Another (personal) reason we desperately need MORE health care reform

[orthodoc]

I should add that I only have experience with Ontario, within the Canadian system. Each of the provinces administers its own health care program. I've heard that Quebec's is a nightmare (substantiated by the huge numbers of Quebecois who cross the Ottawa River for care in Ontario, rather than in their own system), and Alberta's is fantastic. But no personal experience.

The Ontario government, in its wisdom, decided in 1991 that doctors were the reason health care costs were rising, and fewer doctors would mean lower costs (i.e. less access to care, less billing of the system). The government put some programs in place that begged doctors to leave, slashed medical school enrollments and residency training programs, and waited for the magic of lower health care costs.

The crisis is ongoing twenty years later. There are still completely inadequate numbers of physicians in the province. It's nearly impossible to get a family doctor, which means it's impossible to get access to specialist referrals or anything else. People use Urgent Care and the ER for basic care.

No system is perfect. I do prefer a system that guarantees access to insurance (but preferably also to care). I think the European medical systems have worked out better than the Ontario system has, on the whole.

[Adak]

Aw yes, the wonders of Socialized medicine:

29 year old, woman.

Left to Die:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...HS-chiefs.html

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by Adak

Aw yes, the wonders of Socialized medicine:

29 year old, woman.

Left to Die:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...HS-chiefs.html

As others have pointed out, your little UK snafu pales to nothing in comparison to what we here in the US endure:

Back in June, a report, released by Families USA, concluded that each year more than 26,000 working-age U.S. adults die prematurely because they lack health insurance.

Also from Reuters around the same time as the above:

Originally Posted by Reuters

: Over 26,000 Annual Deaths For Uninsured:

More than 26,000 working-age adults die prematurely in the United States each year because they lack health insurance, according to a study published ahead of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama's health care reform law. The study, released on Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Families USA, estimates that a record high of 26,100 people aged 25 to 64 died for lack of health coverage in 2010, up from 20,350 in 2005 and 18,000 in 2000 (Morgan, 6/20).

The Hill: Group: Uninsured Americans Will Die Without Health Care Law

In a report, Families USA found that more than 130,000 Americans died between 2005 and 2010 because of their lack of health insurance. The group calculated that in 2010, the number of deaths due to a lack of coverage averaged three per hour and that the issue plagued every state. More than 3,000 people in California died in 2010 for lack of insurance, the report found (Viebeck, 6/20).

"We would have "rationed" health care here in the land of big pharma and big health insurance companies, and that's just unAmerican," the Conservatives bleat to each other.

So, just what do you call what the US has now? Life by luck and death on purpose? - kind of like going down to the casino and playing the slots. If you have enough quarters to keep dumping into the machines, eventually you'll hit 3 band aides in a row and someone may actually treat you. Heck, maybe they'll even cure you! This is the USA after all.

But if you just so happen to be no more than the janitor who cleans the vomit up from the casino's restrooms and never touches the slots except to dust them at 3am when the casiona closes down for 15 minutes, you can just forget health care - rationed or otherwise.

The folks in an American ER will put a bandaide on your owie, but if you have a condition that does not easily lend itself to a quickie work-up by an inexperienced intern and can be cured in 3 days by 10 anti-biotic pills available for $5.00, you're shit out of luck.

Ever try to persuade an American hospital facility and staff to do a MRI or two, along with a CAT scan, plus two weeks of intensive neurological testing, and let's not forget some x-rays - all for completely free? And if you did manage somehow to pull off this feat, how about persuading an American pharmaceutical company or your tea bag party neighbor to help you out with the $600 plus costs of the medications you need to take to just survive another week or another month or another year. Think you can trot down to the nearest Mayo Clinic for help? Think again.

At least the uninsured here can take some comfort in the thought that their deaths offer the Tea Wingnuts a little comic relief.

[Happy Monkey]

It's news when NHS does it.

Its SOP when private insurance does it.

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

It's news when NHS does it.

Its SOP when private insurance does it.

Right. When my step-mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, she wasn't given access to the Ontario health system for workup and cancer treatment for over two months. Did the delay make a difference to her outcome? Impossible to say.

On the other hand, my insurance company has refused to pay for chemotherapy for patients who have what is in their estimation a low enough recurrence score not to warrant it. Information is still coming in on these scores and the start of the high-risk category is continually being revised downward; I could have been refused now for a score considered high-risk next year. So I refused to have the test that provides the score, even though it would have provided important information. I just don't have an extra few hundred grand sitting around to pay for chemo (and all complications, current and future) out of pocket. Imagine that.

Both systems restrict access so far as they can, and in both cases it's over money. The difference is, the socialized system is trying to save money, to spread a global budget more thinly across needs, while the private system is trying to maximize profit.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

snip--

Both systems restrict access so far as they can, and in both cases it's over money. The difference is, the socialized system is trying to save money, to spread a global budget more thinly across needs, while the private system is trying to maximize profit.

edited for clarity.