtained by people who continue to use the public system.
This peculiar brand of egalitarianism suggests that people should not be denied service because of their own inability to pay, but should be denied access because of their neighbor’s inability or unwillingness to pay (through taxes) for the care an individual decides he or she needs.
Canada is almost alone in the Western world in outlawing people paying privately for services that are also publicly insured.{later modified via Canadian’s supreme court} One consequence of this is that there are many services, such as drugs or home care, that we cannot afford to cover publicly, whereas they are often publicly insured elsewhere.”
Everyone suffers – equally!
And in Jolly ole England:
LONDON – On the eve of his election victory in 1997, Tony Blair famously declared that Britain had 24 hours to save its derelict National Health Service.
So it is acutely awkward for his successor, Gordon Brown, that, 10 years on, his government is scrambling to fend off accusations of crisis in the NHS following a damning report about hospital infections that critics say is symptomatic of a wider malaise in British healthcare.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson was forced to apologize in Parliament this week after it emerged that at least 90 patients in southeast England died as a result of infections picked up in the hospital.
The Healthcare Commission, a national watchdog, blamed safety lapses and overcrowding. It painted a bleak picture of teeming wards where overworked nurses didn’t even help patients to the bathroom.
Labour has made much of its bid to “rescue” the NHS. It has presided over a kind of permanent revolution, recruiting tens of thousands of doctors and nurses (many from overseas, leading to charges of inadequate domestic training), building hospitals with the private sector, revamping hospital funding, and encouraging competition. It has also spent money: The NHS bill is to rise from £35 billion in 1998 to £110 billion (about $224 billion) by 2011.
But critics say the extra billions have not always been well spent. A recent survey said Britain ranks 17th out of 29 European countries on a range of healthcare benchmarks, including quality of service, length of wait times, and patient information.
“We are surprised that given the massive spend on healthcare, Britain is not faring better,” says Kasja Wilhelmsson, director of European affairs at the Health Consumer Powerhouse, a Brussels-based healthcare research group that conducted the survey. “For waiting times, they are pretty close to the worst in Europe. And outcomes [of treatment] is not high either.
Six million-plus Britons now have some form of private health coverage, though access to private specialists is controlled by overtaxed NHS general practitioners (GPs).
Surveys and comments indicate that morale at NHS – with 1.4 million staff, the third-largest employer in the world – is low. Doctors are furious at new recruitment and promotion rules. GPs are nervous about plans to open surgeries on weekends. Nurses rail against low pay.
This week, a survey of GPs found 1 in 6 wanted to leave. The Nurse of the Year, Justine Whitaker, said she was quitting the NHS.
“”Every time something new is introduced,” she told BBC radio, “that means more time at my desk and less time with my hands on a patient.”
The Impact of NHS Rationing on Heart Disease and Cancer to see the inevitable outcome of the necessary rationing of government health care.
David G. Green and Laura Casper’s economic report:
http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/cw55.pdf
Be careful what you ask for with healthcare changes. The NYT report show the majority of responders have healthcare insurance and are satisfied with their service.
All agree that taking care of the truly UNinsured minority is a priority.
But we don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water – we don’t have to let Obama cram this down our throats. We have time to do it right, and take care of those truly in need.
But for the 260,000,000 of us with healthcare – don’t screw up what works for the majority of Americans.
American_Way
Posted June 22, 2009 at 7:24 pm | Permalink
The NYT report show the majority of responders have healthcare insurance and are satisfied with their service.
—
Maybe, but you miss the most important part (you always do).
This vast majority you speak of, they’re happy now, but what’s the trend?
Is American healthcare getting better or worse? Is health insurance becoming cheaper, or more costly? Are prescription medicine prices succumbing to market forces (ie, innovation) and becoming cheaper, or more costly?
The answer to all three questions is that healthcare is deteriorating while the price is rising. In fact, this is and has been the megatrend of American healthcare for at least a generation now.
You are arguing to keep a status quo that doesn’t even qualify as the status quo. In effect, you are arguing that Americans will be perfectly happy with expensive yet crappy healthcare in another generation, if we just distribute the expensive crap to everybody.
It’s a losing argument, frankly. It was a loser in 1993, it’s a bigger loser today, and in another fifteen years we’ll be laughing at how we could ever think keeping the status quo was the right thing to do.
If you want to keep the status quo, with just a bit of tweaking, you’ve got to account for current trends in quality and expense.
How will you reverse these trends without the help of government?
Twenty years ago, I paid zip for healthcare insurance. Not a dime.
Today I pay something north of $100 per week (according to my employer).
And guess what? My out of pocket will probably go up again next year.
Does anybody here expect their healthcare out of pocket to go down next year?
I didn’t think so.
#
Pedant
Posted June 22, 2009 at 7:58 pm | Permalink
Twenty years ago, I paid zip for healthcare insurance. Not a dime.
Today I pay something north of $100 per week (according to my employer).
And guess what? My out of pocket will probably go up again next year.
Does anybody here expect their healthcare out of pocket to go down next year?
I didn’t think so.
========================
Twenty years ago you probably had ‘band-aid’ medical insurance barely covering the essentials.
You are older now and require more care and the medical profession has advanced in many areas.
Pedant, that I missed the points important to you does not mean I missed the points. ;-)
If you go read the actual questions – the majority of 800+ respondents said that Insuring the uninsured was MORE important than the rising costs of healthcare.
If you would like Pedant, I will help you evaluate the each of the questions – if that helps you overcome your comprehension problems.
PS: The costs of everything go up. People beotch about it. Healthcare is no different in that respect. Look at college costs – public colleges.
Very similiar to healthcare’s escalating costs. And those are publicly funded. If you offer someone something for free – or make them think they can get something of value for a cheaper cost – of course they will say yes.
“You are older now and require more care and the medical profession has advanced in many areas.”
