If it can do a oak 4x4, it will do a femur.
Posted on 01/03/2008 6:46:38 PM PST by Kaslin
Health Reform: The British have found a way to shorten those long, annoying waits for care and lower the rising costs of their universal access system. They'll let patients take care of themselves.
"Instead of going to a hospital or consulting a doctor, patients will be encouraged to carry out 'self-care' as the Department of Health tries to meet Treasury targets to curb spending," the Telegraph explained.
So when is a universal health care system not actually universal? When Britain's 60-year-old National Health Service can no longer support the weight of its clamoring clientele.
Granted, there should be more self-treatment in developed nations. Emergency rooms and doctors' offices are often overcrowded with patients who aren't in need of urgent need but who go anyway because their insurance or government is paying. That type of open access to health care has led to overuse of the system.
The NHS, though, is hoping to cut down on more than frivolous visits. It's looking for patients with "arthritis, asthma and even heart failure" to treat themselves, the Telegraph said.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
The Brits are royally screwed when they get seriously sick.
I have seen foreign doctors refuse to do ER duty so they could watch a soccer game.
Why?
Because the salaries were so low and government interference there was no incentive to take pride in their jobs.
If it can do a oak 4x4, it will do a femur.
How sadly predictable.
First Doctor: Get on parade! Come on! We haven’t got all day, have we? Come on, come on, come on. Hurry up ... right! Now, I know some hospitals where you get the patients lying around in bed. Sleeping, resting, recuperating, convalescing. Well, that’s not the way we do things here, right! No, you won’t be loafing about in bed wasting the doctors’ time. You - you horrible little cripple. What’s the matter with you?
Patient: Fractured tibia, sergeant.
First Doctor: ‘Fractured tibia, sergeant’? ‘Fractured tibia, sergeant’? Ooh. Proper little mummy’s boy, aren’t we? Well, I’ll tell you something, my fine friend, if you fracture a tibia here you keep quiet about it! Look at him! He’s broken both his arms and he don’t go shouting about it, do he? No! ‘Cos he’s a man - he’s a woman, you see, so don’t come that broken tibia talk with me. Get on at the double. One, two, three, pick that crutch up, pick that crutch right up.
First Doctor: Right, squad, ‘shun! Squad, right turn. Squad, by the left, quick limp! Come on, pick ‘em up. Get some air in those wounds.
Second Doctor: Here at St Pooves, we believe in ART - Active Recuperation Techniques. We try to help the patient understand that however ill he may be, he can still fulfill a useful role in society. Sun lounge please, Mr Griffiths.
Patient: I’ve got a triple fracture of the right leg, dislocated collar bone and multiple head injuries, so I do most of the heavy work, like helping the surgeon.
Interviewer’s Voice: What does that involve?
Patient: Well, at the moment we’re building him a holiday home.
Interviewer’s Voice: What about the nurses?
Patient: Well, I don’t know about them. They’re not allowed to mix with the patients.
Interviewer’s Voice: Do all the patients work?
Patient: No, no, the ones that are really ill do sport.
“Instead of going to a hospital or consulting a doctor, patients will be encouraged to carry out ‘self-care’ as the Department of Health tries to meet Treasury targets to curb spending,”
Why should the Brits be encouraged to carry out ‘self-care’ when medical care is free? There is something screwy about the whole story.
But can it do a circumcision?
Let us review: for the good of everyone, we’ll set up a all-ecompasing government program that promises to take care of our every health need. In order to pay for it, of course, we will have to levy taxes, but we are solemnly promised that these taxes will be lower and the program will be “more efficient” than private health care ever was.
Of course, since this is a government program, economic incentives are second to political incentives, so the program is ham-fisted about how it sets forward fees and exemptions, which in the end (seeing as how it is government) naturally builds a big disconnect between what a service costs to provide and what the patient will be charged for the service. Naturally, the Iron Law operates: when you charge less for a service than people would otherwise pay, people demand more of it.
Over-subscribing to services that are under-charged gradually swamps the system, and government cannot bring itself to raise fees or taxes to cover costs. The only way to control costs (after squeezing salaries as low as they can get by with), is to start to ration services. This is done by cutting back office hours, being slow to upgrade equipment, applying brutally stringent actuary criteria for what patients are served and what services are provided.
(It was long ago discovered that some preventative and diagnostic medical procedures were just more expensive than treating the patients who survived the initial malady. So, for example, it would be illegal for a patient to be given an $100 ultrasound procedure to see how blocked important arteries are. This is because it is just less expensive to treat the few patients who survive massive strokes or heart attacks.)
To cut back on drug costs, only drugs on the official “formulary” can be prescribed. New drugs that a patient might find easier to take are only put on the list if their is a actuarily sound basis for that listing. Drugs that might be more likely to cure the condition are only listed if it results in lower total costs than existing drugs. Worse, the patient will never know about that better drug because only drugs on the approved list (the “formulary”) can be allowed.
This would all be academic except that when government seizes a function (like Social Security) or health care, all the private alternatives are effectively destroyed for most people, and in the long run, it is impossible for government to do a more efficient job than private firms. High taxes to pay higher costs destroy the ability of every citizen except those with very high incomes, to pay for any alternatives left. Choice is destroyed. Freedom is destroyed, Wealth is destroyed. In the end people are worse off than if the program never existed.
And to add insult to this injury, now there are power brokers who feed off the political issues the system creates and along with fans of big and Bigger government, form an obstruction to repeal and a return to a private system. We live with this exact thing in the battle to introduce school vouchers in the US.
“..government be expected to earn their own tax revenue..”
Government doesn’t earn any taxes, it steals it at gunpoint.
I bet it can, and then some!
While I don’t support socialized medicine, I think this IBD editorial is highly misleading. For chronic illness, good self-care is a necessary part of good health care. Home monitoring of blood pressure, blood glucose, and weight changes (due to fluid accumulation in congestive heart failure) can prevent serious consequences and help avoid unnecessary, costly, and potentially dangerous hospitalization. Health insurers — now including NHS — are coming to realize that paying for the technology to support home monitoring makes good sense.
"'Fractured tibia, sergeant'? 'Fractured tibia, sergeant'? Ooh. Proper little mummy's boy, aren't we? Well, I'll tell you something, my fine friend, if you fracture a tibia here you keep quiet about it!"
I’m thinking kevlar suicide bags - stronger than 3 mil.
Not for the first time herabouts, the NHS is being rapped for something which is a) nothing to do with socialized medicine and b) highly desirable. There are plenty of good reasons for dissing socialized medicine without having to invent bad ones. Self-monitoring of chronic conditions of the kind described is both common sense, highly cost-efficient and a desirable element in any kind of healthcare system. With modern equipment taking your own blood pressure, for instance, is as easy as weighing yourself. Suspect any health professional who tells you otherwise of protectionism. Going to the doctor to have your blood pressure monitored makes as lttle sense as taking your car to a garage to have the oil level checked.
We need to be able to do some minor home doctoring here. When a parent knows their children needs an mild antibiotic or a diabetic or heart patient knows they have to take certain drugs every day for the rest of their lives, we need to be able to get the presciptions without paying $50-$75 for an office visit just to get the script. Sure, they weigh you, take blood pressure and ask “How you feeling”, but, the ONLY reason you made the appointment was for another 3 months of needed medicine, otherwise, the appointment would be for some other ailment. DUH!
Socialized medicine is quackery.
Only if the operator is really, really good.
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