CLINTONCARE VS. CLINTON'S CARE

New York Post ^ | 9/08/04 | MICHAEL F. CANNON

[kattracks]

THE speed with which Presi dent Clinton received quad ruple bypass surgery pro vides an important lesson in health-care reform that voters should keep in mind this election season.

[snip}Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said that when doctors at Columbia-Presbyterian saw the extent of the blockage, "They did advise him to have bypass surgery, and to do it as soon as he could." Columbia-Presbyterian admitted the former president Friday and performed a successful quadruple bypass Monday.

The timeframe is important.

[snip]

Critics warned that socialized medicine would have the same effect in America as it has in other countries.

When government makes medical care "free," people demand medical care without regard to cost. Governments can't keep up with the excess demand and therefore must find some way of allocating care amid shortage conditions. Most choose to make patients wait.

According to Nadeem Esmail and Michael Walker of Canada's Fraser Institute, the median wait for an appointment with a cardiologist in Canada's single-payer health-care system was 3.4 weeks in 2003. The wait for urgent bypass surgery was another 2.1 weeks on top of that, while the wait for elective bypass surgery was a further 10.7 weeks. Great Britain and New Zealand have even longer waiting times for bypass surgery.

[snip]

Had America had followed his lead 10 years ago, President Clinton might not have been able to get his diagnosis and surgery appointment so quickly. Instead of waiting overnight for an appointment with a cardiologist, he might have had to wait the 3.4 weeks Canadians do. Instead of waiting three days for quadruple bypass surgery, he might have had to wait more than two weeks.

[kattracks]

The articlen goes on to say that only peons would actually have to wait for this kind of treatment, as the "famous and politically-connected" always get to jump to the head of the line.

[skip_intro]

The article goes on to say that only peons would actually have to wait for this kind of treatment, as the "famous and politically-connected" always get to jump to the head of the line.

Absolutely. That's why the elites are so hot to enact national health care. They'd have their own private clinics while the rest of us will be fighting our way through hospitals that will make the current emergency rooms look like Club Med.

[VisualizeSmallerGovernment]

I hear that Senator Clinton also made some crack about them being lucky to have health insurance.

What the heck? I thought they had untold millions of dollars. Why do they need to insure themself against some silly thing like the expenditure of a few hundred thousand dollars?

That's like George Soros bragging about his dental plan. "They clean my teeth every six months and it's only a $10 co-pay!"

[supercat]

I didn't read the whole article, but another thing that needs to be acknowledged is that wait-listing patients reduces demand on the system because many patients will either get better without treatment, die without treatment, or give up on waiting and simply put up with their problems. Were it not for these events, waitlisting would solve nothing.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[Mr. Blond]

Sweet, sweet irony.

[Right_in_Virginia]

BTTT

[zip]

ping

[FormerACLUmember]

Actually the corrupt politicians always leave a way out. In Canada as an example, the Ottawa politicans and top bureaucrats have access to the National Defense Hospital, where top care is provided rapidly in a manner that is ILLEGAL for ordinary Canadians.

[longfellow]

Will she change her position now?

[OESY]

CONCLUSION:



Instead of receiving care from what Sen. Clinton called "one of the great hospitals in the world," President Clinton might be looking for a safety valve.

Since the Clinton health plan was defeated, untold patients have been aided because America's health-care system, whatever its faults, was not subjected to the shortages and waiting lines that plague other nations.

But the future is less certain. Sen. John F. Kerry is aggressively promoting his $1 trillion health-care plan, which borrows heavily from the Clinton plan. Kerry too seems to believe that having government issue a paper guarantee of "coverage" is the same thing as having access to medical care....

Despite the government's egalitarian rhetoric, "low-income Canadians have less access to specialists, particularly cardiovascular ones, and have lower cardiovascular and cancer survival rates than their higher-income neighbors."