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Government-Run Health Care Kills Thousands
Liberals and Progressives have religious faith in government-run health care systems. I am sure, if left to their own ends, they would much rather prefer we adopt a single-payer system similar to the systems in the UK and Canada. Political necessity only permits a foot-in-the-door policy that mandates health care insurance for everyone. While these systems aren't as inefficient as the top-down single-payer systems (such as Medicare), the current bills passed in the House and Senate impose the heavy hand of the State into almost every dark corner of the health care system in America.
These government fundamentalists march to the canon and cry of the efficiency of government-run systems and mock for-profit systems for being inefficient and wasteful. Yet there is no area of economic activity that the government operates efficiently precisely because of the lack of discipline present in for-profit ventures. The USPS just announced they lost $238 million in 2009. Fedex and UPS were profitable.
The shibboleth of the inefficiency of capitalism has so often been proven wrong by economists on all sides of the spectrum that one can only conclude that these free market deniers are worse than ignorant: they choose power over efficiency. And that is what Hayek called "The Road to Serfdom." After all, it was the Marxists and Socialists who proved by their failures that the free market works.
It is useless to appeal to reason to these fundamentalists. Their quest for power is an end in itself and they won't relent.
What to do?
My suggestion is that we should use scare tactics and create an environment of fear and doubt about government health care plans. This is fair since Liberals and Progressives have been spreading falsehoods about the free market system for a hundred years. We have an advantage: we don't have to lie. The truth is scary enough.
Here are two frightening and disgusting articles that demonstrate what I am talking about. Don't tell me it couldn't happen here.
You might find this first article disturbing.
1,200 Needless Deaths
By Fay Schlesinger, Andy Dolan and Tim Shipman
Last updated at 1:45 PM on 25th February 2010
- Up to 1,200 patients died unnecessarily because of appalling care
- Labour's obsession with targets and box ticking blamed for scandal
- Patients were 'routinely neglected' at hospital
- Report calls for FOURTH investigation into scandal
Not a single official has been disciplined over the worst-ever NHS hospital scandal, it emerged last night.
Up to 1,200 people lost their lives needlessly because Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust put government targets and cost-cutting ahead of patient care.
But none of the doctors, nurses and managers who failed them has suffered any formal sanction.
Indeed, some have either retired on lucrative pensions or have swiftly found new jobs.
Former chief executive Martin Yeates, who has since left with a £1million pension pot, six months' salary and a reported £400,000 payoff, did not even give evidence to the inquiry which detailed the scale of the scandal yesterday.
He was said to be medically unfit to do so, though he sent some information to chairman Robert Francis through his solicitor.
The devastating-report into the Stafford Hospital-shambles' laid waste to Labour's decade-long obsession with box-ticking and league tables.
The independent inquiry headed by Robert Francis QC found the safety of sick and dying patients was 'routinely neglected'. Others were subjected to ' inhumane treatment', 'bullying', 'abuse' and 'rudeness'.
The shocking estimated death toll, three times the previous figure of 400, has prompted calls for a full public inquiry.
Bosses at the Trust - officially an 'elite' NHS institution - were condemned for their fixation with cutting waiting times to hit Labour targets and leaving neglected patients to die.
But after a probe that was controversially held in secret, not a single individual has been publicly blamed.
The inquiry found that:
• Patients were left unwashed in their own filth for up to a month as nurses ignored their requests to use the toilet or change their sheets;
• Four members of one family. including a new-born baby girl. died within 18 months after of blunders at the hospital;
• Medics discharged patients hastily out of fear they risked being sacked for delaying;
• Wards were left filthy with blood, discarded needles and used dressings while bullying managers made whistleblowers too frightened to come forward.
Last night the General Medical Council announced it was investigating several doctors. The Nursing and Midwifery Council is investigating at least one nurse and is considering other cases.
Ministers suggested the report highlighted a dreadful 'local' scandal, but its overall conclusions are a blistering condemnation of Labour's approach to the NHS.
It found that hospital were so preoccupied with saving money and pursuit of elite foundation trust status that they 'lost sight of its fundamental responsibility to provide safe care'.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham accepted 18 recommendations from Mr Francis and immediately announced plans for a new inquiry, to be held in public, into how Department of Health and NHS regulators failed to spot the disaster.
But Julie Bailey, head of the campaign group Cure the NHS, condemned his response as 'outrageous' and backed Tory and Liberal Democrat demands for a full public inquiry into what went wrong.
