Some Realities of Socialized Medicine
Posted by drbob2 on Apr 20, 2009
You may be aware of the Obama Administration’s plan to try and socialize American medicine. So, what’s socialized medicine like?
Based on what I’ve read, the Canadian system seems like it gives everyone the right to medical care. The problem is, a lot of the time—and depending on the Canadian province you live in— although you have a right to it, you can’t get it!
How about England and its National Health Service? Several months ago I read in British papers accessible on the internet of an English woman who wanted to take an expensive drug for her breast cancer. Since it was not covered by the National Health Service, she was going to pay for it herself and take it along with the other treatment that the NHS did pay for. According to the newspaper reports, this was not an unusual situation but in her case, the NHS told her that if she did pay for the expensive drug herself, they would not continue her regular treatment! The story said that the government official did this because, even though the woman was planning to sell her house to privately pay for the medicine (which is expensive but widely available in America) the NHS felt this would be unfair to other NHS patients who might not have the money to do what she did. How’s that for government controlled medicine? If you want to pay for a treatment that’s not provided by the government, the bureaucrats will stop providing you the treatment they do approve!
Here’s another example of the mindset of socialized medicine. About a week ago, a physician friend sent me a very revealing website www.18weeks.nhs.uk. I invite you visit that site and see for yourself how at least some aspects of socialized medicine work. The whole point of this particular website is that, as a quality improvement measure, called the NHS Improvement Plan, begun in June 2004: “By 2008, no one will have to wait longer than 18 weeks from GP referral to hospital treatment.” When I first read that, I thought it was a joke, but no—it’s deadly serious—check it out yourself! Why did I think it was a joke? Because here in the good old USA, where medical care does cost too much,* whenever you have to wait 18 weeks to get in the hospital, it’s considered a Quality of Care PROBLEM, not a GOAL! And, the NHS government bureaucrats thought that it would take them about 4 YEARS to achieve that goal!
In trying to better understand this matter, I accessed the 18 weeks site’s Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and found 24 pages of bureaucratic language that, if you’re a patient, you might find scary, not funny. In fairness, I did discover, (but it was not particularly easy) that the “18 week goal” is for those patients without an urgent need for care. Although what the NHS defines as urgent, I did not find and, considering the overall drift of the “18 weeks” program, I was not reassured that the NHS definition of “urgent” and this physician’s definition of “urgent” would be the same.
There is, of course, always the possibility that my perspective, after just reviewing the 18week website, and not being able to interview NHS physicians or their patients, is unfair; but I have tried to present the issue as it is presented on the website—which I invite you to visit yourself.
* I have some ideas about the causes and remedies of the high cost of medical care here in America that I plan to explore in upcoming blog entries. If you have specific examples of the high cost of American Medicine, please email them to me (no names please) at; drbob@superhealthms.com
If you have a topic you’d like me to address, just send me an email at drbob@superhealthms.com.