Nope. I’ve never used my healthcare for anything but annual checkups. And my healthcare insurance has always been top of the line.
American_Way
Posted June 22, 2009 at 8:07 pm | Permalink
If you go read the actual questions – the majority of 800+ respondents said that Insuring the uninsured was MORE important than the rising costs of healthcare.
—
Let’s assume that’s true. Then they say that now.
What will they say in another twenty years, given current trends in healthcare quality and healthcare cost?
Again, that’s the part you’ll have to deal with. Not a poll, but facts on the ground.
Some great research there American Way. You should post them again every time we get a thread about how great it will be when we all have government run health care.
By the way, does anybody expect healthcare insurance to become cheaper next year, given the status quo?
How about in five years, or twenty?
I didn’t think so.
“What will they say in another twenty years”
Nice dance Pedant, but not really nice considering you. I know you are intelligent.
The price/cost of “everything” will go up in twenty years!
Just wait until we have to start paying off the Obama National Debt!
And isn’t it interesting that you bring up twenty years.
Can you now see – there is NO emergency!
Don’t let our politicians (from any side) cram this legislation through. Please.
The ONLY emergency is for those few Americans who truly do NOT have insurance. But then again, they cannot be refused treatment. I will agree they will skip preventive or non-emergency treatment until they get coverage. (besides my point)
If it takes two or three years – democrats have the POTUS and congress for two (at least).
Let’s please learn from the mistakes and problems other countries faced and overcome them BEFORE enacting laws.
It’s waited this long? I’ve yet to see any information other than Obama saying it’s another darn emergency.
You get a better product when you don’t rush through development.
American_Way
Posted June 22, 2009 at 8:30 pm | Permalink
You get a better product when you don’t rush through development.
—
One, it’s fully developed (the UK has had national healthcare for more than fifty years now).
Two, what your side means by “let’s take our time” is really “let’s drag this out until the political will behind it dies.”
I say let’s do it now, while the political will is there. If we don’t, it probably won’t happen (which is what you mean, too, I’m sure).
I just wish the GOP could help instead of hinder.
I am serious about the twenty years part, and what we’ll be laughing about. If you ask me, the GOP will pay “the last full measure” if we’re still having this discussion twenty years from now.
“One, it’s fully developed (the UK has had national healthcare for more than fifty years now).”
Did you read my links/stories from the UK?
Your post indicated you probably scrolled over them.
“Thousands of kidney cancer patients are likely to lose out on life-prolonging drugs.
The NHS rationing body, NICE, has confirmed a ban on three out of four new treatments.
It has reversed its position on just one, Sutent, which will now be allowed for patients with advanced cancer. But campaigners who fought NICE’s original blanket ban said this was not enough. They said some patients with heart problems cannot tolerate Sutent.
Kate Spall, head of the Pamela Northcott Fund campaign group, said the ruling meant that fewer than half of newly diagnosed patients would be eligible for therapy.
She added: ‘Families will be denied time together and doctors will be unable to give patients the best treatment.’
Campaigners are angry that NICE appears to have ignored new official guidelines widening access to life-prolonging drugs.
Sutent, also known as sunitinib, can double the life expectancy of patients, to 28 months, compared with standard interferon treatment. It costs around £24,000 a year.
The rejected drugs – bevacizumab (Avastin), sorafenib (Nexavar) and temsirolimus (Torisel) – have similar costs and are used in other countries.
Nicole Farmer, of Bayer Schering Pharma Oncology, which makes Nexavar, said: ‘This shows why the UK sits 16 out of 18 EU countries with regard to cancer outcomes’.
Dr Thomas Powles, Clinical Senior Lecturer, at Barts and The London NHS Trust, said the ‘one size fits all’ policy would disadvantage many of the 7,000 patients diagnosed each year with kidney cancer.
He said: ‘This one dimensional approach will leave some patients without potentially beneficial treatments, indeed some patients will not be eligible for any effective treatments whatsoever.”
Hope you or no one in your family have kidney problems.
More from the UK:
“A three-year-old girl awaiting heart surgery has had her operation cancelled three times this month because of a shortage of beds.
Ella Cotterell was due to have aorta-widening surgery on Monday at the Children’s Hospital, Bristol. But 48 hours beforehand, the operation was cancelled for the third time as all 15 beds in the intensive care unit were occupied, her parents said.
A hospital spokesman said that procedures would be reviewed, but the case highlights a growing problem of cancelled operations in the NHS.
More than 57,000 surgeries were postponed for non-clinical reasons, including a lack of beds, last year – 10 per cent more than the previous year.
Latest figures show that the problem persists. At least 43,000 operations were cancelled in the first nine months of 2008-09, with nearly 1,800 patients not being treated within 28 days of their original scheduled date.
Among the excuses for cancellation the previous year were a hospital running out of shavers to prepare patients for surgery, a surgeon going missing following a fire alarm, and a patient’s translator failing to turn up.”
Please do NOT rush USA public healthcare.
And poor people in the UK, reflect the problems do NOT “go away” with public healthcare:
“Up to 30,000 children are admitted to hospital for tooth decay and extraction every year – and the number is rising, research showed today.
Experts said the data highlighted a ‘major public health issue’ after they found a large increase in the number of children admitted since Labour came to power in 1997.
Hospital data from between 1997 and 2006 was analysed by researchers at Peninsula Dental School and University College London.
It revealed there were 517,885 individual courses of dental treatment in NHS hospitals for children up to the age of 17 between 1997 and 2006.
The total number of children needing treatment was 470,113.
Extractions due to tooth decay rose by 66 per cent over the period.
Despite rates of tooth decay and infection remaining steady, the number of admissions continued to rise in each year of the study, averaging out at 29,676 admissions every single year.