Tory leader David Cameron said: 'We need openness, clarity and transparency to stop this happening again.' Gordon Brown described the scandal as a 'completely unacceptable management failure' and revealed that the cases of 300 patients are now under investigation.
He told MPs the Government was belatedly working on plans to 'strike off' hospital managers responsible for failures. The hospital could also lose its cherished foundation status.
Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said 'These awful events show how badly Labour has let down NHS patients. It should never again be possible for managers to put a tick in a box marked "target met" while patients are pushed off to a ward and left to die.'
The Francis probe was launched following a Healthcare Commission report on Stafford Hospital in March last year. It found that deaths at the hospital were 27 to 45 per cent higher than normal, meaning some 400 to 1,200 people died unnecessarily between 2005 and 2008.
Two weeks before the report's publication, the Trust's chief executive Martin Yeates was suspended. He eventually resigned in May after being offered £400,000 and a £1million pension pot.
The Francis report said staff numbers were allowed to fall 'dangerously low', causing nurses to neglect the most basic care. It said: 'Requests for assistance to use a bedpan or to get to and from the toilet were not responded to.
'Some families were left to take soiled sheets home to wash or to change beds when this should have been undertaken by the hospital and its staff.' Food and drink were left out of reach, forcing patients to drink water from flower vases.
While many staff did their best, Mr Francis said, others showed a disturbing lack of compassion to patients.
He added: 'I heard so many stories of shocking care. These patients were not simply numbers. They were husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandparents. They were people who entered Stafford Hospital and rightly expected to be well cared for and treated.'
Family who lost four loved ones
Kelsey Lintern was at the centre of one of the worst tragedies in the hospital’s appalling catalogue of failure.
She lost four members of her family within 18 months, her grandmother, uncle, sister and six-day-old baby.
Mrs Lintern, 36, almost became the fifth victim when a nurse tried to give her pethidine while she was in labour, despite her medical notes and a wristband clearly stating she was allergic to the drug.
The horrific story began in January 2007 when her baby daughter Nyah had to be delivered by her own grandmother because a distracted midwife was not looking.
The baby was not breathing but she was resuscitated, then discharged by a junior paediatrician just two days later, despite the family’s fears she was seriously ill.
She was not feeding properly and still appeared blue. She died four days later. A post-mortem examination revealed four holes in her heart. Mrs Lintern accepts that Nyah may have died in any case, but said the hospital should at least have ‘realised there was a problem’.
It was when she was in labour with Nyah that a nurse arrived with a syringe of potentially-fatal pethidine, oblivious to the fact Mrs Lintern was allergic to it.
In April 2007, Mrs Lintern’s sister, Laurie Gethin, 37, died of lung, bone and lymph cancer, which had taken 18 months to be diagnosed, even though she was displaying tell-tale symptoms.
Her body, with her eyes still open, was left on her blood-splattered bed in full view of other patients. Tests revealed that Mrs Gethin had ‘markers’ in her blood which can indicated cancer.
But it was only when she was sent for a scan at another hospital that tumours were discovered. Mrs Lintern’s uncle, Tom Warriner, 48, died in January 2008 after his intestine was accidentally pierced in an operation for bowel cancer.
A coroner ruled the death was accidental. That summer, her grandmother Lilian Wood Latta, 80, died hungry and dehydrated after suffering a stroke. She was left in her own excrement during her final days and the family said the dehydration was caused by staff failing to give her adequate fluids.
Mrs Wood Latta had been referred to the hospital by her GP after suffering a series of mini-strokes at home. She was moved between wards three times, and it was left to relatives to change her incontinence pads.
Her dying wish had been to see Mrs Lintern’s new baby Khalen, so, after checking with staff, Mrs Lintern took her daughter in. But as the frail pensioner held her great-grandchild, a nurse appeared and said: ‘What on earth is a baby doing here? You do know we’ve got MRSA and C-Diff on this ward?’
Mrs Lintern, who lives in Cannock, Staffordshire, with husband David and their two daughters, said: ‘It is called the caring profession. But where is the care?’
James Reay died in agony after a junior doctor at Stafford Hospital failed to check his medical history and gave him the wrong drug.
The 67-year-old former miner was admitted to A&E in May 2006 with a swollen leg. Medics administered the anticoagulant Heparin – but failed to take into account Mr Reay’s history of stomach ulcers, which are known to react badly to the drug.
Two days later he was rushed to another hospital where he died from internal bleeding after three weeks of intense pain. Yesterday his widow Olwen won afive-figure pay-off in an out-of-court settlement after Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust admitted liability.
