Tag Archives: Death Panels

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Thomas Sowell on health care: thinking beyond stage one

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Young Thomas Sowell

Economist Thomas Sowell explains what socialized medicine means for all parties – and what evidence is ignored.

Excerpt:

The same preference for talking points, and the same lack of interest in digging into the facts about realities, prevails today in discussions of whether to have a government-controlled medical system.

Since there are various countries, such as Canada and Britain, that have the kind of government-controlled medical systems that some Americans advocate, you might think that there would be great interest in the quality of medical care in these countries.

The data are readily available as to how many weeks or months people have to wait to see a primary-care physician in such countries, and how many additional weeks or months they have to wait after they are referred to a surgeon or other specialist. There are data on how often their governments allow patients to receive the latest pharmaceutical drugs, as compared with how often Americans use such advanced medications.

But supporters of government medical care show virtually no interest in such realities. Their big talking point is that the life expectancy in the United States is not as long as in those other countries. End of discussion, as far as they are concerned.

They have no interest in the reality that medical care has much less effect on death rates from homicide, obesity, and narcotics addiction than it has on death rates from cancer or other conditions that doctors can do something about. Americans survive various cancers better than people anywhere else. Americans also get to see doctors much sooner for medical treatment in general.

Conservatives are the reality-based community.

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How do governments control costs in a single-payer health care systems?

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Take a look at what a new study shows about UK’s National Health Service. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Financial pressures may mean junior doctors are not given training posts within the NHS and the overall number of places at medical school could drop, a report has said.

This is despite extra burdens on the health service, including European rules limiting doctors’ hours, more hospital admissions and people living longer than ever before, according to the study from the UK Royal Colleges of Physicians (RCP).

Those specialties dedicated to looking after very ill people are facing particular strain, it said.

Dr Andrew Goddard, RCP director of medical workforce, said the combination of factors was ‘adding further stress to a system which may reach breaking point within the next few years’.

In 2009, the number of consultant posts created across the UK increased by 10.2 per cent.

However, financial pressures on the NHS mean that rise may not continue and there are ‘growing fears’ of a lack of training posts for young doctors.

Dr Goddard said: “We have already seen a drop in the number of new posts being advertised in 2010, and although we have enough doctors in training to develop a consultant-delivered NHS, these doctors need to have jobs to go into if this service is to be realised.”

The latest study comes after the RCP in England warned last week of patients being left in the hands of junior doctors because of inadequate consultant cover on weekends.

And here’s how it works out in Canada, which is a pure single-payer system – the kind that Democrats want to enact here in the USA.

Excerpt:

It’s no surprise to Thelma Lee that emergency room wait times are not meeting provincial targets.

Lee said her 41-year-old daughter, Marlene Stephens, died Saturday after waiting nearly 90 minutes at the William Osler Health Centre’s Etobicoke campus emergency room with breathing problems.

Lee feels her daughter was not seen fast enough by medical staff.

“They didn’t touch her,” said the grieving Lee. “She was crying out, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe’. . . Nobody attended to my daughter.”

On Monday, Auditor General Jim McCarter released his annual report which found that despite putting an extra $200 million into shortening emergency room wait times over the last two years, “significant province-wide progress has not yet been made.”

“Complaints about overcrowding and delays in hospital emergency rooms have persisted for years,” McCarter told a news conference on Monday.

Emergency room waits for people with serious conditions sometimes reached 12 hours or more, the report said. That is far greater than the province’s 8-hour wait time target, the report found.

And for emergency patients who need a hospital bed, they waited on average for about 10 hours but some waited 26 hours or more, according to the 2010 Annual Report.

“Our audit found that wait times for patients with less serious ailments have been reduced somewhat,” McCarter said. “However, there has been only minimal progress in reducing wait times for patients with more serious conditions.”

If this woman had offered to BUY her own health care in Canada, she would have been ARRESTED. That’s “equality” in a socialist system. Everyone has an equal right to scream in agony while waiting in line for a doctor. And the most productive people have the additional joy of shoveling half of their salaries into the coffers of bureaucrats to waste on expensive family vacations at taxpayer expense.

In fact, the provincial government of Ontario is very busy right now trying to push a gay rights curriculum onto grade 1 students (and up) in public and private schools – that’s what they do with the money that Canadians are forced to pay them – they BUY VOTES FROM LIBERAL SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS SO THEY CAN GET RE-ELECTED. They don’t have money for health care. They have their hands full with social engineering.

When you give the government your money, it’s theirs to spend on whatever they want – while you die on an emergency room floor. When you keep your money in your own pocket, you get to use it to buy whatever you want – including life-saving medical care.

And do you know where the Liberal Ontario bureaucrats go when they need health care? The United States of America! Dying is for the plebians – the elites go to the capitalist health care system down south. Equality for thee, not for me.

Do not vote for secular leftists – if you value your life – DO NOT DO IT.

News

Tom Daschle explains what socialized medicine really means

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ECM found this video on Health Care BS.

The thing you need to understand about socialized medicine is this:

  • If you don’t work then you don’t pay into the system
  • If you do work then you do pay into the system
  • If you are young and still voting, then you get treatment
  • If you are old and not still voting, then you get no treatment

So basically, if you collect welfare for your whole life, and choose to sleep with strangers, and then get an STD, then the abortion is FREEEE!

But, if you are old but have worked all your life, and get need surgery for a brain tumor, through no fault of your own, then you get DEAAADDDD!

That’s socialized medicine in a nutshell. And NO, you cannot pay for any treatment over the counter – in a single payer system the GOVERNMENT decides whether you will be treated and when. You pay into the system your whole life based on your income level, and the government treats other people who make free choices to indulge in risky lifestyle decisions. When you finally retire and get sick due to no fault of your own, you can get in line behind the people who want sex changes and IVF. Everyone has an equal life outcome regardless of their willingness to work or make responsible decisions about what is moral/immoral and safe/unsafe.

And what are the incentives in a socialized medicine system? There is no incentive to work. But there is an incentive to be irresponsible and risky with your health. People who spend the day working instead of skiing will pay for people who break their legs skiing instead of working. That’s socialized medicine. That’s “equality”. There is no personal responsibility or accountability in a socialist system.