10-02-2013, 09:53 PM | #121 |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
|
You know what a cardiologist does, arrange for other doctors to take care of you.
__________________
The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
10-03-2013, 04:23 AM | #122 | |
We have to go back, Kate!
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
|
Our health service ain't perfect. But ya know what? We really don't have many people declared bankrupt because they had an accident and ended up with bills of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
We also don't have people with chronic conditions unable to access any medical care until it turns into an emergency and they end up in the ER. We don't have death panels. We do have a degree of rationing involved. That basically means that new drugs have to prove themselves as effective and cost effective. You also have rationing. The difference is that yours is based on what your insurance is willing to cover. And don't believe the newspapers. They have agendas. [eta] Also, you don't even need to read a newspaper or watch the news to know how truly fucked up the current US healthcare system is. Just look in the Cellar. We have members here who have been sick and unable to get the right care. We have a member whose son was involved in a terrible car accident and left with serious health problems: his father had to give up work to look after him, which left him without health insurance. We have another member who only last month was unable to get the anti-depressant meds she needed because she had lost her job. Meds that should be withdrawn from slowly which she had to go cold turkey from. Why? because she no longer had health insurance and wasn't eligible for medicare (medicaid?) and couldn;t afford the $400 per month needed for those tablets. Over here, she'd have to pay £7.75 for a prescription and they'd most likely give her three months supply for that. Or she could buy 3 months or a 1 year cover for all prescription charges. I have two chronic health conditions requiring regular medication. It costs me nothing to see my doctor and my prescriptions are covered by a three month pre-pay certificate (£27.50). Regardless of what I need. I could need hundreds of pounds worth of medication and it will only ever cost me a prescription charge. My Dad died in his 70s. The last 10 years of his life he was in and out of hospital. Sometimes staying in for a week or more at a time. They did everything they could for him. It didn't cost him a single penny: free prescriptions over the age of 65 and nobody is charged for staying in hospital - unless they choose to go private. Your health system is probably better at some stuff than ours. But it is only available for those who can afford it. For the millions of Americans who have no health insurance, or whose insurance only covers basic care the system does not work.
__________________
Quote:
Last edited by DanaC; 10-03-2013 at 05:41 AM. |
|
10-03-2013, 05:43 AM | #123 | |
We have to go back, Kate!
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
|
Most of the problems in our health service, most of the gaps in service, are due to the creeping privatisation of parts of the service.
Our politicians are trying to make our health service more like yours. Why, I do not know. But it is breaking the healthcare system. Every time you see a news report about failures in the NHS, it ain't because medicine is socialised, it's because it is becoming less so.
__________________
Quote:
|
|
10-03-2013, 05:54 AM | #124 |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
|
Yes you do, everybody knows, £££££££££!
__________________
The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
10-03-2013, 07:56 AM | #125 | |
Person who doesn't update the user title
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 13,002
|
If I were on a real computer instead of my stupid phone, I would put this post in the hall of fame. Very well said, Dana.
Quote:
|
|
10-03-2013, 11:20 AM | #126 | |||
Person who doesn't update the user title
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Bottom lands of the Missoula floods
Posts: 6,402
|
Quote:
But your first argument was that in the UK, Grandma would be turned away with only a pain pill. That obviously is not true. Next you jump to question the treatment... i.e., who gets transplants. As to the current policy in the US, UK, etc... The following is from the Guidelines of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation: NY Times Judith Graham 4/23/12 Heart Transplants for Older Patients Quote:
This is from the (UK) National Health Service: NHS Quote:
sometimes do not transplant as successfully as from younger donors. Rather than have these (older) organs go to waste, individual organs deemed unsuitable for a young recipient can be offered to older patients on the waiting list. It then becomes an personal decision by the potential recipient as to whether to accept a given organ... or to remain on the waiting list as prioritized according to their own individual health condition. Adak, I hope your next jump does not go in the direction of UK physicians being more biased, unethical, etc.... |
|||
10-03-2013, 11:31 AM | #127 | |
We have to go back, Kate!
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
|
Rationing of organs and waiting lists for them aren't because of money or because gubmint runs healthcare (it doesn't by the way): it's because there is a very limited number of organs available at any one time.
This is the case in every country. Every country rations access to transplanted organs in order to try and get as many successful transplants as possible from the low number of organs available at any given time. That rationing usually goes along the lines of prioritising certain potential outcomes over others: in other words, if someone is unlikely to live for more than two years after the transplant they will be a lower priority than someone who is likely to live another ten years with the transplant. If the reason for the need for transplant is because of something the patient is doing (such as drinking) and the patient is going to continue to do that thing then they are unlikely to be a higher priority than someone who is making every effort to stop doing that thing. In an ideal world, everybody who needs an organ would have one, because every person capable of donating an organ would do so. A lot of people do not want to donate organs in death. Or they do not want their relative's organs to be removed for donation. This is something every country has to cope with.
__________________
Quote:
|
|
10-03-2013, 11:56 AM | #128 | ||
We have to go back, Kate!