Mrs Reay, 69, said: ‘I have won my case but to me it is blood money and I cannot enjoy it. I would rather have my husband.’
With a background in the hotel and catering industry, Martin Yeates was brought in to help Mid Staffordshire achieve the holy grail of foundation trust status as a supposed beacon of quality in the NHS.
A profile on the Trust’s website, since removed, boasted that he had developed ‘a more businesslike approach for the organisation’ after his appointment in September 2005.
The Trust finally achieved foundation status two years later. Mr Yeates’s career in the NHS began when he switched from the hotel trade to manage the catering department at Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry in 1977.
It has now ended with a £1million pension pot, six months salary and a possible £400,000 pay-off for the father of two – despite the Trust’s catastrophic failings.
Mr Yeates, who lives with second wife Lynn in a converted barn in a hamlet outside Stafford, was not at home last night and a neighbour said he had not been seen since Christmas.
It is believed he has spent at least some time in Egypt since being suspended on full pay of £169,000 in March last year – two weeks before an investigation revealed the deaths of at least 400 more patients than would have been expected, and an ‘appalling’ catalogue of failings in care.
Yesterday’s inquiry report said Mr Yeates resigned with effect from June 14, and was paid six months full salary in lieu of notice.
In his report, Mr Francis said Mr Yeates had failed to resolve ‘governance and staffing issues’ at the Trust and that he and colleagues had ‘focused on systems’ instead.
Of the other Trust bosses, former chairman Toni Brisby resigned in March last year after the NHS watchdog Monitor said it intended to remove her. She told the Francis report she received no termination payment of any kind. Jan Harry, the trust’s director of nursing from 1998 to 2006, oversaw disastrous changes to the organisation of wards.
But she told the inquiry she could not recall a decision to axe 52 nursing posts and was ‘not aware’ of plans to drastically alter the ratio of trained to untrained staff. She also said it was not her job to monitor ward standards – a claim later described as ‘absurd’ by Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing.
Helen Morrey, former director of operations at the trust, admitted that risk assessments about the impact of job cuts were inadequate and accepted responsibility for a failure to thoroughly investigate complaints by patients. She was put on paid leave last July, before leaving the trust in November.
You don't have a choice other than the National Health System unless you are rich. In a free market system, you could sue and drive the bad hospitals out of existence. Or you could go somewhere else. Thus the free market corrects its mistakes. Very difficult in the UK. I do think that our legal system is too liberal with awards in medical malpractice cases, but the idiots in the Republican Party see "malpractice reform" as a cost cutting measure. You can hate the lawyers, but remove them, and there is nothing between us and Leviathan.
This next article will repulse you because of the hypocrisy of it.
Canadian Legislator Goes to Miami for Heart Surgery
By Tara Brautigam (CP) February 22, 2010
An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a "minimally invasive" surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago, based on the advice of his doctors.
"This was my heart, my choice and my health," Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.
"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."
The 60-year-old Williams said doctors detected a heart murmur last spring and told him that one of his heart valves wasn't closing properly, creating a leakage.
He said he was told at the time that the problem was "moderate" and that he should come back for a checkup in six months.
Eight months later, in December, his doctors told him the problem had become severe and urged him to get his valve repaired immediately or risk heart failure, he said.
His doctors in Canada presented him with two options - a full or partial sternotomy, both of which would've required breaking bones, he said.
He said he spoke with and provided his medical information to a leading cardiac surgeon in New Jersey who is also from Newfoundland and Labrador. He advised him to seek treatment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami.
That's where he was treated by Dr. Joseph Lamelas, a cardiac surgeon who has performed more than 8,000 open-heart surgeries.
Williams said Lamelas made an incision under his arm that didn't require any bone breakage.
"I wanted to get in, get out fast, get back to work in a short period of time," the premier said.
Williams said he didn't announce his departure south of the border because he didn't want to create "a media gong show," but added that criticism would've followed him had he chose to have surgery in Canada.
"I would've been criticized if I had stayed in Canada and had been perceived as jumping a line or a wait list. ... I accept that. That's public life," he said.
"(But) this is not a unique phenomenon to me. This is something that happens with lots of families throughout this country, so I make no apologies for that."
Williams said his decision to go to the U.S. did not reflect any lack of faith in his own province's health care system.
"I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we are just over half a million people," he said.
