Health Care

[beagle]

Have I got the U.S. debate right?

You don't want to nationalize health care but you do want to nationalize Stephen Hawking so we don't kill him off?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Are you talking about this?

Those are the republicans for you, bright, logical, reasonable and specially subtle in their screams. They have their [investors] health above everything.

[Opsa]

It is quite unfortunate how easily some people will choose to swallow knee-jerk falsehoods, like the "death panel" garbage. Opponents of the National Health Care proposal (Hello? Rich insurance company stockholders- have we forgoitten AIG all ready?) are really counting on the gullible loudmouths to spread rumors, here.

[Griffin NoName]

"The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror movie script," the editorial asserted.

Apart from just being plain wrong, what's the difference between that and dying due to not having inusurance? Isn't the republican argument simply about what label dying comes under?

And why does the article call Hawking Dr Hawking while stating that he is a professor?

[Swatopluk]

Maybe to imply that even a doctor would fall victim to the Death panels.

[Griffin NoName]

mmmm I like it, Death Panels.

Sounds a bit like the 

Meanwhile we are trying to get an Assisted Dying Bill through a reluctant parliament..........

Something doesn't quite add up.

[beagle]

Are you talking about this?

Yep.  Parliament has risen and there's not much news here. Until someone trains their duck to skateboard our media is picking up on  "Better dead than red national healthcare" town hall meetings, and U.S. investors' magazines that can't work out Hawking's nationality, or get mortality statistics right to within a factor of ten.

[Griffin NoName]

Yep.  Parliament has risen and there's not much news here.

So true. I was thinking I'd become inefficient at reading the newspaper til a friend pointed out there wasn't actually any news. 

[Swatopluk]

But would it not be good for news*, if the NHS mandated sex changes for men, so they could get pregnant for the also mandatory abortions. The problem is of course that these new women, having to abort all their children, could not become grannies that could be killed by the Death Panels. Unless of course all pregancies are dizygotic and the unborn (after receiving prenatal sex education and fertility treatment) incestuously fornicate** to create the grandchildren before they are killed.

*the whole yellow press and TV
**slight problem here: would the walls of the separate amniotic sacks not act like condoms?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Mmm, in music you have atonalism where dissonances are mandatory, so these guys are a-cognizant considering their permanent cognitive dissonance?

[Aggie]

I was under the impression the NHS subscribed heavily to evidence- (and value-)based medicine... and not from these Repug ads.  How much is restricted, and how hard is it for them to add a new treatment to the covered list?

___________________________________________________

FWIW, Canadian Health Care, my take on it.....

While the emergency room wait almost killed me (thanks, for closing down three hospitals in the '90s*), when I had my appendix out I don't think they asked for anything more than my provincial health card # the entire time (I have private health insurance from my employer, also). Didn't even sign anything on the way out.  We need more doctors and nurses up here, but the basic system works in principal.

Note that Canadian health care is administrated on a provincial level, so it varies somewhat.  Alberta is determined to privatize or set up a 2-tiered system, because we are full of rich oil-sucking bastards (ok, my wage is paid by petrodollars  but I make it cleaning up their messes.  It costs a LOT more to take it out of the ground for the second time. ). Alberta has wanted to be like 'Merrica for generations, and is itchin' to privatize health care.  We recently formed a provincial health Superboard (as opposed to regional boards), who gave themselves big, big raises and then proceeded to tell us there wasn't enough money to cover everything, so they had to cut certain procedures. Liepert, you're a bastard and a crook:

http://tinyurl.com/obe4gu
http://tinyurl.com/m3y27x
*Let's build Potemkim hospitals! 3/6 floors completed isn't bad!
[youtube=425,350]ce81YqK-IzU[/youtube]
^{(for reference, Calgary is responsible for about 50% of the population growth in the province. )}

Summer Camp Hospital! Yay!  Except that it gets below -30C in Edmonton in the winter...
[youtube=425,350]PIdGL1IDN1E[/youtube]
^{(Welcome to Alberta.  Just Click 'Conservative', and you'll be fine.)}

Old one, from 2002, provincial health fees to pay for corporate tax cuts:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2002/02/10/alta_health020210.html

May 2009:
25% Pay Raises for Health Superboard

Can't find a news story specifying the health cuts in June (besides sex changes, which was used as a smokescreen for slipping in the rest) or Liebert's quote that I heard on the radio where he says if they had been thinking ahead 10 or 15 years ago they wouldn't be covering hip replacements at the moment.... 
^{(broken links - conspiracy? )}

Costs: Alberta spends $10.9 billion on a population of 3,632,483, or $3,000.70 CDN per person.  They get $542 from the Canadian government (although that's probably included in the total budget, not spent additionally). So... even though it's a tight ship here, and not the best funded, coverage for everyone costs about three grand.  Up to you whether that's a reasonable sum or not... it's also worth mentioning that we are significantly a natural resource nation, so some of this cash literally grow on trees or gets pumped out of the ground, rather than being dragged out of the taxpayer's back pocket.


