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chellovek
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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 Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Not a shocker. As an American, I'd still prefer the UK system over ours, but I wouldn't prefer a nationalized health-care system to single payer. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 12:20 am Post subject: |
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Happy Warrior: It's quite sad and worrying that Americans still view the NHS as a system to look up to. Let's take a closer look.
Having a baby in Britain? Don't worry.
A British woman, on holiday in France, fell off a horse and broke her back. French healthcare, she claims, was of the highest quality, but here's what happened when she returned to Britain:
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I returned to Britain, weepy and sore, a week after the operation, to a very different scenario. My husband hired a private ambulance to take me home from the airport, because the NHS doesn't do airport pickups and I made it home breathing gas and air to help numb the pain.
It was all downhill from there. My GP had arranged for a community nurse to visit me that day, but she never came. It was left to my husband to change my dressing, and I had to inject myself in the stomach with the blood thinners prescribed to prevent deep vein thrombosis because I was so inactive.
The next day it was a similar story, so we rang and asked the nurse not to bother coming. But she turned up, with such a sullen, surly manner I decided I'd rather inject myself. She took 20 minutes apply a dressing that fell off before she'd reached the garden gate
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7529058/British-patients-are-the-losers-in-a-tale-of-UK-and-French-hospitals.html |
Getting priorities right!
Heart attacks and cancer are the biggest killers. How does Britain's NHS perform?
Customer satisfaction!
Sorafenib is a liver cancer drug, which can extend life by up to three years, but I'm afraid it's a little too expensive for the NHS.
Impressive cancer survival rates:
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The NHS's "penny-pinching" attitude to new treatments and "excessive bureaucracy" surrounding their assessment is condemning cancer sufferers in Britain to an early death, it says.
A review of the availability of 67 new cancer drugs in 25 countries has found that Britain languishes close to the bottom of the league. The authors, from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, say research in the US, which has the highest use of new cancer drugs, has shown that new treatments have significantly increased the chances of surviving cancer. In Europe, the UK has the lowest survival rates and the lowest use of new drugs compared with the major Western countries
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2527714.ece |
How about myeloma, a bone marrow cancer?
Radiotherapy?
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CANCER patients who have had tumours removed are dying because they are waiting so long for for follow-up radiotherapy that their tumours return, a government report has found. After surgery, patients should receive radiotherapy within 28 days, according to the Royal College of Radiologists. However, in some areas, patients are waiting three times as long. In Kent, for example, the waiting time for breast cancer patients who have had tumours removed by surgery is three months.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1563920.ece |
Okay, so the NHS's cancer performance could be better, but what's stopping people purchasing top-ups in the private sector?
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A woman dying of cancer was denied free National Health Service treatment in her final months because she had paid privately for a drug to try to prolong her life. She is believed to have been the first patient to die after fighting for the right to top up NHS treatment with a privately purchased cancer medicine that the health service refused to provide.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article4040146.ece |
'Free' public services means cuts:
Waiting time targets being met? Maybe not
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But what about the 98 per cent success rate for meeting the four-hour target? From the patient's point of view it sounds marvellous - it means you have a 98 per cent chance of being seen and sorted from arrival in A&E. Right? Wrong. You haven't had a Department of Health maths lesson. Say you come in to hospital complaining of abdominal pain. You wait three hours to see a doctor -they organise a scan and blood tests and transfer you to a ward next to A&E. The results come back two hours later and you can be discharged. In the real world, three plus two is five - that's five hours you've been waiting. But in fact, because you were transferred to the A&E ward before four hours, officially you weren't actually in A&E all that time.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=518624&in_page_id=1774 |
Aortic aneurysms?
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Aortic aneurysms - swellings in the main artery of the stomach - can kill suddenly and often without warning if left untreated. But the Government has failed to bring in a screening programme 18 months after being urged to do so. Almost 7,000 men bleed to death every year when a swelling in the main artery of the stomach ruptures, a consequence of a condition that has few signs but is responsible for 2 per cent of deaths of men aged 65 and over. Research shows that half of those lives could be saved if men were given a "one-off" ultrasound examination at around the age of 65
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1558801/Thousands-at-risk-as-male-health-test-delayed.html |
Dementia?
Need treatment on the NHS? Be patient.
Nice to see even the Guardian hopping aboard the Let's Bash The NHS Express there.
Lies, damned lies, and NHS statistics:
And finally (though I've much much more where this came from):
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 12:25 am Post subject: |
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By the way, the Commonwealth Fund/BBC cites the age-old chestnut "US healthcare is most expensive in the world".
Here's the public/private split: http://www.oecd.org/vgn/images/portal/cit_731/34/42/44222075health%20expenditure.jpg
When almost half of US healthcare revenue is spent on its public healthcare services - which provide healthcare to far fewer Americans than private - don't you think that's quite an important piece of information to leave out? |
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cj1976
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 12:30 am Post subject: |
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If you are going to talk about the NHS, for christ's sake don't quote from the Daily Mail. It's the most bigoted right-wing hate-mongering rag in the UK.
