See how well GB's NHS cares about people

[Universe Prince]

That Journalistic Toilet, called the NY Times

Now, now, don't be so mean to The New York Times. After all, they are informing us about what sort of care we have to look forward too when we end up saddled with a federally funded universal health care system. Check out this recent article:

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.

But wait, it gets better. Or worse depending on how one chooses to look at this.

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/world/europe/21britain.html

Ending the problems of gaps in health care between the rich and poor? Apparently not. Again I say, government run universal health care is a bad idea that is not working out in other countries, and I see no reason why the U.S. should try it too. Yes, we need to do something to about the health care situation in the U.S., but government run universal health care seems quite clearly to me to be the wrong solution, a bad solution and ultimately not actually a solution at all.

[Amianthus]

Ending the problems of gaps in health care between the rich and poor? Apparently not.

Well, in a way it does. Given that Canada recently forbade it's subjects to seek health care outside of it's system, and which GB will soon do if it doesn't already, even the rich will get crappy health care with this new decision.

[Stray Pooch]

What this is basically about is not UHC.  It is about a hatred of capitalism, a denial of individual rights, and a fear of free speech all combined with the indignant attitude that someone had DARED to challenge the NHS.

Universal Health Care is a bad solution to the health care problems of this country, because it takes choice out of the hands of both patient and doctor - not to mention taking more of my money to pay for someone else's care.  But more importantly, liberalism is dangerous because it wants to do away with individual rights.  The good of the one IS the good of the many. 

[BT]

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?

[Xavier_Onassis]

If the government screws up,you can vote it out of office.

What do you do when some corporation screws up? Nothing.

What can you do when you KNOW that a merger will result in higher prices and worse service from some corporation, like ATT buying out Cingular and Bell South or Microsoft buying Yahoo?

You can do NOTHING. Not one damned thng.

I bet this woman will get better care after this article is published.

You know what happens when you sue a corporation and they realize they have no case? They offer you a lot of money on the condition that you tell no one anything about the settlement. The government can't do this, because it's public money.

So give me government single payer healthcare anytime.

If what we have was best, we would live longer than people in other countries with national health care, which we don't.

If what we have were efficient, we'd pay less. But we don't. We pay more than everyone.

[Stray Pooch]

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?

There is a lot of bungling in life.  The difference is that a government agency generally can't be held accountable.  When an insurer refuses to pay for a necessary procedure, there are government agencies, lawyers and the market to hold them to account.  When a doctor earns a living from patients who trust him and choose him, he is motivated to do the right thing.  When a doctor gets a paycheck from the government, he's going to get that paycheck no matter what.  Poor health care is the result. 

A private insurer will certainly try to save a buck, and it may take concerted efforts by patients, advocacy groups, the legal system and appropriate government agencies to overcome that.  But when the entrenched bureaucracy says "no" where do you go? 

The fact is, the lady in this situation was doing nothing wrong.  She was using the government system everyone else in the country was at government (taxpayer) expense.  But then she decided that the system wasn't working.  So she took her own money (and some provided by others voluntarily) and sought to go beyond that.  The bureaucracy would not stand for it.  To whom does she appeal?  Other bureaucrats?  National leaders?   Those who created, maintain and get paid by the national system?  Where is the disinterested oversight?

There is a metaphor here that refers to a fox and a henhouse.

[Amianthus]

If the government screws up,you can vote it out of office.

What do you do when some corporation screws up? Nothing.

Stop using that corporation's services, and sue them.

Actually, that's more than you can do with the government. Or can I switch to another tax service? I don't particularly like the IRS...

[Stray Pooch]

can I switch to another tax service? I don't particularly like the IRS...

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer

[Xavier_Onassis]

Stop using that corporation's services, and sue them.

===============================================
Suppose you don't like AT&T?
Or the company that has your mortgage?
Or the company that has your cellphone contract?
Or the grioup insurance health provider?

 How far do you think you are going to get suing them?
This is patently absurd.

[Stray Pooch]

How far do you think you are going to get suing them?
This is patently absurd.

That depends on the case and your lawyer.  Some people get huge awards or cash settlements, even if their cases aren't the best.  How far do you think you're going to get suing a government?  In many cases you don't even have that right.    But there is also the option of appealing to a government office to go after the big corporations.  I had to have the Public Utilities Commission go after the phone company to get them to delete charges that someone else had charged to my phone.  There was no way they were going to do that until the PUC called them.  I have used the threat of legal action to back down employees that didn't want to comply with reasonable demands.  And of course agencies like OSHA, the FDA and even the dreaded EPA have their place in providing protection. 

But try doing that to a union-protected, contract-entrenched government bureaucrat.  Vote them out?  You can't vote for bureaucrats.  You can, ONLY if enough people decide to do so, vote out the elected officials.  But most of the problem with big government lies in the entrenched bureaucracy.  Voting seldom changes that.   I'd rather take my chances with a corporation than a government any day.

[Christians4LessGvt]

in most instances you can quit using a particular corporation and use a different one
in most industries there is a choice
where as with the federal gvt you can almost never quit and have a different choice
yeah you can vote them out, but that takes years and involves others
if you don't like Ford, you personally can within hours choose Toyota

[Xavier_Onassis]

if you don't like Ford, you personally can within hours choose Toyota

=====================================================
I suggest you lease a Ford and decide within hours to change your Ford, at no cost to you, for a Toyota. Or vice versa.

If you buy the car, this becomes even less easy to do.

Once you have made your selection, the lack of unlimited funds prevents you from changing one car for another. Surely you know this.

You could change shampoos, and perhaps even get a refund on one in order to have money to purchase another, but I suggest that changing cars is far more likely to cost you a huge bundle.

Perhaps you live on some Bizarro World where this is actually possible. But not on Earth.