"We do whatever we can to provide the best possible health care that we can in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian health care system has a great reputation, but this is a very specialized piece of surgery that had to be done and I went to somebody who's doing this three or four times a day, five, six days a week."
He quipped that he had "a heart of a 40-year-old, so that gives me 20 years new life," and said he intends to run in the next provincial election in 2011.
"I'm probably going to be around for a long time, hopefully, if God willing," he said.
"God forbid for the Canadian public I won't be around longer than ever."
Williams also said he paid for the treatment, but added he would seek any refunds he would be eligible for in Canada.
"If I'm entitled to any reimbursement from any Canadian health care system or any provincial health care system, then obviously I will apply for that as anybody else would," he said.
"But I wrote out the cheque myself and paid for it myself and to this point, I haven't even looked into the possibility of any reimbursement. I don't know what I'm entitled to, if anything, and if it's nothing, then so be it."
He is expected back at work in early March.
At least he admits that the Canadian system isn't very good. His lack of faith in his own system speaks volumes. Where will he go when we destroy the best health care system in the world?
P.S. Please see my response to the comments, below.
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Hosni Mubarak has chosen a clinic in Germany to have his gall blader removed. He went to the University of Heidelberg, which is a public institution.
So, Hosni doesn't trust his own Egyptian doctors and hospitals and Danny doesn't trust his own Canadian doctors.
Maybe this is telling us more about those guys psychological state than it tells us about the quality of the care in those countries.
On the way back from a business trip to Costa Rica, I sat next to an older gentlemen who looked like he took a beat down. Here he had some major oral surgery a couple days before. Gist of it all, he stayed at a resort in San Jose for 4 days, paid for the airfare, got the needed surgery, all for less than half the cost of what the US oral surgeon quoted. He said he looked better than his brother in law who had the same procedure in the US....
In the UK, the government owns the hospital. In the US, the government pays the doctor. Major difference.
You are aware that there are people in the US who leave the US to go to other countries for heart surgery. A man in a nearby country traveled to India for heart surgery that was 5K compared to six figures in the US. His US doctor did a post op exam and pronounced him healthy. I would ask a lot more about the circumstances of the Canada incident, as in did any money conveniently change hands as a bribe?
Get the Jews out of the system. It clears the bullsh*t money grubbing out.
You may live a little longer in a Jew'd Medical system, but your healthy children will hate you for it.
Arminius is better than the Talmudic Jew Sh*t called "Healthcare" in the US today. I can only hope that the over fed Talmudic jew'd stockbrokers on Wallstreet die.
You need to hook up with ToraBora, both of you seem to have lots of hate.
National Health Systems only work if everyone takes some personal repsonsibility for ones health, eat right, exercise, don't smoke, watch the drug and alcohol intake. Of course most people don't do any of the above and end up with some sort of aliment and of course no one wants to pay for it. A dilemma indeed.
It is worth considering what will happen to the "supply" of quality doctors and nurses if we nationalize healthcare here. There is no point debating which system is better from the "demand" side. Demand will expand in a nationalized scheme, quality supply will contract as wages shrink, and we will have a mess, all things being equal.
If we are going to discuss healthcare on this site, let's discuss demand, quality and supply together when considering any changes.
You absolutely do not know what you are talking about. I lived in a European country for a long time with one of the government run health care systems you claim is broken. The care is infinitely superior to what is available in the United States. It is also infinitely cheaper.
The problem with your analysis is one basic assumption. You assume that the provision of health care services comprises a "market". It does not. There is no "market" for health care, in the traditional sense. In a market, the participants know something about the produce or products they buy. They know enough to determine what is good, bad, or in-between. In health care, the customer knows nothing.
Health care "consumers", in American health care, are led about by doctors, nurses, and hospitals, influenced to accept unnecessary surgeries, and other treatments of all kinds and types, which the providers greatly profit from. There is a strong incentive to provide excessive and unnecessary care, especially unneeded elective surgeries, in order to turn a profit. In the midst of this, the health care "consumer" does not have sufficient knowledge by which he may accurately judge the quality or the necessity of the health care providers, or necessity of the various procedures, medicines and surgeries that are recommended to him.
I am 100% in favor of free markets. However, as explained above, no market exists with respect to health care. That is why the U.S. spends 18% of its GDP on health care, and has lower life expectancies to show for it, as compared to countries like France, which spends about 9.5% of GDP on health care. The U.S. health care system needs to be taken apart completely, and all hospitals nationalized and all doctors must become public employees at reasonable salaries. Being a doctor should return to being what it once was...a helping profession...it should stop being a means to become a multi-millionaire.
