Interesting questions, but let's face it - our health care system is not perfect, but it appears to be a lot better than the British system, especially in the areas that are covered by your questions - so why question our system?
While Congress and the Administration are scrambling to draft a catastrophic overhaul of our healthcare system, now more than ever is the time to step back and take a look at how citizens have fared in other countries under the guise of "free" healthcare.
Government-run healthcare systems in other countries are a painful example of how good intentions can produce dire results. Canadian, British, and European government-run health systems delay and ration care for citizens, limit access to cutting-edge diagnostic services and medications, and result in poor quality medical care, all while costs skyrocket.
It is no secret that there are tragically long waiting periods for patients to receive treatment in Canada and Great Britain. According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, 827,429 Canadians are awaiting some type of procedure, while 1.8 million people in England await hospital admission or outpatient treatment. At one point, waiting periods were so bad in Canada, that in 2005 Canadian citizens, fed up with being prohibited by law from seeking private care, took the matter to the highest court in Canada.
The high court found in favor of the plaintiffs, stating: "The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public healthcare system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public healthcare. The evidence also demonstrates that the prohibition against private health insurance and its consequence of denying people vital healthcare result in physical and psychological suffering that meets a threshold test of seriousness."
In an attempt to avoid long waiting periods in Great Britain, the National Health Service (NHS) instituted "targets" using a carrot and stick approach with hospitals that have further exacerbated the decline of quality healthcare for all Britons.
This month the Daily Telegraph reported that emergency room patients suspected of having cancer are forced to the back of the line. These sometimes critical emergency patients do not "count" towards the targets as do other cancer patients referred by GPs and are therefore subjected to longer and often painful waiting periods.
This past spring the Daily Telegraph cited a report by Britain's Healthcare Commission regarding the conditions at Staffordshire hospitals where between 400 and 1200 more patients died than expected during a three year period. According to the Daily Telegraph the investigation found "overstretched and poorly trained nurses who turned off equipment because they did not know how to work it, newly qualified doctors left to care for patients recovering from surgery at night, patients left for hours in soiled bedclothes, reception staff expected to judge how seriousness of patients arriving at A&E (emergency rooms), patients left without food or drink, others who received the wrong medication or none at all, blood and faeces left on lavatories and floors, and doctors diverted away from seriously ill patients in order to treat minor ones who were in danger of breaching the four hour waiting time target."
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The elderly, obese and those with unhealthy lifestyles also have the propensity to be denied treatment in Great Britain, according to a survey by Doctor magazine cited by the Daily Telegraph. According to the survey, British doctors are "calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives." According to the Daily Telegraph
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If you are old and have cancer, you are even worse off under the British healthcare system. According to a report cited by the Daily Mail, 15,000 elderly die each year unnecessarily from cancer because focus is directed mainly to patients under 75 years of age.
Those under the age of 75 diagnosed with cancer, don't fare much better. According to The Times, in 2005 bureaucratic red tape denied over 20 licensed cancer treatments to British cancer patients, with another 23 treatments awaiting appraisal. These included treatments for breast, colon, bone marrow and lung cancer as well as non-Hodgkins lymphoma and brain tumors. Such delays can last as long as three years.
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Because of increasing costs, British cancer patients are also denied more effective cancer-fighting drugs. In 2008 The Times highlighted the story of a 68 year old man with kidney cancer seeking to purchase a more effective drug out of pocket. He was told that if he privately purchased the drug, which promised two times the survival rate than the one administered by the government, the government would drop his healthcare coverage. The man purchased the drug anyway and is now no longer able to receive follow-up tests, treatment, etc. Another 71 year old cancer patient opted for the same thing, and was subsequently billed by the NHS £11,500 for his medical care after he was dropped by the government system. Only after the media publicized the incident did the NHS rescind the bill.
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Posted July 20,2009
http://newsblaze.com/story/200907201.../topstory.html
Yes, you were a Cobra owner and about to be one again, but the the public health system in England just want old people to die and sick people to go away - we don't want that system here.