Blessings,
Barrett
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Some Problems with Government-Run Health Care
Rationing Health Care
Individual choice will be limited
President Obama says: “The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here….There is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place.” The New York Times Magazine, 5/3/2009, p.5. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03Obama-.html?pagewanted=4&_r=2&hpwCost-cutting will lead to rationing
“It doesn't matter what your doctor says; the Obama administration plans to decide if you will have cancer treatment or heart surgery…The hypocrisy is enough to make a heart stop. A White House that doesn't think government should intervene between a doctor and a woman deciding whether to have an abortion has no problem telling doctors whether they can perform tonsillectomies or hysterectomies.” Washington Times Editorial from Tuesday 4/21/2009. “Rationing Health Care” http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/21/rationing-health-care-the-obama-administration-dec/
Cost-cutting will lead to fewer available treatments
“Try to follow this logic: Last week the Medicare trustees reported that the program has an ‘unfunded liability’ of nearly $38 trillion -- which is the amount of benefits promised but not covered by taxes over the next 75 years. So Democrats have decided that the way to close this gap is to create a new ‘universal’ health insurance entitlement for the middle class….Desperate to prevent medical costs from engulfing the federal budget, the program's central planners decided last week to deny payment for a new version of one of life's most unpleasant routine procedures, the colonoscopy. This is a preview of how health care will be rationed when Democrats get their way.” Wall Street Journal Editorial from 5/19/2009. “How Washington Rations” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124268737705832167.html#
Unfunded Liability
“All of this might be dismissed as just typical Washingtonian opera if the subject matter were less important. The unavoidable fact is that health-care costs do threaten the financial stability of the government, given the current structure of our entitlement programs… The Obama administration and Congress are racing to pass a health-care bill with permanent and certain long-term spending commitments, with only the most speculative notions of cost-cutting. Refusal to deal realistically with health-care costs is why we have a long-term fiscal problem in the first place, and it is a roadmap to ruin.” National Review Article from 5/13/2009. “The Epistle of Obama to the Physicians” http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mjk4ZmU1MWNlYTE0ZTVhNzdiMmRhMjk0MzU0YTMzOTM=
BUREAUCRATS MAKING HEALTH DECISIONS: The International Experience
Patients Cannot Obtain Life-Saving Treatments
Here, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30106986/ns/health-health_care/ , is a chilling account of how Britain’s system works. See especially this paragraph:“As more costly, life-extending drugs are developed, Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE, will likely face more tough decisions of its own. NICE acts as a kind of budgetary police, advising which treatments are a good buy; its recommendations are almost always adopted by the government.When the institute first rejected Sutent, leading cancer doctors slammed the decision, while some patients mortgaged homes or dipped into pensions to pay for the drug on their own.In changing course earlier this year, the institute decided that expensive treatments like Sutent would be approved under certain conditions: Such drugs had to extend life by at least three months and be used for illnesses that affect fewer than 7,000 new patients a year. That means the government is willing to pay to extend lives of those suffering from some rare diseases, but not for more common ones. That criterion offers a built-in protection for the government's limited health budget.”
Ann Marie Rogers of Britain fought 6 months in numerous court efforts to force her health care insurer to approve paying for Herceptin to treat her breast cancer. “In an interview with The Observer, Rogers, aged 53, said that the decision taken by Swindon Primary Care Trust, on the grounds that her case was not 'exceptional', was effectively condemning many women to 'death row'. She went on: 'It makes me so angry that these trusts are playing God, saying "you can't have this, you can't have that". They've got no right to decide who can have this life-saving drug. This is not a poor country, after all. I have worked all my life and paid my taxes. It makes me sick to think a lot of women are in my position.” “Legal Battle for Right to have Cancer Drug,” 2/5/2006 http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/feb/05/health.medicineandhealth1
Follow the details of this struggle in the string of news stories here, http://www.swindonweb.com/?m=2&s=963&ss=966&c=4976&t=Ann-Marie+Rogers+loses+biggest+battle
Things are worse in Canada
“In Alberta, Bill Murray waited in pain for more than a year to see a specialist for his arthritic hip. The specialist recommended a "Birmingham" hip resurfacing surgery (a state-of-the-art procedure that gives better results than basic hip replacement) as the best medical option. But government bureaucrats determined that Mr. Murray, who was 57, was "too old" to enjoy the benefits of this procedure and said no. In the end, he was also denied the opportunity to pay for the procedure himself in Alberta. He's heading to court claiming a violation of Charter rights as well.” “’Too Old’ for Hip Surgery,” 2/9/2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123413701032661445.html
Doctors do not tell patients about drugs which could prolong lives
Research involving British bowel cancer specialists found that, “While five per cent of doctors said they never told their patients about any drug the NHS would not pay for, the majority said they "sometimes" or "rarely" told their patients about drugs like Erbitux, which was rejected by NICE for patients with advanced bowel cancer.”“Cancer Doctors Do Not Tell Patients about Drugs Which Could Prolong Lives,” 5/9/2009 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5299490/Cancer-doctors-do-not-tell-patients-about-drugs-which-could-prolong-lives.htmlo
There is evidence that doctors are concealing treatment options that are not available on the National Health Service but can be obtained privately.
Warpreet Husan, a colon cancer specialist, stated that bureaucracy compels his colleagues’ silence: “A lot of my colleagues also face pressure from managers not to tell patients about new drugs. There is nothing in writing, but telling patients opens up a Pandora's box for a health service trying to contain costs.” “Patients Left in the Dark about Life-saving Drugs,” 8/16/2005 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3322438/Patients-left-in-the-dark-about-life-saving-drugs.html
Another physician, Dr. Sarah Jarvis, wrote an anguished op-ed condemning government-run health bureaucracy entitled “Sentenced to Death by NICE.” “Recently I was left feeling furious and frustrated after a visit from a patient called Peter. He'd just had a serious heart attack and my job as a GP [general practitioner] was to reduce his very high risk of having another. I knew what the latest research told me was the best way, but I had just basically been forbidden to use it by an official email from the Department of Health.” “Sentenced to Death by NICE,” 2/27/2006 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-419083/Sentenced-death-NICE.html
Patients Cannot Use Their Own Money to Pay for Care in Canada
In Canada, Lindsay McCreith filed suit against Ontario’s government-run health care system, claiming that the Canadian government’s ban on patients paying for private care violates his fundamental freedoms. Mr. McCreith was forced to travel to the United States for an MRI to diagnose a malignant growth in his brain. When the Canadian government offered him a months-long wait to treat his brain tumor, he was forced to travel back to Buffalo for life-saving surgery, as patients cannot pay for treatments with their own money in much of Canada. “'Too Old' for Hip Surgery’” 2/9/2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123413701032661445.html
SUMMARY
“The Top Ten Things People Believe About Canadian Health Care, But Shouldn't.”
This, http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/hl856.cfm , is a superb summary piece by Heritage Foundation on Canada’s health care system.
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