It took me 10 months to get physiotherapy under NHS. Absolutely disgraceful.
That's why I escaped the UK and came to America, now to face the same gov run health program?? HELL NO!!
And don't tell me " you don't have to get the Obama care, stay with your own" because they say the same sht in the UK, the fact is when you pay 40% income tax, you'd better have your care taken care of.
JUST SAY NO to gov run health care.
What really pisses me off about Canada's system is that the doctor's a nurse's education is subsidized by tax payers and then a fair bit of them go to the States to make 'big money'. What a crock, if they want to go somewhere else they should have to pay back all subsidies they received.
So, stop grousing & write your legislator & make it happen. Paying back those subsidies has the ring of sweet justice to me.
As long as they stay gone, stupid Canada will never get the money back. suckers
"... The USPS just announced they lost $238 million in 2009. Fedex and UPS were profitable ..."
... and USPS charges a fraction of what UPS and FedEx charge to send a letter. Imagine the absolute uproar if the post office were to double the stamp price to $0.88 for a letter. While those exact same crybabies whining over the post office doubling the cost of a stamp would walk right into a UPS store and pay $7 to ship a letter. Doubling the price of a stamp would probably make USPS profitable and they still could deliver a letter for a fraction of the cost
FEDEX is a real sweetheart. They force their employees to call themselves 'independent contractors' so they can cheat them out of benefits. Blatant labor law violation but our corrupt congress allows it.
The proper way to analyze the delivery of health care is to understand how and why our system is flawed. I would argue that the free market delivers any product or service better and more efficiently than any government system. I think most of you would agree in general with that statement, but you don't see it applying to health care.
The U.S. health care system is highly regulated. We have no real free market health care system. As a result the delivery of health care is highly distorted by the government and the result has been an expensive and often burdensome system. This has been going on since 1965 with the passage of Medicare. The rigged tax code, the prevention of competition, the lack of control by consumers of their health care dollars, and the burden of Medicare costs being borne by non-Medicare privately insured consumers, have lead to our current mess.
Yet I don't see similar problems in the delivery of other goods and services, say food for example, specifically because the government does not regulate and control it. Yet food is more necessary to sustaining life than health care.
With all of these flaws, almost all (but not all) innovations, new tools and drugs come from the U.S. That is only because of the profit system that can bring big rewards to innovators and entrepreneurs.
I have studied the health care systems of other countries that have some form of government universal health care and they are all losing money, resort to rationing (cutbacks in services), and have a shrinking population base with which to support an aging population. From Cato:
If we were to start over, I think many of you would choose a system that covered the most people, with the best care, at the lowest cost. Like food, only the free market can do that. But that's not the system in which we live. There are a number of market based solutions which Congress could do other than mandatory, top-down, government sponsored or controlled health care systems. I urge you to go to Cato.org or the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) for further information on this.
My concern is that if the U.S. system goes the way of Canada or the UK, then innovations in medical care will decline and there will be nowhere to go for advanced health care. If Danny Williams and Sylvio Berlusconi come here now, where will they go in the future?
I understand that many of you have anecdotes about medical care, good and bad, here and in Canada and the UK. But the reality is that the Canadian and UK systems are going broke and are rationing health care. It is not feasible to raise taxes forever and still maintain a vigorous capitalistic economy. I predict, as does Cato, that they will seek more market based solutions to bring costs under control. Really, you Canadians don't have to settle for long lines and poor quality.
I think my shock tactic worked and I appreciate the vigorous debate going on here.
Typical Libertarian line; everything will be alright if only the government would just go away. Actually all you Libertarians should become Communists; the eventual goal is for the state to become unnecessary & wither away. The final result being a stateless utopia. Exactly what you claim to want.
It is heartening to hear that you are willing to engage in analysis of the topic, as opposed to just "My suggestion is that we should use scare tactics and create an environment of fear and doubt about government health care plans. This is fair since Liberals and Progressives have been spreading falsehoods about the free market system for a hundred years." That line really hurt any chance you had of being taken seriously, though it certainly is utilitarian in its effectiveness -- that tactic DOES indeed seem to be the way to get results.
Just a few minor questions: Are you serious when you say the delivery of food is not regulated or controlled by the government? I'm sorry, but what are agricultural subsidies, selective import tariff policies, the FDA, etc?
