Posted on 05/10/2007 9:00:58 AM PDT by Reagan Fellow
In a recent Arizona Republic column, State Representative Phil Lopes called for universal health care. But, the Lopes proposal confuses government paid health services with universal health care. As Europe demonstrates, millions go without good health care under government paid systems regularly.
According to 2004 survey only 22 percent of Spaniards think their universal care system offers “satisfactory” service. It is certainly unsatisfactory that citizens there have to wait months for a simple test like an MRI. In England, patients must wait nearly a year for hip and knee replacements.
In Spain everyone pays taxes for the universal health care system. There is, however, a select group of people who get to choose. Central government civil servants can opt-out of the public system and have the government pay for their private insurance. 91 percent of civil servants choose private insurance. That is quite an endorsement of the free market’s ability to meet consumers needs better than socialized medicine.
Health care services need to be accessible and affordable. But, a government take-over of the industry is not the answer.
U.K. Hospitals to Deny Treatment to “High Risk” Patients
Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has announced that it can no longer serve high risk patients. Anne Bullock, spokeswoman for the NHS explained, “It costs a lot of money to treat those who are really sick. The surgeries, high-tech equipment, and medications required are beyond our budgetary means.”
Bullock touted recent surveys that she says support the new policy. “When you get right down to it, the overwhelming number of people suffer from relatively mild illnesses,” Bullock observed. “These are easily and cheaply treated. Consequently, the new policy will allow us to concentrate our efforts on the vastly larger numbers of people who have less onerous ailments. The desperately sick are only a small minority. We cannot allow them to consume such a disproportionate share of the nation’s medical resources. In a democracy, the needs of the majority must take precedence over the needs of the few. Simple equity demands this.”
An estimated six million patients are expected to be affected by this rationing scheme, a statistic that Bullock argues makes her point. “Sixty million people live in the UK,” Bullock said. “Those on the outs with the new policy represent only ten percent of the population. The other, healthier, ninety percent are, thus, assured of their needs being met.”
read more...
http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens1.htm
Civil servants? Who is serving whom?
Government’s, a Universal Failure
There, fixed it.
I experienced government run healthcare. While in the service for four years.
Never saw the same doctor twice. Never met an orderly that wasn’t a complete idiot.
No thanks, been there done that.
We MUST provide health care to All Americans, legal, future citizens including 24 , err 12 million illegals, their relatives etc. /sarc the anal retentive
The author fails to mention one important point.
IN MOST ALL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES REQUIRE PATIENTS TO BRIBE HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS!!!!!!!!
You HAVE to bribe somebody under socialized medicine to get the job done.
I hope everyone reads your link to the British health care system and I’m repeating your link here:
http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens1.htm
Yet, if you talk you Europeans or Canadians, they regard themselves as “morally superior” to the US in providing some minimum level of care to everyone.
The problems with our healthcare system are actually quite fixable, for a minimum cost. However, we have to get away from the entitlement mentality. 65% of all US healthcare is already government provided, and the percentage is rapidly growing.
bump
Come on— that’s a completely FAKE quote, right? Give me a link to the original.
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