They wrote: ‘Caries (tooth decay) is a preventable disease yet the number of children being admitted for elective extractions of teeth due to caries was increasing yearly.
‘Further investigation to determine some of the underlying reasons for this trend is required.’
The study noted that children from poorer backgrounds were particularly at risk, being twice as likely to need treatment as those from more affluent areas.
David Moles, professor of oral health services research at Peninsula Dental School, who led the study, said: ‘The findings of our study are very worrying – one poor child was admitted to hospital for extractions on seven separate occasions in the nine-year period of the statistics.
UK lets the old people fall:
“Opportunities to prevent recurrent falls and fractures in the elderly are being missed, experts have warned.
Every year, more than 700,000 people over 65 in the attend A&E after a fall.
But the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership says many hospitals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are not adhering to best practice.
The audit found serious gaps in aftercare services for those who had had a fall. The government said it was taking action to improve services.
The researchers from the Royal College of Physicians found little improvement had been made since their first audit in 2005.
Results came from 93% (315/337) of acute trusts, primary care organisations (PCOs) and health and social care trusts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Only half of providers with an A&E or minor injury unit routinely screen older people attending with falls for risk of future falls. ”
BBCnews
March 2009
CARE LINKED TO DEATH
“Mark Cannon – The 30-year-old died eight weeks after being admitted to hospital with a broken leg. He waited three days to see a pain team and developed an infection. Complaints were upheld against the hospital and council – he was in a care home when he was first injured. The ombudsmen ruled care contributed to death.
Martin Ryan – Died several weeks after having stroke. While in hospital, the 43-year-old went 26 days without being fed. The hospital was criticised: death could have been avoided if care had been better.
They looked into complaints made by the families of the six people who died between 2003 and 2005.
The report found failings by hospitals, local health bosses, the official NHS regulator and social care services provided by councils, although none of the complaints against GPs were upheld.”
BBC March 2009
(for a mature public healthcare system – the UK sure has their problems.)
This could be your family member:
“WAITING times for cancer treatment need to be cut, the Scottish Government was told yesterday.
The Scotland Against Cancer conference in Glasgow heard Nicola Sturgeon, the health secretary, setting out what was being done to improve cancer care for Scottish patients.
But one cancer survivor, who spoke at the Cancer Research UK event, challenged ministers to be more ambitious in reducing the time patients have to wait before starting treatment.
Cancer experts later said that patients elsewhere in Europe would be “outraged” by having to wait two months to start treatment, with most being seen within two weeks.
The current target of 62 days from urgent referral by a doctor to starting treatment has still not been met in Scotland, despite that originally being the target figure for 2005.”
The Scotsman
Lyndsay Moss, March 21, 2009
This is what you people want?
“Britain has not done enough to boost cancer survival rates and will fail to hit a target to match the success of other European countries by 2010, experts claimed yesterday.
It is optimistic to expect the gap to be closed by the deadline because progress is too slow, according to medical journal The Lancet Oncology.
At least £2billion extra was spent at the start of the Government’s Cancer Plan, rising to a total of £4.35billion in 2006/07 in England.
Despite the tripling of investment in cancer care in Britain over the past decade there has been no striking improvement in survival in a system ‘riddled with bureaucracy’, says cancer specialist Professor Karol Sikora.
The Cancer Plan for England was introduced in 2000 when Britain had one of the poorest levels of cancer survival in Europe.
It was set up to increase the number of patients still alive five years after diagnosis to the level of the best-performing countries by 2010.”
Daily Mail UK March 2009
“The parlous state of NHS dentistry under Labour was exposed last night after it was revealed 1,000 people in a village ended up on a waiting list for a dentist.
Nearly one in ten of the 11,500-strong population of Tadley were forced to wait after a single NHS practice opened in the Hampshire village.
Their alternatives were paying privately, travelling miles to another NHS dentist – or going without treatment.
Local councillor Nigel Quelch said: ‘When I phoned, they said they had a waiting list of 1,000. It shows what a huge demand there is for Health Service dentistry.
‘But we’re very grateful to the dentist for opening in Tadley.’
In 1999, Tony Blair promised that within two years everyone would have access to an NHS dentist.” Daily Mail March 2009
(this is a politician who isn’t saying what he REALLY thinks – because he doesn’t want to tick off the UK feds.)
Kids can crawl……
“The NHS was told today to stop relying on charities to fill funding gaps after figures revealed many trusts would not pay the full cost of electric wheelchairs for disabled children.
Freedom of information figures obtained by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign found children were subject to a postcode lottery in terms of equipment.
Statistics from 54% of NHS trusts in England and Scotland revealed that disabled children in England are forced to wait five months on average for a wheelchair.
The worst performing primary care trust (PCT), East Lancashire, in the north-west of England, had an average wait of two years for an electric wheelchair.
The survey showed 58% of children in England had to wait at least three months for an electric wheelchair and 14% waited more than six months.
In the case of Westminster and Islington PCTs in London, children living just four miles apart could have a difference of 11 months in waiting time.
Overall, 50% of the PCTs that responded said they did not fund the full cost of a powered wheelchair for a disabled child.
Westminster PCT made an average contribution of only £700 towards the cost of a child’s powered wheelchair, it said.
Almost all PCTs contacted by the charity said the cost of a wheelchair was around £2,000 but in fact the true cost of a basic electric wheelchair would be around £3,000.” The Guardian UK 2009
“Public more supportive of health care reform than lawmakers”
Because the general public is too stupid to realize they are being told a great lie – they will get free or nearly free high-quality healthcare.
Still smoking those camels? Or were these Lucky Strikes?
“Hundreds of patients with a rare lung disease will be sentenced to death by plans to stop doctors prescribing a range of drugs on the NHS, it was claimed last night.
Campaigners have condemned proposals by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to withdraw the drugs because they are too expensive.
