That Journalistic Toilet, called the NY Times
One such case was Debbie Hirst's. Her breast cancer had metastasized, and the health service would not provide her with Avastin, a drug that is widely used in the United States and Europe to keep such cancers at bay. So, with her oncologist's support, she decided last year to try to pay the $120,000 cost herself, while continuing with the rest of her publicly financed treatment. By December, she had raised $20,000 and was preparing to sell her house to raise more. But then the government, which had tacitly allowed such arrangements before, put its foot down. Mrs. Hirst heard the news from her doctor. [...] Patients "cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated on the N.H.S. and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs," the health secretary, Alan Johnson, told Parliament. "That way lies the end of the founding principles of the N.H.S.," Mr. Johnson said. |
In his [Dr. Paul Charlson, a general practitioner in Yorkshire and a member of Doctors for Reform, a group that is highly critical of the health service] paper, he also wrote about a 46-year-old woman with breast cancer who paid $250 for a second opinion when the health service refused to provide her with one; an elderly man who spent thousands of dollars on a new hearing aid instead of enduring a yearlong wait on the health service; and a 29-year-old woman who, with her doctor's blessing, bought a three-month supply of Tarceva, a drug to treat pancreatic cancer, for more than $6,000 on the Internet because she could not get it through the N.H.S. Asked why these were different from cases like Mrs. Hirst's, a spokeswoman for the health service said no officials were available to comment. [...] In Mrs. Hirst's case, the confusion was compounded by the fact that three other patients at her hospital were already doing what she had been forbidden to do -- buying extra drugs to supplement their cancer care. The arrangements had "evolved without anyone questioning whether it was right or wrong," said Laura Mason, a hospital spokeswoman. Because their treatment began before the Health Department explicitly condemned the practice, they have been allowed to continue. |
Ending the problems of gaps in health care between the rich and poor? Apparently not.
The problem with this line of attack on UHC is that there are probably just as many instances of bureaucratic bumbling at the hands of private insurers as there are at the hands of public sector bureaucrats.
Then what?
If the government screws up,you can vote it out of office.
What do you do when some corporation screws up? Nothing.
can I switch to another tax service? I don't particularly like the IRS...
How far do you think you are going to get suing them?
This is patently absurd.