The NHS does have it's problems, but it's far better than the US situation. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 12:50 am Post subject: |
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[quote="Sergio Stefanuto"]Happy Warrior: It's quite sad and worrying that Americans still view the NHS as a system to look up to. Let's take a closer look.
Having a baby in Britain? Don't worry.
A British woman, on holiday in France, fell off a horse and broke her back. French healthcare, she claims, was of the highest quality, but here's what happened when she returned to Britain:
| Quote: |
I returned to Britain, weepy and sore, a week after the operation, to a very different scenario. My husband hired a private ambulance to take me home from the airport, because the NHS doesn't do airport pickups and I made it home breathing gas and air to help numb the pain.
It was all downhill from there. My GP had arranged for a community nurse to visit me that day, but she never came. It was left to my husband to change my dressing, and I had to inject myself in the stomach with the blood thinners prescribed to prevent deep vein thrombosis because I was so inactive.
The next day it was a similar story, so we rang and asked the nurse not to bother coming. But she turned up, with such a sullen, surly manner I decided I'd rather inject myself. She took 20 minutes apply a dressing that fell off before she'd reached the garden gate
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Perhaps we ought to establish the tort category of 'governmental malpractice'? |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:09 am Post subject: |
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| cj1976 wrote: |
| If you are going to talk about the NHS, for christ's sake don't quote from the Daily Mail. It's the most bigoted right-wing hate-mongering rag in the UK. |
Ad hominem
Every single one of the DM articles cites research |
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morrisonhotel
Joined: 18 Jul 2009
Location: Gyeonggi-do
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:12 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| cj1976 wrote: |
| If you are going to talk about the NHS, for christ's sake don't quote from the Daily Mail. It's the most bigoted right-wing hate-mongering rag in the UK. |
Ad hominem
Every single one of the DM articles cites research |
Is this the same DM that publishes articles almost daily with "'x' will kill you, according to new research'"? The next day: "'x' is really good for you, says new research". It's the most poorly researched newspaper I think I've ever come across.
In reference to your links, the one I always love that people pull up is the "I was treated shabbily by the NHS" posts. Really? My father spent 6 months in a hospital after a car accident, 3 months in the rehab department helping getting him walking again, and then has visited the same hospital a few times a month for almost 20 years following the accident. Not one problem. Individual anecdotal evidence is absolutely useless in evaluating the effectiveness of the NHS as a whole.
Last edited by morrisonhotel on Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:17 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:15 am Post subject: |
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| morrisonhotel wrote: |
| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| cj1976 wrote: |
| If you are going to talk about the NHS, for christ's sake don't quote from the Daily Mail. It's the most bigoted right-wing hate-mongering rag in the UK. |
Ad hominem
Every single one of the DM articles cites research |
Is this the same DM that publishes articles almost daily with "'x' will kill you, according to new research'"? The next day: "'x' is really good for you, says new research" |
For example? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:16 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
By the way, the Commonwealth Fund/BBC cites the age-old chestnut "US healthcare is most expensive in the world".
Here's the public/private split: http://www.oecd.org/vgn/images/portal/cit_731/34/42/44222075health%20expenditure.jpg
When almost half of US healthcare revenue is spent on its public healthcare services - which provide healthcare to far fewer Americans than private - don't you think that's quite an important piece of information to leave out? |
Medicare's demographics necessitate that its members will require more health care, and thus more health care spending. There's no getting around that. Medicare has very low administrative costs compared to private insurance, meaning the high costs are the result of high cost of treatment by private sector doctors. What do you want the government to do about that, exactly? Simply strong arm doctors into accepting even lower payments for services rendered?
Medicare is not the problem with the American system. I suppose you could argue that the government should be more aggressive with regards to trying to push down the drug prices they agree to, but that would result in them inevitably declaring some "too expensive" when some companies refused to play ball, and then you'd be complaining about that, just like you do with the UK's system.
If we were to add the entire population of the United States to Medicare tomorrow, our total health care costs would decrease substantially, because many Americans simply don't consume health care at the same rate as the elderly, the disabled, and so forth. I for example very rarely go to the doctor; moving someone like me from private insurance to Medicare results in less money being spent for the same results, because my premium money isn't getting pissed away on administrative inefficiencies, corporate paychecks, and share-holder dividends. They would still remain higher than in most countries, though, because our payment system is only one inefficiency. Our actual medical practice system needs substantial work, with regards from everything to medical records and billing technology to the system of general practitioners and specialists.
