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Thursday - August 13, 2009

THE FIGHT OVER HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA. THE NEW UNCIVIL WAR?

I try to be scrupulous with regard to my postings and not do the same thing at BMEWS, as I do over at Vilmar’s blog. I think there’s so much out there, that there’s enough to cover a dozen blog sites and do a hard copy newsletter as well. ( which I don’t) You know that from the headlines in your local papers come to think of it.
In fact, often times I will present something that happens here, and some of you write and say not to feel like the Lone Ranger and give examples of lunacy at home too.

Well gang, this is one of those times I have to post the same thing at both places because I’ve been listening to the radio and reading the papers with reports from America on health care. I’ve been hearing things and thinking about what I’ve been listening to and wanted to express my feelings but mostly all of you have been doing that for me. Until last night and again this morning.

Last night I heard a radio report on the fight over health care in the USA. Both sides were being interviewed by reporters over there. AND ... they broadcast here what you folks have been hearing and seeing on the media in the USA. But when I read a piece in the morning paper by one of their ppl, I just had to write something no matter how awkward to say hey, wait a minute. And so I was going to post the article with a brief intro from me. But I ended up writing a lot more then I expected to, and honestly feel the need to share it with BMEWS as well.

AMERICANS ARE BETTER OFF WITHOUT AN NHS

That’s the headline in our morning paper on the comments page by one of their reporters who is covering the heated and it seems vitriolic argument on the subject back home.
He makes some good points I believe, and especially with this as his closing paragraph.

Americans are much less tolerant than Britons of being told what to do. Although most do not like the health system, they view the alternatives with alarm. Ultimately, the Right’s overheated rhetoric about the NHS might damage a perfectly valid case against a partial state takeover of health care that could limit choice, stifle innovation – and still do little to tackle costs.

(see extended text for his entire article)

Wow, what an explosive issue this has become. As I have mentioned
in the past, things that happen in America, and not just crime stats, get a lot of coverage in the UK. Lately, our health care issue is making the news because of reports in the states that have used the NHS here, as an example of things that do not work. Well guys, I live here. I have been in hosp. I have had to have tests for possible cancers. I hate to tell ya but the care I got the one night and a day stay in a Brit hosp. FAR exceeded the care I ever got back home in Riverside,CA. on a personal level. I’m referring to the hospital staff, nurses etc.

I have issues with some things to be certain, on a doctor patient level. Hell I can think of other things as well that may or may not be due to NHS, that we do far better in the states. I think the result of one test I had was false but that was due I think to an individual rather the the system itself. Now then, I could be wrong about that. I did get the feeling in one case that they were using a one size fits all method with regard to my case.

I am not mounting a soapbox in favor of NHS for America, so please do not mis-understand. But from what I have heard here on the radio where they are broadcasting American commercials about How Things Are In The UK, well. There’s a bit of exaggeration I can tell ya and the thing of it is, ppl at home with zero experience of things here listen and believe it. And I think that is wrong.

One other thing I should say. Re. the Stephen Hawking thing in IBD.
Or maybe Hawking said it as well. Fact is ... although he may have needed NHS to survive in his early years, and survive he did with NHS, just what the heck is he still doing on it? This guy now has oodles of money. He should surely not be on NHS today.

I believe further that NHS is paying for things they shouldn’t pay for, but I suppose that once things become entrenched they tend to stay that way. The old expression, “there’s nothing new” or “nothing ever changes” comes to mind.

Nothing makes me angrier then hearing some would be expert on my country spouting off on “how things are there” (meaning USA) when they’ve spent little or no time in the states. Or got their info from a cousin whose friend’s friend just came back from the states.
Well, I imagine there might be a few Brits who are shaking their collective heads at what some of our people are claiming about the NHS . It isn’t perfect by any means. It can be very wasteful as well. But it works for these ppl. Sure it does. The population is what? Some 60 or so million? And America is .... ? And those long wait times you are reading and hearing about are not exactly true as presented. Sure, there’s always some truth to build a case around. But must we sacrifice accuracy?

It is far too easy to get on the welfare and NHS rolls here. The left is great at that. And the left has been in power since ‘97.

I am not saying it can’t be overhauled or improved. And hell, maybe it can’t. But I really do wish that if my people on the right and heaven knows I am on the right of things, I wish they wouldn’t use the NHS here as the example in the the manner they do.
Because they are NOT telling the whole story. Or at least, they aren’t being wholly accurate in what they do convey.
And that only shoots ourselves in the foot.

I’ve had my say, I guess now I’ll stand by for the flames.

See More Below The Fold

This then is the editorial that set me off today. I think he makes a valid point.

Americans are better off without an NHS
A propaganda war is masking the real problems over health care reform, says Toby Harnden.

By Toby Harnden

THE TELEGRAPH

If Stephen Hawking had been treated in Britain, he would not have survived to be awarded his Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama yesterday, because the NHS “would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless”. That was the thundering verdict of the Investor’s Business Daily on our National Health Service and Mr Obama’s plans to introduce what Republicans term “socialised medicine”.

It was, as scientists sometimes say, a beautiful hypothesis destroyed by a single ugly fact. Professor Hawking, who is completely paralysed by motor neurone disease, has been treated by the NHS throughout his 67 years, and points out indignantly that he would not have lived without its care.

Much of the conservative contribution to the health care debate raging in the United States, which is dominating a long, hot summer, has been as misguided as that newspaper editorial. With the battle lines drawn, and President Obama staking his credibility on achieving a comprehensive reform that delivers health insurance to the tens of millions without it, Democratic members of Congress are facing the wrath and anxiety of their constituents – who are being urged on by opponents of reform.

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa suggested that this was what happened in Britain. “I’ve heard several senators say that Ted Kennedy with a brain tumour, being 77 years old … if he were in England, would not be treated… when you get to be 77, your life is considered less valuable under those systems,” he said.

In a television ad from the Club for Growth pressure group, a narrator intones portentously as images of Big Ben and the Union flag appear on the screen: “$22,750. In England, government health officials decided that’s how much six months of life is worth. Under their socialised system, if a medical treatment costs more, you’re out of luck. That’s wrong for America.” Cue the Statue of Liberty and the Stars and Stripes.

The figure comes from Britain’s National Institute for Clinical Evidence, which evaluates treatments in terms of the average increase in life expectancy. If the cost of prolonging someone’s life for a year exceeds more than £30,000, then the NHS will not pay for that treatment. In other words, although there are no “death panels”, the fundamental point is correct. The NHS does decide that some treatments are too expensive. And if that means you die? Our condolences, says the Government.

Despite the myths from the Left about the American system – that you have to take your credit card to the emergency room and if you can’t pay you won’t be treated – it is beyond dispute that treatment in the US is better. Diagnosed with prostate cancer and want to survive for the next five years? In Britain you have a 74 per cent chance. In the US, it is 98 per cent. For leukaemia, the American survival rate is close to half, while in Europe it is a third.

Ability to pay, of course, is central to the American system. If you have good insurance, you will get the very best treatment in the world – and the money spent by Americans ensures that the boundaries of medicine are constantly being expanded.

The problem is spiralling costs and the power of the insurance companies – whose bureaucrats engage in rationing, just as the NHS does. If you are between jobs, or work for a small business, and therefore don’t have employer-provided insurance, you can be bankrupted by long-term care.

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

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Posted by peiper

on 08/13/2009 at 08:45 AM
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine •
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