The condition, pulmonary hypertension, affects an estimated 4,000 people in the UK.
Only a quarter of these need the most expensive level of treatment.
Yet the plans by NICE, the Government’s drug rationing body, mean no life-extending therapies will be available to new patients because the cost of the most expensive exceeds its threshold of £30,000 per head.
Only the cheapest drug used to combat the condition will remain available for patients.”
Daily Mail UK March 2008
(I don’t think this happens in America.)
AmWay,
The sheep don’t care if they have to wait in line (though they think the wait will be a couple of hours longer then usual is all) as long as they get FREE HEALTHCARE!
It’s free, so screw quality and timeliness of healthcare.
American_Way
Posted June 22, 2009 at 8:38 pm | Permalink
“One, it’s fully developed (the UK has had national healthcare for more than fifty years now).”
Did you read my links/stories from the UK?
—
No.
The UK’s National Health Service is both extremely successful and extremely popular.
Like I said, it’s an idea that’s fully developed.
The list goes on. I have researched and found articles from all over the world where socialized medicine is practised.
Pleae tell your elected officials to take their time and consider all aspects (good and bad) and to study other countries.
Next time someeone tells you, “Well I met someone from XXXXX and they liked public healthcare.” Think twice: Is your exposure to one or two all you need to consider?
Doctor Shortage is Here Now, And Getting Worse
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/92871/topic/WS_HLM2_MAG/Will-There-Be-Enough-Doctors.html
The timing really could not be worse. One out of three practicing physicians in the United States is over the age of 55, and many of them are expected to retire in the next 10 or 15 years. Meanwhile, U.S. medical schools have not provided for the loss of 33 percent of the nation’s physician work force. A number of studies have estimated that by 2020 the United States will be short anywhere from 24,000 to 200,000 physicians. Additionally, some anecdotal evidence suggests that younger physicians are not willing to put their lives on hold and work 80-hour weeks that include weekends, nights and emergency department on-call duty like their elders—which means it may take two younger physicians to cover the work of one retiring physician.
“No, Like I said, it’s an idea that’s fully developed……”
Why be a blind man? Read my links. Please go find your own.
It may be developed: But I provided articles from THIS YEAR where major – major problems exist. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Please read a few of them instead of just drinking the koolaid.
Your families lives depend upon good decisions – that are being made by politicians not healthcare providers. I’d feel better if they asked a few RN’s or nurses like the ladies who post here.
But they are not. They are voting based upon public opinion polls.
Is that any way to make decisions?
Nationalized Healthcare will Lead Many Doctors to Retire Early
http://www.medpolitics.com/content/Two-Ominous-Medicare-Anecdotes
But stories like this should give those politicians pause, since Medicare clearly penalizes doctors for treating patients. The recently described RAC bureaucratic nightmare is just one small example of this. If nationalized health care is imposed in this country, I anticipate many doctors will simply reduce their hours, retire early or quit medicine altogether to go into other fields.
American_Way
Posted June 22, 2009 at 9:05 pm | Permalink
Pleae tell your elected officials to take their time and consider all aspects (good and bad) and to study other countries.
—
Especially study other countries, I agree.
I am very confident that such a study would seal the deal for US national healthcare.
Don’t cherry pick evidence one way or another, though. For example, the UK’s NHS is extremely popular and effective. However, American_Way’s cherrypicked evidence never shows that.
American_Way, if you’re interested in fairness, can’t you post some of the overwhelmingly positive attitudes held by citizens of countries with national healthcare?
My grandparents just this past week were told by their personal physician of 20 years (a close friend at that) that he was leaving his private practice to be a hospitalist for the same pay at half the hours, simply sacrificing his freedom in setting his own schedule. He did this because because the cost (both in time and effort) of practicing on his own was too great. When asked by my grandparents who he would recommend they seek out as their new doctor, he said he knew of no one taking on new Medicare patients in their town of over 100k.
http://www.medpolitics.com/content/Two-Ominous-Medicare-Anecdotes
I see this as leaving us as future physicians at a crossroads… go into private practice and spend a good deal of our time dealing with bureaucracy, but having a level of autonomy in treating our patient’s as we see fit, or being an employee of hospital subject to the rules and regulations of administrators separated from actual patient care.
http://www.medpolitics.com/content/Two-Ominous-Medicare-Anecdotes
“The sheep don’t care”
Mr. Johnson, did you see Pedants 903 PM response?
Unbeliveable! Pedant won’t even read to see the facts.
Instead, he has posted “The UK is developed” twice.
Repetitive. No thought involved.
What really really scares me is I’ve read Pedant for years. He/she is intelligent and thoughtful and I didn’t think stuck in one gear.
This should not be a political program. It should be based upon sound developed medical procedures, financially-sound, and realistic.
Private Coverage Crashed
Toni Schwartz, public information officer for the Department of Human Services, affirmed enrollment “skyrocketed” at the expense of private coverage under the Hawaii Medical Service Association’s Children’s Plan, which experienced a staggering 95 percent drop in enrollment after the free program began.
******
Oh my gosh! Private health care cannot compete with AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE.
Who is health care supposed to help? Sick people or big corporations?
I would fully encourage a fair examination of national healthcare everywhere.
I am confident such an examination would add far more weight to the evidence for national healthcare here than it would add weight to the status quo.
One possible solution to those of us interested in having the freedom and autonomy of private practice is exemplified by a [location deleted] general surgeon I had the pleasure of playing golf with a few months back. He had decided to stop treating Medicare patients which were 40% of his patient base, but accounted for 13% of his total income. By doing this, he was able to close his office one day a week (playing more golf he noted), saving the salary/wages/overhead that running a private practice office entails. In the end, he said he made slightly more money b/c he was able to eliminate the expenses required to treat these patients.
http://www.medpolitics.com/content/Two-Ominous-Medicare-Anecdotes
“overwhelmingly positive attitudes held by citizens of countries with national healthcare?”