Do you truly not see any viable alternatives that could be between single payer health insurance AND government owned/run medical establishment from med school to mortuary -- and an unregulated, free-for all, may the best competitor win, side effects and unitended consequences be damned? I highly agree with your point about distorted, perverted incentives, stifled competition and artificial inefficiencies -- but fail to see how the likely eventual outcome (4-5 national insurer/provider megacompexes a la TBTF banks) is really what we need to be going for.
I exaggerated the food thing a bit, but compared to health care, it is mostly unregulated. Yes I am aware of subsidies, tariffs, and health and safety standards. As to shock tactics, you got my point, thank you. As to your last point, please see Cato and their suggestions for reforming the system. As I mentioned in the article, we are not in a perfect world, but there are things we can do to fix this mess.
You just gave yourself away. The Cato Institute is only a little to the right of Attila The Hun.
looks like all posting are still alive ,, mayber never been to hospital ,, i bet those who have used itn here in the usa ,, are for the most satisfied ,
sure in every system some will have problems ,,
whats the ratio here .. 96 to 4, the 4 stuffing them selves with crap, over weight , smoking , drinking ..
i am sure occasionally a very small sample can be highlighted ..
seattle has the very best care , hospitals, doctors in my experience,, just show um your medicare card,,100 bucks a month thanks government ,, and the supplement just 4000 grand a year,,
so for $6000 a year a single ,, can experience The Thrill of the needle. A brief moment in silence and arrive at the other side of sleep .. wiTh a few stiches , sans parts,,
"At least he admits that the Canadian system isn't very good. His lack of faith in his own system speaks volumes. Where will he go when we destroy the best health care system in the world?"
Where exactly does he admit this?
He admits that he went to Miami for a highly specialized procedure from a highly skilled specialist that couldn't be found in Canada.
Spin much?
Given the choice between an inefficient government system and a for-profit corporate raping of the public in the name of better health care, most people would take the government system. It's only because people like you who spin this utter BS that we still have this debate at all.
I'd prefer to keep the health care debate out of Zero Hedge, but as a Canadian, I can tell you that the system is not so bad...it has its benefits and its flaws. The biggest problems are the line-ups and the high tax burden it places on younger working people. If you have the money, of course you go to the US...you don't have to wait and because it's 10x the size there's usually a super-specialist there that can do the best job. Sometimes that person is in Canada and you have to wait, but otherwise you just go to the US...it's not a scandal. I don't think you can just take the Canadian system and plunk it down in the US anyways, so it's a stupid argument to say that the Canadian or UK system kills people. It also saves people. It's the same as saying the FDA kills people every time they make a drug maker to do lengthy trials instead of just throwing it out there on the street.
Story in the UK Daily Mail today of an 11 year old boy who DIED of thirst in a top NHS hospital. The boy actually called police to get a drink of water because the nurses were ignoring him!
best to begin to eat right , get off the soft drinks, macdonalds , eat organic when possible . sugar is a killer ,,
stuff your self with hot dogs that helps .. keep smoking ,, just look out at the fat cells at the mall..
the killer is the food industry, the drug companies .
hack at the leaves and branches ,, about time we went to ther root of the problem
That is an excellent point. Many of the health problems are caused by our diet and lack of physical exercise. I went to Brussels,Belgium and their diet is a lot more healthy. Less obese people too. Japan too, but it has changed over the last few decades and is becoming more westernized.
All good stuff. I bet there a million stories like these. Here's one, a 92 year old man suffers from joint disease and needs a new hip, he also has spinal stinosis. So over six months he has two operations. Some complications led to an extended hospital stay and three weeks of rehab. The medicare bill had to be 100k. He died in his sleep a month after getting out of rehab.
We have the medical savvy to do these things, but we do not have the resourses to pay for the demand that is out there. Who could be apposed to the idea of having the highest quality health care available to all of our citizens. No one. But it is 100% certain that without some form of rationing this problem will destroy everyone. The sick and the healthy. The young and the old. Some very hard choices have to be made.
You & Palin were meant for each other; bring on the Death Comission.
i'm the guy again with the 97 yr old gram
i still don't know which system is correct, i will say this, i would not have paid 80% of the bills and fought with them forever, cause they did fuck up big time, yet, since i don't pay em, overall i was really a non-entity to most
golden rule, since i don't got it, i don't get it
yet, still squeeky wheel always works, they fear documenting fuck ups, so a pad and notebooks is your best friend
US has the best healthcare system? Depends how you define best. If best means most technologically advanced, US system is the best. If best means most cost effective, US system is the worst. If you define best by metrics such as national life expectancy, mortality rates, etc., US system is middling.