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
|
Adak, you said:
Quote:
That's really doesn't sound like anything I've read about health commissions. Don't get me wrong, the system, as i already said isn't perfect. Sometimes it takes a little while for new stuff to be approved - though often it ends up approved because the drug companies have realised that the NHS will not purchase over-priced drugs and have dropped their wholesale price. The NICE guidelines that NHS treatments are based on, are constantly updated. They make an assessment as to whether a drug is both effective and cost effective. It is not sensible to spend £50k on treatments that offer a small chance of extending someone's life for 8 months. It is sensible to spend that on a 50/50 shot at an extra ten years. I pulled those figures more or less out of my arse :p Also worth remembering that drugs and procedures and devices are much, much cheaper here. The NHS has a lot of leverage on price in the drugs industry (as well as producing or inspiring a high proportion of new drug and medical technology research). And, whilst the scene is changing on this, much less of the money is swept up by a middle tier of shareholder profits.
__________________
Quote:
|
||
10-03-2013, 11:57 AM | #129 | |
Adapt and Survive
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Ann Arbor, Mi
Posts: 957
|
Quote:
You can be drop in and out of the private stream too, I have a friend whose mother was in pain, so he went private to see a specialist ina couple of days, instead of a couple of weeks or months, and the she was transferred back to the NHS system for treatment. I also know of someone in the US with severe back pain that was required to take strong anti pain meds, the type for short term relief, that you should only take for a couple of days, for 2 months before her insuramnce would pay for an MRI. (a nurse BTW) Having had some experience of both systems, the qualiy of the doctorin' is the same in both, beurocracy is equally obscure . Wait times are longer in the UK for a simple surgery, and the hospitals aren't as new and shiny, but then nobody goes broke or goes without. |
|
10-04-2013, 05:22 AM | #130 |
Lecturer
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 796
|
I doubt that's true. We see a lot of Canadians coming down to the US to get a by-pass, etc., because they can't wait the 11 months or so that they're required to, in Canada (the waiting period varies).
In the BBC, I was reading about some people who had lost an extreme amount of weight. Over 100 pounds, in fact. They have applied to have the tremendous excess skin removed - but despite waiting up to 13 years for it, they can't get it done by the NHS. Oh they've stabilized their weight years ago (3 are required), and all that - it's been agreed it's medically necessary, but they can't get the operation scheduled. You wouldn't see that in the States. The insurer would be in court in a heartbeat (and lose). I understand you have a grievance system for review of such cases, but then I hear (also on the BBC), about people having to use pliers to pull out their bad teeth, because they can't get scheduled with a dentist. I admire the good stuff from the NHS, but then I keep hearing about these "fell through the cracks" cases, and I wonder just how big and how many "cracks" are there? |
10-04-2013, 06:19 AM | #131 | |
We have to go back, Kate!
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
|
Every system has gaps. I just told you of a dweller who fell through the gaps in your system.
Here's the difference though: the cases you mention if people unable to get an operation to remove excess skin are a handful and that handful makes the national news. You have 20 million people with no insurance. 20 million people falling through the gap. You shouldn't even call it a gap in America: it's a fucking abyss. Dentists are a special case: they never fully came into the nhs. Guess what though: you can get dental insurance for private care just like in America. And the stories about people unable to find an nhs dentist are overblown and out if date. You are picking up a few examples of the system not working perfectly 100% of the time. But you have 20 million people unable to access the system you think works better. There are gaps here but they're small and they aren't full of poor people or people who've been refused cover because they're already sick with a pre existing condition. So yeah the insurance companies would cover that operation - for the fortunate insured.
__________________
Quote:
|
|
10-04-2013, 07:45 AM | #132 | |
Person who doesn't update the user title
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Bottom lands of the Missoula floods
Posts: 6,402
|
Quote:
|
|
10-04-2013, 10:27 AM | #133 | |
Person who doesn't update the user title
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Bottom lands of the Missoula floods
Posts: 6,402
|
There was an interview on TV this morning that helped explain (to me anyhow) why
Harry Reid was so emotional yesterday during a news conference on the government shut down. Reid believes that John Boehner reneged in their September agreement on the upcoming budget and debt ceiling deadlines. In such political agreements, your word is more than your bond... it's your entire reputation. I found this article from yesterday that recounts some of Reid's remarks... The Hill 10/3/13 Quote:
|
|
10-04-2013, 10:44 AM | #134 |
Lecturer
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 796
|
With record deficit spending, the Republicans OF COURSE, wouldn't go along with another 70 Billion increase in spending by the feds.
That's the teaser to make you think that "we're really getting a good deal here!". But you're not, because that's not actual savings. That's vapor money that was never approved for spending, by anybody. So there is no savings - actual savings - in that proposal. What was offered was another year of the same record spending as this year. In other words -- no savings compared to this year, whatsoever. Yeah, that's a great compromise there, Harry! |
10-04-2013, 11:03 AM | #135 | ||
Person who doesn't update the user title
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Bottom lands of the Missoula floods
Posts: 6,402
|
Quote:
Otherwise why would the parties have proposed to use it as an impetus to reach agreement ? From Wikiipedia: Quote:
|
||
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | |
|
|