Obama is the cheerleader. Someone has to admit there are faults with ANY government run operation.
Besides, I’m Charlie Brown in real life.
If it can go wrong – it will happen to me.
Some fella named Murphy followed my ancestors around. He later wrote a book on laws……..
It isn’t going to be all peaches and cream. Every thing is NOT groovy.
US Doctors Overworked, Many Planning To Retire
Posted on: Tuesday, 18 November 2008, 12:40 CST
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1601583/us_doctors_overworked_many_planning_to_retire/
A survey of physicians in the United States showed that almost half of doctors plan to reduce their workload or quit altogether, while 60 percent of general practice physicians said they would never recommend medicine as a career.
The Physicians’ Foundation sent surveys to 270, primary care doctors and 50,000 practicing specialists.
“The whole thing has spun out of control. I plan to retire early even though I still love seeing patients. The process has just become too burdensome,” one doctor told The Physicians’ Foundation.
“Boston’s position comes as no surprise, surveyors said. The demand for doctors has soared since Massachusetts implemented its health system reform plan in 2006 to provide insurance coverage to hundreds of thousands of uninsured residents.”
The way it is now, there is a short wait time for most people because all those poor uninsured people aren’t clogging up the system with . . . you know . . . surgeries and stuff.
Real nice, AmWay. Rich people deserve speedy health care because . . . they’re rich?
You people make me sick.
My gawd, you people ARE mad……….preconceived notions supporting downward spirals of unreasoned investigtions.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/42448292.html
A critical limit on health systems is the number of physicians and nurses available. Obama’s acclaimed scholarships would not increase the numbers coming into the system before 2020. By then, many physicians, overwhelmed by longer hours and disillusioned by cost-cutting, will retire early. Students planning careers in medicine may rethink those plans and chose another profession.
An even bigger problem arises from the fact that those who receive health care services aren’t the ones paying the bills directly.
Past medical practice was based on the primary doctor-patient relationship, with the doctor paid directly. In his day, my father settled a large balance accruing to our family doctor before we moved from Wisconsin. His new job with Badger Mutual provided our first health insurance.
Employer-paid insurance is a legacy of World War II, when the Blue Cross plans came into prominence. Wage and price freezes during the war motivated employers to offer insurance to attract scarce labor. Thus became enshrined in the U.S. the “third party payer.” Because individuals don’t pay directly for their care, they may request unnecessary services. That leads to runaway costs.
“The whole thing has spun out of control. I plan to retire early even though I still love seeing patients. The process has just become too burdensome,” one doctor told The Physicians’ Foundation.
*****
Maybe that’s because physicians don’t like working for big mfing corporations, which is the way it is now.
” than it would add weight to the status quo.”
Except I’m not advocating the status quo. I posted my solution/changes on a recent thread about healthcare. Ten points. Not all the best. But it shows I do recognize some changes are in order. I also liked those ideas posted by another person on the same thread.
We do not need a drastic program we can not afford at this time. The vast majority of us have healthcare insurance. Deal immediately with those who do not – and work to improve the programs for those of us who do.
The Doctor Is Out
A perfect storm is brewing in Oklahoma’s physician workforce and its full effects will be felt in just a few years, say those closely involved with the state’s health care delivery system.
“Oklahoma is dead last in most rankings of number of practicing physicians per 100,000 people,” says Dr. James Hess, vice president for health care administration for the OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine. “We’re not producing enough doctors and our physicians are a higher average age than physicians in other states. A perfect storm is coming.”
“The situation is very bad. The demand for physicians is already outstripping the supply and bigger shortages are coming,” concurs Dr. Dan Duffy, director of the community medicine track at OU School of Medicine in Tulsa. “We’ve been asleep at the wheel.”
Dr. Rob Gray, medical director for Omni – the St. John Health System primary care network – says he has been able to fill primary care slots. However, he adds that even in a major population center such as Tulsa, patients are feeling the pinch of shortages in some specialties.
“For example, the St. John Health System currently has only one practicing endocrinologist, and we had to hire a recruiter to get him from New York,” says Gray. “When you consider this is the specialist who treats more complex cases of diabetes, this just isn’t enough.”
Shortages in Geriatrics, Sub-Specialties
While many politicians talk about providing care to the nation’s 47 million uninsured, few have mentioned the shortage of doctors.
Experts are left wondering who will care for the people already in the system.
Oklahoma’s health care system is feeling the effects of physician shortages, but today’s problem will be dwarfed when the bulk of baby boomers hit retirement age within five years.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/42448292.html
JJ–
Just like the doctor shortages in Japan or Germany or England under their gov’t run programs, right?
Hey, wait, there aren’t any doctor shortages . . . especially since medical school is essentially free . . .
“physicians don’t like working for big mfing corporations, which is the way it is now.”
No it is not. There are thousands of doctors in independent practice. They work for themselves. They accept the patients they want. They are not all controlled by the hospitals.
The corporations is another scare story. Big monsters under the bed. Yes there are HMO’s and insurance companies with cost-sharing ideas. The worst of the lot is the US government set rates. Doctor reimbursement is higher in Lousiana than Iowa by more than a third. Why?
The government is part of the problem now.
American_Way
Posted June 22, 2009 at 9:17 pm | Permalink
We do not need a drastic program we can not afford at this time. The vast majority of us have healthcare insurance. Deal immediately with those who do not – and work to improve the programs for those of us who do.
—
One more time, how do your proposals reverse the US trend of deteriorating healthcare quality at prices that far outstrip annual inflation?
How will your plan reverse this trend without the help of government?
As for the shortages in Oklahoma . . . sheesh, yeah!
What intelligent professional wants to go there?