Diggi,
You are a POS. Do you really want to compare the US health-care with any African, most of Asia or Latin America nation.
Please stop lying.
I believe your observation correct, Sir.
looking at calender to long brings death .. ban the calender
jeezes, obviously we got a million stories
in the service business, squeeky wheel gets the grease
i've just gone thru 12 weeks of ER---twice, CCU, two rehabs hospitals, etc. etc. etc.
i observed about 3 acts of total stupidity a week, that's 36 , and i was well known by all in each situation cause I am the legal advocate for my 97 year old gram, needless to say i was known by all, and not the nurse, floor directors and head doctors, here's what i expereinced about 100 times
"any questions, we will fix all and make you happy"
yes, insert whatever u want
"that is so and so's job"
so f'n what, i want an answer not a name, can you tell who will fix the problem and when
"that's so and so's job"
i heard u, we agree we have a problem and i can't fix it, so, can u talk to so and so and come up with a solutin and a time table
1/2 time, "let me check"....the other panic in eyes, they'd get a supervisor
guess what, the supervisor would repeat the same shyte the whoever just did, and i'd have to go thru the whole thing
so, supervisors would at least do something, 1/2 it was done, 1/2 the time major fuck ups ensued, and i mean major, all communication related, all of em, not care itself
now on the let me checks, i ended up letting half of them go cause it was obvious they wouldn't be done, unless i raised hell, and on the others u got a 1/2 assed answer
4 times i was told they had called me and when i said i got no call, it was discovered they had used the wrong area code, each time i insisted they track down where the cliche was, cause i must have given my phone number out 3 times a week, and somewhere they were using some f'u'd report, was it ever solved, nope
like any service 80/20 rules, 80% go thru motions, 20% perform
main problem i saw is a merry go round, a shuffle of staff, we'd be assigned one doctor one day, and two days later you got another, the new one says, yes, i'm you're doctor plus doctor so and so.......okay, then u find out so and so is gone, and u got another doctor, roflmao
i estimated i came in contact, physically with 10 doctors, 20 nurses, i'd a hired 4 of the doctors, and 3 of the nurses
on seeing a doctor or talking to one, good f'n luck, i only did because i had the time to wait in the two hour window they made rounds or got phone numbers and talked to them myself
i would say both ER experiences were very good, the second time it was 12 people in the room, yelling screaming life or death, and once stabilized constant monitoring, of course then we ended up in ccu, where u had great quality
i can't complain, yet, the second trip to er and ccu probably cost 30k, and we never even shoulda been to the first er trip, maybe 8k
it's all good now, cause like one other poster had a doctor that listened and correctly diagnosed a simple standard problem that got out of hand, so what should have been 2 maybe 4 doctors visits at max, which is how it all started you ended up with 50-70k in costs
kinda sad, yet, happy we are past it
Gee Whizz- Danny Williams is a Canadian ? I thought he was a Newfie...
There is nothing wrong with the Canadian system to the extent that everyone is covered, rich or poor. As a smaller country Canada (as noted above) does not have all the exotic treatments that are available in the U.S.
As a Canadian whose life was saved by the Canadian hospital system, I can only say that you are DEAD WRONG with your thesis.
Public or Private, they all have their flaws.
The main difficulty in the Canadian system is that the hospitals have been co-opted by myopic Unions. Nurses can work three 12 hour shifts; I saw it and it is not safe.
Econophile- this article is poorly presented and wrongly concluded; go back to the corner and put your dunce cap back on !
as a canadian, imho our health system is perfectly tailored for people in car accidents, and people with the flu that need persciptions. We have been wrestling for about 2+ years now to get a diagnosis on a current issue.. nothing. everyone keeps passing the buck. useless follow ups ever few months.. the refuse to tell you anything over the phone, you need to go in, 2 weeks later for the results. 'oh there is nothign there' go see this specialist, 2 more motnhs pass. nothing. We are left considering USA (probably the best medical experts in the world) although very expensive, or thailand.. very cheap, and really at this point they cant be any more inefficent than what we've been dealing with. and we've had many experiences there in the past. remarkable. mother with cancer, sister delivering babies. thailand actually has an amazing medical system. "medical toursim" is there for a reason. sad and frustrating we need to resort to these things.
Danny Williams is a multi millionaire . His type of surgery is performed successfully daily in many hospitals in Canada.
