Its always amazing to me how people on the left side of the aisle are so intent, so focused, on instituting programs that have been tried the world over throughout history, and have failed. Communism didn’t work out to well for 100 million people. And neither does Socialism. Here is Robert M. Goldberg of the Center of Medicine in the Public Interest on whether Ted Kennedy would be getting the same kind of care in say, Britain for instance:
Problem is, governments that promise to “cover everyone” always wind up cutting corners simply to save money. People with Kennedy’s condition are dying or dead as a result.
Consider Jennifer Bell of Norwich, England. In 2006, the 22-year-old complained of headaches for months – but Britain’s National Health Service made her wait a year to see a neurologist.
Then she had to wait more than three months before should could get what the NHS decided was only a “relatively urgent” MRI scan. Three days before the MRI appointment, she died.
Consider, too, the chemo drug Kennedy is receiving: Temodar, the first oral medicine for brain tumors in 25 years. socialized heal
Temodar has been widely used in this country since the FDA approved it in 2000. But a British health-care rationing agency, the National Institute for Comparative Effectiveness, ruled that, while the drug helps people live longer, it wasn’t worth the money – and denied coverage for it.
Barack Obama – and other Democrats – have been pushing a Senate bill to set up a similar US “review board” for Medicare and any future government health-care plan.
After denying this treatment completely for seven years, the NICE (did whoever named it intend the irony?) relented – partly. Even today, only a handful of Brits with brain tumors can get Temodar.
And if you want to pay for Temodar out of your own pocket, the British system forces you to pay for all of your cancer care – about $30,000 a month.
Things are no different in Canada, where the wait for an MRI (once you finally get a referral) has grown to 10 weeks. For Canadians relying on their government health care, the average wait time from diagnosis of cancer to surgery is beyond the guideline set by both the US and European societies for surgical oncology.
And HealthCanada, the government system, similar refuses to pay for treatments that are often covered in America.
Chad Curley, a 37-year-old auto worker from Windsor, Ontario, had a brain tumor like Kennedy’s but can’t have surgery because his is too large to be operable.
His tumor didn’t respond to Temodar and the same doctors now treating Sen. Kennedy told him and his wife that the Avastin combination could stop his tumor from growing and add months to his life. But HealthCanada wouldn’t pay to use Avastin to treat his tumor.
Chad’s family and friends scraped together the $5,000 for the first round of treatment in mid-November; they later saw Chad’s left-side paralysis start to subside. But the money ran out – and he died on Feb. 21.
In pushing for government-run health care, liberals are pushing for a system where only the Ted Kennedys of the world can get cutting-edge – and life-saving – care.
England tried to fix the long waits by instituting care targets. Of course there is always a way around rules like that:
Difficult cases are “falling by the wayside” as hospitals prioritise patients they can treat within 18 weeks, the Liberal Democrats said.
Some 16,800 operations were cancelled between January and March, about 15 per cent higher than for the same period last year. It is also an 8 per cent rise on the previous quarter, when 15,600 were scrapped.
The figures were released 24 hours after the Government announced it had hit its target of treating the majority of patients within 18 weeks of referral by their GP.
Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said the target was placing pressure on the health service to prioritise patients who could be treated within the 18-week time limit ahead of more difficult cases, who were pushed to the back of the queue.
Hospitals often cancel operations at the end of March to help balance their books by shifting the cost of the surgery into the next financial year’s budget, but the Liberal Democrats said that did not explain the large rise in the number of cancelled operations.
There is your socialized medicine for you. They are having a hard time treating patients within 4 and half months…..can’t wait for it to come here!
And so it goes. The left think its a GREAT idea to allow the government to run our health care but the reasons for this confidence cannot be their performance on other programs.
Hell, they can’t even save the oysters with 58 million dollars of our money….how in the hell do you believe they will provide adequate health care to 300 million people?
Just nuts.
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