President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats insist that their plan would help rein in costs, but the only way to do that is to ration care.
Take the nationalized health program in the United Kingdom. Created shortly after World War II, the National Health Service has suffered ongoing deterioration in the quantity and quality of services delivered to its citizens.
Why? When taxpayers, not the patients themselves, are on the hook for medical bills, doctors and patients have no incentive to economize. Someone has to be willing to say no. If patient and doctor won’t, some nameless bureaucrat will, enforcing shortages of doctors and facilities. Candidates for routine surgery in the U.K. sometimes wait so long their conditions become inoperable.
Glimpses of ObamaCare in the stimulus bill reveal national panels deciding who gets what medical procedures and which expensive drugs. This new federal program is intended to determine which medical treatments offer, quoting former Sen. Tom Daschle, “the most bang for the buck” and limit those not meeting a cost-benefit test. The elderly and infirm can expect triage dispensed by distant panels favoring the younger, the more economically productive and politically connected patients. Those will move to the head of the line for heart transplants and other life-extending procedures. Requests for experimental treatments may be refused.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/42448292.html
In the U.K., where government is provider of only resort, the freedom to choose one’s doctor and hospital is no longer an option. If U.S. health care becomes a clone of the National Health Service, the waiting period for routine procedures will stretch out into months and years.
“Free” socialized medicine always leads to runaway costs – subsequently reined in by rationing – since overtaxed systems cannot deliver quality service.
Don’t look to ObamaCare for the “hope of change.”
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/42448292.html
AmWay–
BS. This Dr. was talking about the way things are now, BEFORE we have nationalized health care.
Everybody who goes to the doctor with big corporate health insurance, and that’s practically everyone who goes, is telling their doctor that the CORPORATION calls the shots and makes the decisions.
In the U.K., where government is provider of only resort, the freedom to choose one’s doctor and hospital is no longer an option.
That is false in two ways: 1. the gov’t in the UK allows people (rich people) to opt out if they want and 2. people have complete control of which doctor and which hospital they want.
The WSJournal is a Rudolph Murdoch POS.
Funny, even the survey/poll this thread is about: THE MAJORITY ARE SATISFIED WITH THEIR COVERAGE.
In fact, they say treat the problem with the UNinsured – NOT the cost.
I think you are a tightwad and you want everything cheap.
How cheap is your life? Or your families?
How much do you pay a lawyer an hour? An auto repairman? An auto worker makes how much an hour w/benes?
How much is life worth Capn?
How will the 1/3 of America’s Doctors nearing retirement age be encouraged to continue practicing medicine until they are age 65?
Cutting their pay?
Increasing their patient loads & hours?
Raising their taxes?
THAT is exactly Obama’s plan.
” reverse this trend without the help of government”
Government is NOT the answer to all lifes problems. Prices go up. I, and millions like me even in this poll express that we have QUALITY healthcare. Most Americans polled agree.
Do you think government has some magic trees they pluck money from to make things cheaper?
It won’t happen. What WILL happen is government deciding how much, when, and how your family will get healthcare.
“The WSJournal is a Rudolph Murdoch POS.”
It’s not the WSJ Opinion page, Max is quoting the Milwaukee Sentinel opinion page.
He’s just offering one-sided opinion, not facts.
“Free” socialized medicine always leads to runaway costs – subsequently reined in by rationing – since overtaxed systems cannot deliver quality service.
Really?
1. Why do these “poor quality” health care systems deliver longer life spans and lower infant mortality?
2. What do you call health care costs that average five times the rate of inflation if not “runaway costs?” That’s our healthcare costs NOW.
Oh, an opinion page. Ah ha! That’s even worse.
Thanks for pointing that out, Pedant.
I provided lot’s of facts. You can call them one sided though.
Just sign on the dotted line. Everything will be groovy.
American_Way
Posted June 22, 2009 at 9:28 pm | Permalink
Prices go up.
—
Healthcare prices are rising far faster than inflation. And by most accounts — especially international accounts, those who have no dog in this fight — American healthcare is deteriorating in quality.
It’s a trend.
How do you propose to reverse this trend without the help of government?
THAT is exactly Obama’s plan.
Obama doesn’t even know what his final plan will look like.
How do you know what it is, Max?
American_Way
Posted June 22, 2009 at 9:12 pm | Permalink
“The sheep don’t care”
Mr. Johnson, did you see Pedants 903 PM response?
Unbeliveable! Pedant won’t even read to see the facts.
————————–
No surprise. They hear FREE National Healthcare and they jump over the cliff….
“Pedant won’t even read to see the facts.”
Nah. I’ll read unbiased facts.
The trouble is that you don’t have any.
AmWay-
The Libs acccuse the Cons of using FEAR tactics, though tonight we have presented the facts from many sources.
Now Here is a Fear Tactic from Obama:
“Simply put, the status quo is broken. We cannot continue this way. If we do nothing, everyone’s health care will be put in jeopardy. Within a decade, we’ll spend one dollar out of every five we earn on health care – and we’ll keep getting less for our money.
That’s why fixing what’s wrong with our health care system is no longer a luxury we hope to achieve – it’s a necessity we cannot postpone any longer.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/06/obamas_weekly_address_goals_for_health_care_reform_96879.html
Remember how Obama said we needed the Bailouts NOW!
Remember how Obama said we needed the Stimulous NOW!
Same Old Siht – From Obama – FEAR!
“Healthcare prices are rising far faster than inflation”
So are the cost of public education at any of our state/federally funded colleges. (you ignored this earlier.)
What’s the solution?
(and that’s just ONE example – prices are rising on everything – even oil. Should government buy your gas?)
As usual (white) conservatives are against any benefits for (non-white) poor people yet they cry “socialism” at every turn, while enjoying the benefits of police and fire protection, roads and bridges, schools and libraries and other “socialistic” programs.
