Tag Archives: Health-care

News

NHS bans woman from surgery because her carbon footprint is too big

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ECM sent me this disturbing article from the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Avril Mulcahy, 83, was told to address the “green travelling issues” over her journeys from her home in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, to the West Road Surgery. The surgery wrote to Mrs Mulcahy, telling her to register with a new GP within 28 days.

The letter said: “Our greatest concern is for your health and convenience but also taking into consideration green travelling issues. Re: Carbon footprints and winter weather conditions, we feel it would be advisable for patients to register at surgeries nearer to where they live.

“We would be very grateful if you could make the necessary arrangements to re-register at another practice.”

Mrs Mulcahy, a grandmother, believes the decision was made because she complained about a doctor.

[…]Mrs Mulcahy said she was anxious and worried at having to try to find a new GP. “If they really cared, they could have found me a new practice instead of just basically saying do it yourself,” she said.

“It is a great worry to me as I am elderly and need to get repeat prescriptions for medication. This is really a stress I could do without. I won’t let it rest though, because I feel like I am being treated poorly.”

The West Road Surgery declined to comment.

This is the problem with socialized medicine. You pay your money up front and then later on the government decides how much treatment you get. They have no reason to be nice to you – you already paid them. They don’t get paid more or less based on the quality of care they give you. You can’t get a refund on taxes paid. And where else can you go? It’s a single payer system.

Polemics

Should young people vote for Barack Obama and Obamacare?

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The real inequality: young America and old America
The real inequality: young America and old America

From Donald Sensing at Sense of Events blog.

Excerpt:

Shikha Dalmia, responds to Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, who was so, “Shell shocked by the shellacking that the Solicitor General Donald Verrilli received at the hearing Tuesday, [that] she went into a deep sulk and threw the intellectual equivalent of a hissy fit.” Shikha observes:

In our current health care system, a mix of taxpayers; (rich) hospitals/providers and (even richer) private insurers are stuck with the tab for uncompensated care. There are many problems with this. But isn’t it at least more compassionate than ObamaCare that would force asset-poor young people – trying to pay off their college debt and hang on to some beer money – to subsidize the coverage of relatively wealthier prospective geezers? If maximizing compassion is the issue, shouldn’t we stick with what we’ve got?

In other words, under Obamacare the young overpay for health insurance in order to subsidize the old, whose medical costs are magnitudes higher than those of the young. That is a key feature of the “individual mandate” that makes it mandatory to buy health insurance under Obamacare. I remember reading during the SCOTUS hearings that men and women younger than 30 (or so) average using about $1,800 of health insurance per year, but will have to pay $5,400.

It’s very important to understand that when government gets involved with spending money on handing out goodies, that it is tempting for them to buy the votes of those who are politically informed with the money taken from those who don’t know a thing about real life.

Now consider these numbers from socialist Europe – where Obama’s plan is a little further along.

Excerpt:

Youth unemployment now exceeds 50pc in both Spain and Greece as the number of people out of work in the eurozone as a whole hit a 15-year high of 17.2m.

The unemployment rate among Spain’s under-25s rose to 50.5pc in January, and to 50.4pc in Greece in December, according to the latest available data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office. It compared with an average eurozone youth unemployment rate of 21.6pc. One of the lowest rates of youth unemployment is in Germany, where it remained at 8.2pc in February.

The rise in Spain and Greece reflects the deep financial woes of both countries, which are in the midst of far-reaching and highly unpopular austerity programmes, considered necessary by the broader EU to reduce huge deficits.

Spain’s unemployment rate now stands at 23.6pc, compared with a eurozone average of 10.8pc. The extent of Spain’s problems are further underlined by a housing market in crisis, with prices expected to fall the most on record this year. One-in-four homeowners in the country owes more than their property is worth.

I find it so sad that kids are brainwashed by unionized public school teachers to support nonsense like global warming, while despising free market capitalism. And then they go out and vote for more and more government, so that their “teachers” can be paid more and more. They will never fix their worldviews until they get out into the real world, and by then it they will have voted in many elections.

News

New York Times: Santorum has support of Republican women

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From the fifth-column New York Times, of all places.

Excerpt:

There is no mistaking the bond that Mr. Santorum has with conservative women — particularly married women — a group that has formed a core of his support since the primaries began in January. He has handily carried the votes of women in primaries that he has won, including those in Mississippi and Alabama. And where he has lost, in Arizona, South Carolina and Illinois, he has enjoyed a higher level of support among women than men.

[…]“He doesn’t give up, so I’m not giving up,” said Kay Verdi, 75, a mother of six from Belle Chasse, La., who spends much her time trying to persuade others to vote for Mr. Santorum. “I’ve never felt as strong about a candidate as I do for Santorum. I’ve usually had to pick the lesser of two evils when I vote. Not this time.”

How did Ms. Verdi explain the attraction?

“I like that he’s been married only once, and that he has character and faith; that’s what touches me,” she said.

The Web site ricksantorum.com attracts more women than men, 60 percent of its visitors, a larger share than for the Web sites of other candidates, according to Nielsen ratings that were released last week. Among other things, there may be an empathy factor at work: A New York Times/CBS News poll taken this month found that 73 percent of Republican female voters said Mr. Santorum understood the needs and problems of people like them, compared with 52 percent who said the same about Mr. Romney.

My previous post also noted that Republican women support Santorum more than any other candidate.