Last edited by Fox on Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:26 am; edited 2 times in total |
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morrisonhotel
Joined: 18 Jul 2009
Location: Gyeonggi-do
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:23 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| morrisonhotel wrote: |
| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| cj1976 wrote: |
| If you are going to talk about the NHS, for christ's sake don't quote from the Daily Mail. It's the most bigoted right-wing hate-mongering rag in the UK. |
Ad hominem
Every single one of the DM articles cites research |
Is this the same DM that publishes articles almost daily with "'x' will kill you, according to new research'"? The next day: "'x' is really good for you, says new research" |
For example? |
Pick up a copy of Private Eye. Almost fortnightly they have a nice list of the Daily Mail's god awful editing which never fails to miss such things. Or even do a Google search. There's ample evidence of exactly this. Almost weekly they have something about alcohol being good/bad for you. Then again, Sergio, having seen a number of your posts on here, one would suspect that Private Eye is too leftist for you. What exactly do you want to happen in the UK? You continuously bash it on here. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:54 am Post subject: |
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| morrisonhotel wrote: |
| Pick up a copy of Private Eye. Almost fortnightly they have a nice list of the Daily Mail's god awful editing which never fails to miss such things. Or even do a Google search. There's ample evidence of exactly this. Almost weekly they have something about alcohol being good/bad for you. Then again, Sergio, having seen a number of your posts on here, one would suspect that Private Eye is too leftist for you. |
When I asked "for example?", I was actually hoping for an example I could actually read for myself. (and preferably with some direct relevance to the DM articles above)
Making a claim and then telling somebody to use google, or read Private Eye, when they ask for evidence - and a fairly specific piece of evidence, at that - isn't very good, is it?
| Fox wrote: |
| Medicare's demographics necessitate that its members will require more health care, and thus more health care spending |
I realize that.
Medicaid, on the other hand, costs 2% of GDP (which means $280bn). According to this, Medicaid covers 53 million Americans. The cost of Medicaid per American covered therefore is $5,283 per annum. Of course, if you want runaway cost and low cancer survival rates, dirty hospitals and long waiting lists, then an NHS-style system is definitely the system for you! |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 2:33 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Happy Warrior: It's quite sad and worrying that Americans still view the NHS as a system to look up to. |
yep. I have 2 family members who worked in the NHS for years before ultimately leaving worn out and disillusioned. They emigrated to Canada and Australia respectively and both got better deals.
My cousin waited a year for a simple operation. But absurdly, even the private healthcare system in the UK is becoming similarly overloaded. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 3:05 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Medicaid, on the other hand, costs 2% of GDP (which means $280bn). According to this, Medicaid covers 53 million Americans. The cost of Medicaid per American covered therefore is $5,283 per annum. Of course, if you want runaway cost and low cancer survival rates, dirty hospitals and long waiting lists, then an NHS-style system is definitely the system for you! |
According to the Commonwealth Report executive summary -- the data source of the article this thread is about -- the United States per capita spending on health care is $7290. As such, it seems to me your data is totally inline with my point, with your public figure being roughly $2000 per head per year cheaper than the national average. And again, programs like Medicaid would only become less expensive as more healthy, young, middle class people were added to them. |
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morrisonhotel
Joined: 18 Jul 2009
Location: Gyeonggi-do
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| Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 3:55 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| morrisonhotel wrote: |
| Pick up a copy of Private Eye. Almost fortnightly they have a nice list of the Daily Mail's god awful editing which never fails to miss such things. Or even do a Google search. There's ample evidence of exactly this. Almost weekly they have something about alcohol being good/bad for you. Then again, Sergio, having seen a number of your posts on here, one would suspect that Private Eye is too leftist for you. |
When I asked "for example?", I was actually hoping for an example I could actually read for myself. (and preferably with some direct relevance to the DM articles above)
Making a claim and then telling somebody to use google, or read Private Eye, when they ask for evidence - and a fairly specific piece of evidence, at that - isn't very good, is it?
! |
Sigh.
I'm sure with your ridiculously blinkered view of the world, Sergio, that you'll try and poke holes in a futile attempt to justify your opinions that Britain really is a hell hole, blah, blah, blah. Never the less, you wanted some examples.
Here's just one (of hundreds - you can read these just by going to Google and searching for Daily Mail "Good for you" then Daily Mail "Bad for you". It pulls up hundreds of articles):
They can't seem to decide whether coffee is good for you or bad for you:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-68512/Why-filter-coffee-bad-you.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1197998/Forget-health-fascists-coffee-IS-good-you.html
Then there's outright alarmist nonsense:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1174768/Having-nails-skin-cancer-doctors-warn-women.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-51841/Why-mowing-lawn-bad-you.html
Etc., etc., etc. The Daily Mail, when it comes to reporting on scientific research, is good for one thing and one thing only: using it to wipe your backside.
ETA: I realise these are not one day and then the next. The point remains valid. The Daily Mail have been so wonderful to publish an article about conflicting advice on health - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1225601/The-A-Z-conflicting-health-advice-We-try-to-contradictory-medical-theories.html
Contradictory advice, if you have the time to check, that the Daily Mail has been all to willing to propagate. |
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