Conservatives don’t give a damn for (non-white) people unless they are good (white) Christians that haven’t fallen on hard times and they raise their (all-white) children in the way of the lord.
(White) conservatives have one goal in mind – what’s in it for me?
If it is not a profitable venture that benefits their pocketbook, they are against it.
Until they need help – then they demand a bailout.
American_Way
Posted June 22, 2009 at 9:38 pm | Permalink
“Healthcare prices are rising far faster than inflation”
So are the cost of public education at any of our state/federally funded colleges. (you ignored this earlier.)
—
I ignored it because it’s irrelevant.
1. Why do these “poor quality” health care systems deliver longer life spans and lower infant mortality?
———-
It’s not an indication of superior health care Capn. It has a lot more to do with our fat azz lazy American lifestyle.
Government controlled health care is only good if have a martyr complex and want give up you current care for care with long waits for specialized care and decision made by bureaucrats. But to be fair, everyone gets to be equally miserable.
Get back in line son.
How racist of you to criticize white people like that, Clark.
1/3 of Doctors Are OVER Age 55
Newer Doctors Not Willing to Work Long Hours
These Two Factors Lead to A Major Problem NOT Solved by Cost Cutting – Without Impacting Timeliness, Distance from Doctors, and Quality of Care
Of course, amongst these aging cohorts are their physician members. As the population ages and requires increasing amounts of care, the nation’s physician supply is also aging into retirement.
Already, more than a third of them are 55 or older (Figure 35). This creates not only straight forward replacement needs on the supply side, but a strong incentive to better understand physician retirement patterns and how they are changing over time.
http://www.tht.org/education/resources/AAMC.pdf
“How racist of you to criticize white people like that, Clark.”
Typical of a white person – anything mentioned about the disadvantages of being non-white is “REVERSE RACISM!!!!!!!!! The MEDIA is anti-WHITE and anti-CHRISTIAN!!!!!!!!!!”
The poor, oppressed, mistreated and down-trodden WHITE CHRISTIANS need to be saved from the minority, non-Christians and the minority non-white people of America.
‘Cuz it’s the RIGHT thing to do.
Ahhhh…You Don’t Need a Doctor, See A Physician Assistant Instead!!!
This report was designed to inform physician workforce planning. There is much work to be done to better understand the dynamics of the physician workforce—in order to better inform physician workforce planning. To that end, future efforts should:
• Continue to promote carefully considered changes in medical school capacity and the availability of GME positions as part of a broader strategy to address physician shortages;
• Promote efforts to make more effective use of the limited physician supply, such as through the use of non-physician clinicians and other health professionals, and to improve productivity;
• Recognize and respond to physician life-style concerns, i.e. promote flexible scheduling including part time work. Given the large number of physicians over age 55, their decisions as to when to retire will have an enormous impact on the supply of physicians
• Improve data collection and workforce studies and expand collaboration among health professions organizations on data and workforce policies.
http://www.tht.org/education/resources/AAMC.pdf
FEAR FEAR AND MORE FEAR FROM OBAMA
LOOK AT HIS ANECDOTES, AND CHECK IS LACK OF FACTS
Make no mistake: the cost of our health care is a threat to our economy. It is an escalating burden on our families and businesses. It is a ticking time-bomb for the federal budget. And it is unsustainable for the United States of America.
When it comes to the cost of our health care, then, the status quo is unsustainable. Reform is not a luxury, but a necessity. I know there has been much discussion about what reform would cost, and rightly so. This is a test of whether we – Democrats and Republicans alike – are serious about holding the line on new spending and restoring fiscal discipline.
But let there be no doubt – the cost of inaction is greater. If we fail to act, premiums will climb higher, benefits will erode further, and the rolls of uninsured will swell to include millions more Americans.
If we fail to act, one out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care within a decade. In thirty years, it will be about one out of every three – a trend that will mean lost jobs, lower take-home pay, shuttered businesses, and a lower standard of living for all Americans.
And if we fail to act, federal spending on Medicaid and Medicare will grow over the coming decades by an amount almost equal to the amount our government currently spends on our nation’s defense. In fact, it will eventually grow larger than what our government spends on anything else today. It’s a scenario that will swamp our federal and state budgets, and impose a vicious choice of either unprecedented tax hikes, overwhelming deficits, or drastic cuts in our federal and state budgets.
To say it as plainly as I can, health care reform is the single most important thing we can do for America’s long-term fiscal health. That is a fact.
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-people/house-delegates/2009-annual-meeting/speeches/president-obama-speech.shtml
JimJohnson
Posted June 22, 2009 at 9:50 pm | Permalink
1/3 of Doctors Are OVER Age 55
Newer Doctors Not Willing to Work Long Hours
—
Good grief. This is an argument for rationalized heatlhcare, then.
It can’t be an argument for lowered healthcare costs. If you have fewer doctors serving more patients, then the only rational answer is to ration care.
You guys can’t even think clearly.
Public college costs are rising faster than inflation!
By golly give us a free college!!!!!
(nevermind this is a government run operation – it’s irrelevant. Government run healthcare will be more better. LoL)
BTW, inflation is based on a average of certain commodities cost. (and there are several different ones for COLA adjustments)
Everything which is RISING, should, as a human right – be paid for by the government.
Government makes money. They have the money trees.
It’s no sweat for them to pay for stuff. LoL.
Too few doctors and nurses are indicative of both the Canadian and the UK healthcare systems. I posted it above.
Facts. Not made up sheat like you libs are doing.
Continue to ignore facts. Live in your fantasy world of utopia.
You are going to be disappointed. Nothing will every satisfy you. Those complaining in Canada and UK? Liberals. Governments are not doing enough.
outlander
Posted June 22, 2009 at 9:44 pm | Permalink
1. Why do these “poor quality” health care systems deliver longer life spans and lower infant mortality?
———-
It’s not an indication of superior health care Capn. It has a lot more to do with our fat azz lazy American lifestyle.