I can only say great things about all my experiences and that of my family in Canada. Meanwhile my American nephew decided to join the army so he could afford care for his wife having her third baby after he was laid off in 2009. He will likely be going to Afghanistan later this year.
Your nephew is defending The West against a virulent Islamic ideology that wants to kill or enslave all non-believers. I salute your nephew for his courage. Godspeed!
ugh. i hope you are attempting to be funny.
I don't think that guy has much of a sense of humor. Doesn't seem to understand that the only way for this soldier to get health care for his family is to put himself in harm's way. Poster child for the Tea Party.
I'd prefer to keep the health care debate out of Zero Hedge, but as a Canadian, I can tell you that the system is not so bad...it has its benefits and its flaws. The biggest problems are the line-ups and the high tax burden it places on younger working people. If you have the money, of course you go to the US...you don't have to wait and because it's 10x the size there's usually a super-specialist there that can do the best job. Sometimes that person is in Canada and you have to wait, but otherwise you just go to the US...it's not a scandal. I don't think you can just take the Canadian system and plunk it down in the US anyways, so it's a stupid argument to say that the Canadian or UK system kills people. It also saves people. It's the same as saying the FDA kills people every time they make a drug maker to do lengthy trials instead of just throwing it out there on the street.
Our nurses and doctors kill way more people than was stated in this post. America bankrupts is citizens with health care. They are better off dead anyway.
Gov. run healthcare will also solve the SS problem.(in all 56, ?57, ?58 states) No more old people! Way to go Mugabe Jr., you commie POS.
CCCP
How can these entitlement programs be funded? I wonder if Medicare and Medicaid was supposed to "save" money in the long run by reducing costs. These programs simply are not sustainable and can not be funded in the long run. Look at Europe today, it is going broke.
I believe there is one aspect of this whole debate that is overlooked > TRAIN MORE FREAKING DOCTORS AND NURSES.... ie. invest!!!! in more expediate more appropriate training for more doctors and nurses- FFS!!!! - supply and demand for services will then take care of one of the base issues - waiting times!!! which lead to pressure on infrastructure and human resources. The simplest and easiest start to fix a crisis which will take years and be potentially insurmountable once exponential aging of populations kick in no matter whether you are privately insured or not.
I have it on good authority that being alive is hazardous to one's health.
TR Reed's book: The Healing of America:
A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, should be required reading for everyone in this debate. His work is objective and factual - you will actually learn about medical care systems in other developed countries. The "dirty secret" is not that there are problems with other countrys' programs, but that the US is the only industrialized, wealthy country providing no medical safety net for its citizens.
The root of the problem is lack of accountability for performance. Poor medical practice should be corrected whether it happens in the U.S. or in Canada. Government is not accountable for its failures and abuses and that is why it should not have power over medical services. Don't lose sight of the simple truth.
2 comments:
First of all, the "Canadian legislator" is a Provincial representative, equivalent to a State govenor. It is a question of facts. Secondly, said Danny Williams, was mis-informed, and so are you and your news sources.(I can understand a politician being mis-informed or lying, for but news sources it is a travesty) The same procedure he had in Miami is available in Canada in several clinics.
Secondly, the answer to many world problems - overpopulation, pollution, lack of food, etc. lies in aboloshing all medical and pharmaceutical intervention. Insist on a natural life-cycle of birth and death.
I hear people tell me that life is the most precious of all. Each time I hear this I call bullshit.
If that were true, and people really believed it to be true, they would be out in the streets en mass preventing all the killing and maiming of the population amonst themselves. However, no one lifts a finger to stop this, all the while claiming a love for life.
It is a love allright, a love of one's own life is as far as it goes.
Isn't medical care the 4th leading cause of death in the US? I say from, personal experience, if you have an acute medical condition, you couldn't be in a better system. If you have a chronic condition, you are being raped! So much info. about alternative treatment is summarily dismissed by MSM (biggest sponsor being pharmaceuticals, insurance, etc). No effective campaigns in this country about prevention other than "see your doctor all of the time". Little mention of taxing fastfood, soda, artificial sweetner, high fructose, air polluters,video game producers, etc. whose existence and promotion is a clear health detriment which serves to drive up health care costs. How about some more exercise in school and some program that might help alleviate neurosis instead of promoting it(ie. "you are only valuable as an uber competitor"). The problem with our national health situation is a problem with the "mindset" of our nation.
"You tell me it's the institution, well you know, you better free your mind instead"