Posted on 06/29/2007 11:50:49 AM PDT by Graybeard58
Just as filmmaker Michael Moore's attack on the U.S. health-care system, "Sicko," began infecting selected theaters across the country, a different sort of medical drama was unfolding in England, whose National Health Service is considered a model for universal health care.
The scene was Britain's High Court, where the Alzheimer's Society and two drug companies were fighting to preserve access to pharmaceutical treatment for people in the early stages of the devastating brain disease. At issue was a class of drugs known as acetyl cholinesterase inhibitors.
Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which regulates prescription drugs, ruled the drugs could be given to patients with moderate-stage Alzheimer's but not to those whose mental deterioration was still mild. The rationale: The drugs, which cost about $5 per patient per day, aren't cost-effective.
The plaintiffs argued, rightly, that the National Institute was telling patients they had to get worse before they could be treated. In other words, the national health system would not start paying for treatment until the disease had destroyed the patients' memories and their lives.
Among those in the gallery for the start of the trial was Bob Noble, 58, diagnosed with the disease two years ago. He called the drugs "a stay of execution," adding, "The drugs give me a way forward, to rebuild my life to an acceptable level. ... Without the drugs I would not be capable of looking after myself. They are being unfair because they are discriminating against young people, newly diagnosed, by not approving drugs that would give them a good quality of life."
The Associated Press reported Britain's health-care system "is regularly accused of rationing access to treatment." Last year, the National Institute backed down in the face of a lawsuit over its decision to limit drugs to treat breast cancer.
Eventually, unavoidably, Mr. Moore's "Sicko" will open around here. Anybody who sees it needs to remember that in building a case in favor of systems like Britain's, Mr. Moore deliberately didn't talk to people like Bob Noble. Nowhere in the movie will anyone hear the voices of those Britain's system routinely tells, "Sorry, but preserving your health and well-being would not be cost-effective."
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this ping list, let me know.
Ironically, this is the same argument that universal healthcare activists use against privatized health care.
I don’t know about them, but I don’t want to be put on a 6-month waiting list for an appendectomy.
People in Britain are buying supplemental insurance and the Supreme court of Canada ruled that the government could not outlaw other providers when they had waiting lists instead of timely care. We should not adopt this as others are abandoning theirs . We need to infuse our system with more cpitalism.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s baffling that with all the blatant evidence we have that these systems do not work and do nothing to lower the price of health care, there are those who dream of the day that this becomes an American reality.
But like Ayn Rand predicted in 1979 - the conservatives are more of a threat to our country than the liberals. The conservaties do nothing to educate the people about the benefits of free markets and the consequences of socialism. What’s worse, they keep apologizing for appearing to be too cruel and make up for it by “compromising” with liberals to pass watered down socialist policies: I give you Massachusetts’ UHC system thanks to Mr. Romney... a “conservative” Republican.
Demographic changes will not support universal healthcare around the world (muchless america).
America’s system must adapt, but not in that direction.
Universal health care is rationed health care.
The very people you are educating will tell you that you are incorrect, parroting *conservative propaganda*, and perhaps they will actually become angry if you continue. They will disparage every source, dispute every factual example and eventually ignore you and perhaps even do their best to isolate you socially, professionally and economically. If they accept what you show them to be true and go on to use those facts in speaking with others, they will be *rescued* by activist progressives, showered with revisionist literature and perhaps also acquire a minder/new best friend to guide them from ever falling into such error ever again.
The above is what happens on an informal, one-to-one basis. Those who attempt such education within academe or the media are quickly subjected to personal and professional destruction.
Even when a liberal encounters the truth in a painful personal manner, they will often spend years convincing themselves they misperceived what actually took place. People can become quite depressed when their own experience contradicts the communal consensus.
I have watched well-reared young people turn against their parents after a couple of years in college, heard wrenching stories about others who were lectured to concerning their lack of compassion from within their formerly conservative church and watched marriages fail because one spouse began to understand what was happening politically and economically while the other was still successfully inculcated.
All due respect to Ayn Rand. She may have been correct back in the day, but things have become far more polarized today.
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