Government controlled health care is only good if have a martyr complex and want give up you current care for care with long waits for specialized care and decision made by bureaucrats. But to be fair, everyone gets to be equally miserable.
—————————
America is the fattest nation on Earth. Obesity rates are high and growing every year. Obesity has been linked to the diseases that cause the majority of deaths in America:
Heart disease
Diabetes
Strokes
Cancer
Health Care if but one factor.
Health Care can’t cure everyone who chooses to Eat Themselves to Death.
AMA Response to Obama:
“To help physicians optimize patient care, new innovative payment approaches that focus on care coordination and disease management are needed. The former senators recognize that permanent Medicare payment reform must be part of health reform, saying in their proposal that ‘the SGR as implemented today impedes efforts to reform Medicare reimbursement to provide incentives for high-quality, high-value care.’
“Other key elements of reform highlighted in the proposal include promoting greater adoption of health IT, quality measurement and medical liability reform.”
(In other words, cutting doctor pay will not lead to High-Quality, High-Value care. Ya get what ya pay for jack.)
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/news-events/news-events/ama-commends-bipartisan-effort.shtml
Pedant
Posted June 22, 2009 at 9:58 pm | Permalink
JimJohnson
Posted June 22, 2009 at 9:50 pm | Permalink
1/3 of Doctors Are OVER Age 55
Newer Doctors Not Willing to Work Long Hours
—
Good grief. This is an argument for rationalized heatlhcare, then.
It can’t be an argument for lowered healthcare costs. If you have fewer doctors serving more patients, then the only rational answer is to ration care.
You guys can’t even think clearly.
—————————–
Or more incentives to encourage existing doctors to stay in practice longer, and more students to go to medical school to become doctors.
Or Pendant, your Government ObamaCare will decide who gets treated or not.
(Check the PDF link above for some nice graphics showing the Doctor Shortages. Supply & Demand even under ObamaCare will largely impact price, and determine how big the shortage of care will be. Even the ONE can’t change the laws of Economics.)
Ya think this has an impact on US Health Care Costs?
Obesity Rates by Country
# 1 United States: 30.6%
# 2 Mexico: 24.2%
# 3 United Kingdom: 23%
# 4 Slovakia: 22.4%
# 5 Greece: 21.9%
# 6 Australia: 21.7%
# 7 New Zealand: 20.9%
# 8 Hungary: 18.8%
# 9 Luxembourg: 18.4%
# 10 Czech Republic: 14.8%
# 11 Canada: 14.3%
# 12 Spain: 13.1%
# 13 Ireland: 13%
# 14 Germany: 12.9%
= 15 Portugal: 12.8%
= 15 Finland: 12.8%
# 17 Iceland: 12.4%
# 18 Turkey: 12%
# 19 Belgium: 11.7%
# 20 Netherlands: 10%
# 21 Sweden: 9.7%
# 22 Denmark: 9.5%
# 23 France: 9.4%
# 24 Austria: 9.1%
# 25 Italy: 8.5%
# 26 Norway: 8.3%
# 27 Switzerland: 7.7%
= 28 Japan: 3.2%
= 28 Korea, South: 3.2%
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity
“Give me my liposuction! Give me my facelift! I’m covered! I will NOT be made to wait five minutes! Let the damned poor die!”
THIS should be a plank in the Republican platform.
Can Taxes Help Improve Obesity Rates?
New York state governor David Patterson wants to place an obesity tax on non-diet soft drinks and fruit drinks (only those less than 70% real fruit juice). The problem really is one of money for New York state and not obesity, which in lies the issue. Patterson is simply looking to make up the state’s budget short fall. As always, this type of tax will hurt the poor the most. Some will argue that the monetary pain will be enough to convince many state residents, mainly the poor ones, not to purchase these ‘empty calories.’ However, it provides no guarantee that these calories will not be replaced with other cheap empty calorie options.
http://www.obesityrates.net/
“Government controlled health care is only good if have a martyr complex and want give up you current care for care with long waits for specialized care and decision made by bureaucrats. But to be fair, everyone gets to be equally miserable.”
Well forgive me outlander, I had no IDEA you were SUCH an important and busy man. I sure didn’t get that impression meeting you.
Imagine that. You are SO important and busy that you can’t wait behind six people instead of five for health care! That sixth person needs to get out of your way!
I’m sorry son, we have to get out of the way and let the people with money have care.
“57 percent of those surveyed said that they would be willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans could have health care.”
Maybe there IS hope for America after all.
The majority realize that we are all in this together and resist the urge to be put at one another’s throat.
Jimbo isn’t about to give up his chance for a quick boob job I see. He may also need elective surgery to have his nose lowered too.
The reason there are fewer CAT sans etc available or done in countries with universal insurance is interesting. Each scan has the same invasive radiation effect as 500 x-rays. They were only of value in 2% of all head injuries, 90-80% of all backstrain and kneee joint scans were shown to have no clincal importance all. The higher the income the more often scans were ordered and when ordered they were done by labs in which the MD had a fiscal stake 66% of the time. As a tool for diagnosis they are complimentary to, but not better than exisitng methods. Most scans are ordered by MD’s not speciaists and the one big reason is to cover their butts in case of a law suit. The health insurance companies know this, that is why they question every one ordered for it is very expensive and in many cases, just a cash cow. Maybe other places figured that out beforehand instead of just going whole hog into the latest “test du jour” by big medicine, for they do have a higher standard of living to begin with. The top 4 are Iceland, Norway, Canada and Australia. We’re listed at no. 15. These other guys got the bucks, so it ain’t being short of funds to buy the things that shows them with considerably fewer units per capita vs America