Get me back to BC; the politicians are corrupt as skite, but they take good care of the little guy (in exchange, nobody pays much attention to politics except when we catch wind and throw the bastards out ):

Over the next three years, health-care funding will increase by $4.8 billion. By 2011/12, total provincial health spending will be $17.5 billion – an increase of 65 per cent since 2001. 

http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2005-2009/2009FIN0004-000191.htm   

17.5 billion for 4.6 million (projected '11/'12) = $3800 per person
BC taxes the rich higher than the poor, so they can afford it  (Alberta taxes the poor higher than BC, and the rich less ).




The point being that Canadian health care varies quite a bit.  I'd think Ontario is likely the standard for Canadian health care; they are good at bureaucracy there. Lambi would know better, if he were about...

[beagle]

I was under the impression the NHS subscribed heavily to evidence- (and value-)based medicine... and not from these Repug ads.  How much is restricted, and how hard is it for them to add a new treatment to the covered list?

There's a quango called NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence I think) who's job is to evaluate the cost benefit of new drugs and treatments.  Every now and then it makes the papers for not providing an expensive new drug soon enough (from the point of view of sufferers of a disease) or at all. Usually I think it has been very expensive drugs that don't fix a fatal disease, but may extend life a few months rather than years). When I mixed with Americans at work I heard far more complaints about insurers weaselling out of paying than you hear complaints about NICE here.
Different priorities in different health care trusts sometimes makes the news as well (usually for things like fertility treatments where the starting age for free treatment can vary widely).

I can personally vouch for the elderly death list idea being complete bollocks.  When my 85 year old mother got chest pains I explained to them that in my opinion it was when she forgot to take her blood pressure pills, but they still gave her an expensive nuclear perfusion test at Addenbrookes (the place Stephen Hawking wouldn't stand a chance in if he was British  ) to be on the safe side.

We feel hard done by if we have to pay for parking at hospitals, so the U.S. billing system is a real eye-opener.

(Will check out your videos when got a computer with sound).

[Griffin NoName]

I was under the impression the NHS subscribed heavily to evidence- (and value-)based medicine... and not from these Repug ads.  How much is restricted, and how hard is it for them to add a new treatment to the covered list?

There's a quango called NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence I think) who's job is to evaluate the cost benefit of new drugs and treatments. 

Beagle's view is broadly in concurrence with mine except that I would say there are huge fusses about NICE. Probably because I have poor health and have some personal interest in their decisions. They were prosecuted for a death wish on ME/CFS patients earlier this year (we lost) for example. They do make some very poor decisions on occasions which cause national outcries. For example, witholding a new drug that works for Alzheimers patients in the early stages, withholding a kidney cancer drug that gives potentially years of extra life, etc. They have a poor record on breast cancer drugs too. Personally I think when they refuse a very expensive cancer drug that gives only weeks or months of extra life (and which involves drastically horrid side effects) that's OK by me, but the majority of cancer patients do not agree.

One of the big problems is the length of time they delay drugs while making up their minds. That's inexcusable in my book. Also, the way that some drugs end up being left to the discretion of the PCT (local health admins) makes a postcode lottery which is also inexcusable and stupid.

My take. The NHS is best at emergencies. We are lucky there. The real downsides are somewhat hidden and caused by a bad management. For example, waiting two to three weeks for test results which one waits two or three days or often no wait at all when going privately. This downgrades treatment and I cannot understand it. Also, the number of times people tell me they have lost their x-rays or scans etc is ridiculous. Seeing a different doctor every time (hospitals not GPs) is also very silly and for me that's the major reason I am glad at least some of my care is insured.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Alberta has wanted to be like 'Merrica for generations....

Why?

I'm currently arguing with a libertarian on facebook about this and I have to say I must have been dreadfully annoying. Less annoying than her but still stuck in that ridiculous little box they live in.
Also, thanks for the insight into the Canadian and English systems.

[Aggie]

Alberta has wanted to be like 'Merrica for generations....

Why?

Because it thinks it's Texas*?  Because there's a certain separatist element here that wants to leave Canada and join the US? Because Canadians think we have a say in government-run health care so "the health care debate" never actually stops?  Probably all of the above.



*but has never seen chili without beans before.

[Swatopluk]

Maybe it will join as Gonzalessa in honour of the former (and still unemployed) US AG 

[Aggie]

Liepert, you're a bastard and a crook

Yay, cabinet shuffle here....  Lieperv is now Energy Minister and instead of just screwing with the health care system, is now able to crash the entire (practically) Alberta economy!

I should be glad that the Alberta Conservatives have lost approval big time during the Stelmach adminstration, and probably won't survive the next election, but the likely successor is the further-right Wild Rose Alliance.

[Griffin NoName]

Wild Rose? What a strange name for a far right party.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Time to start a campaign to show how the rose is an official socialist symbol?

[Aggie]

Official provincial flower, and strongly considered the provincial symbol by the masses. 

The provincial Liberals (no relation to the federal Liberal Party, which is much-derided in these parts) should have jumped on that name.  They've considered a name change but to paraphrase AB Liberal leader Dr. David Swann, 'thinking voters will look past the name to the rationality of our platform'. 



Which is true, I suppose.  Liberal support in this province may actually be a fair indication of the percentage of thinking voters out there. _{(I voted Liberal in the last election because I highly approved of the candidate, not the party - he won in my riding because he's a damned good guy despite being a politician)}