Tag Archives: Shortage

News

UK patients denied treatment as “public option” system makes cutbacks

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From the UK Telegraph. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Hundreds of thousands of NHS patients are being denied routine procedures as dozens of trusts cut back on surgery, scans and other treatments in order to save money, a Daily Telegraph investigation has found.

Trusts around the country are refusing to pay for operations ranging from hip replacements, to cataract removal and wisdom tooth extraction.

The health service is also tightening restrictions that prevent patients undergoing procedures for lifestyle reasons.

Smokers and obese patients are being denied operations until they change their habits and trusts are delaying surgery and non-emergency treatments, the Telegraph has found in the most comprehensive snapshot of NHS cuts yet.

The cuts – which include the cancelling of MRI scans and x-rays – are taking place in defiance of the Coalition.

Ministers are determined that front line services should be protected and the savings needed can be found from management costs and efficiencies.

But there is growing evidence that NHS managers are sacrificing patient care instead.

Doctors and nurses said the ‘grim’ results undermine the ‘myth’ that front line services are being protected and warned they were just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.

The situation is predicted to get worse as the NHS struggles to save £20bn over the next four years.

Although ministers have pledged to protect the health service budget and provide a real terms increase, it will not be sufficient to keep pace with growing demand and increasing costs.

In addition from April next year the amount of money hospitals receive for each type of treatment will be cut by 1.5 per cent raising fears that managers will refuse to provide treatments that they make a loss on.

As part of the investigation, The Telegraph had responses from almost one in three primary care trusts.

Cuts were uncovered in 20 out of the 145 primary care trusts in England. Fifteen PCTs have said they are not cutting services and 11 were still undecided.

[…]Dr Mark Porter, Chairman of the British Medical Association’s Consultants Committee, said: “Each of these examples undermines the myth that the NHS has been protected from the financial crisis. These are all services that patients value.

“They are by and large not being axed for clinical reasons, but as an inevitable consequence of the massive cost savings that have been imposed on the NHS.

“Despite the continuing claims of real terms increases for the NHS, the reality on the ground is very different. The scale of the financial challenge facing the service is such that this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg.

Making health care “free” for patients and preventing people and businesses from making a profit on providing health care leads to higher demand and lower supply. The net result is a shortage. It’s the law of economics.

 

 

News

Most doctors will restrict or close their practice if Obamacare is not repealed

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From the NY Post.

Excerpt:

A recent survey finds that countless MDs will respond to ObamaCare by limiting which patients they’ll see.

The Physicians Foundation asked 2,400 doctors and American Medical Association members what they thought of the new law; a full 67 percent were against it.

More important, it asked how they’d cope with the new rules (which don’t fully kick in until 2014). Sixty percent said they feel compelled to “close or significantly restrict their practices to certain categories of patients.” And 59 percent said the “reform” would oblige them to spend less time with the patients they do have.

Of course, many doctors already limit how many patients they’ll take on who depend on government insurance (whose fees rarely cover an MD’s costs). But it’ll get worse under ObamaCare: In the survey, some 87 percent said they would significantly restrict Medicare patients and 93 percent said they’d significantly restrict Medicaid patients.

[…]All in all, the survey found that 74 percent of doctors will alter how they practice.

To stay in business under ObamaCare, doctors will have to adjust. Some will see fewer patients themselves and hire nurse practitioners to help carry the load; others will work part-time and supplement their income elsewhere. Many will join groups or become salaried employees of hospitals or clinics.

Was Obama telling the truth when he said that you could keep your doctor? No.

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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.