However we believe that health should not be based on ability to pay.

Following ww2,men from all of society fought together but on return their was vast differences in care for defending their country.

The percentage of people waiting under 8 weeks was 96.8%. This is measured from G.P referral to treatment including surgery.
In my hospital it is 4.6%. The target is 18 weeks.People do have choice,we compete for patients. I work in a foundation hospital which is locally funded.

We sell services ,and have private industry involved. The money made goes back into the hospital.
Not everything is ‘free’, there is a standard prescription cost of £6.80 so that people do take the treatment.

To suggest that we are all in a line waiting for Stalin to feed us shows no insight to the health system’s across Europe.

France and Sweden’s service seems to be better.

The N.H.S has broad support from all types of people in the U.K ,it is not a left wing policy.

This is not big government control. Policy reflects society in a democracy.

There is a fundamental belief that society benefits more from this support.To lose your job,your house never mind your life when you become ill is shocking .

Doctors phoning insurance agencies to ask which tests they can do is bewildering to us.

I am not saying we have got it right, but nobody is queing up to copy the U.S model.

That is not an insult, i would explain the pro’s and con’s as a fact finding discussion,however don’t just attack me for having a different view.

The proposal that government incentivise primary care is not a socialist or left-wing position, but rather a middle of the road one.

Government could and should tie medical school funding to graduating more Family docs, etc.

Really? And how exactly would you propose they do that? I paid $120,000 to go to medical school 20 years ago, and it costs way more than that now. Are you honestly telling me that after spending all of that money (which after interest winds up being about twice as much) the government should be able to force me to enter a medical field that I have no interest in entering? And you don’t think that kind of central planning is socialism? That’s demented.

Raising the reimbursement of primary care specialties will not recreate the Canadian system. In many places there is a glut of specialty care. Common medical problems wind up being taken care of by overpriced docs.

You’re dreaming if you think they’ll be any kind of increased reimbursement for primary care doctors. And the idea that there is a glut of medical specialists has been disproved many times. Plus, physicians have taken massive pay cuts over the past 10-15 years or so due to rapidly falling government reimbursement, and there’s no end in sight. There are no “overpriced docs”.

We are short on doctors because of the sky high cost of earning a medical degree. If you’ve got to mix in some socialism to make the left happy, do it by haveing the government build and operate some medical schools, lowering the cost of getting a medical degree. That should eventually get our “Dr” population growing and for God’s sake put some realistic caps on mal-practice litigation.

And all the while, no one will care to wonder why America was number one last year and tied in last the next.

Must’ve been Bush’s fault.

If you get sick, who would you rather see, a doctor with 4 years of medical school and 4 years of residency, or a nurse practitioner?

Sgt. Hartman on April 28, 2009 at 3:18 PM

Hate to get all up in yer arse about this, but NP’s have 4 year degrees, usually a masters which equals 2 more years of school. and most nurses who become NP have at least three to four years of hardcore clinical work behind them (nights, evenings, day shifts, etc.). They aren’t as well trained as physicians, to be sure, but an NP is just as competent as an MD (if not more). Trust me, I’ve saved just as many lives (if not more) than most doctors because nurses are the backbone of any clinician’s competency.
/steps off soapbox.

mjk on April 28, 2009 at 3:23 PM

=================
might be able to infer this for a family practitioner but not Internal Medicine or way off if comparing to a specialist such as a pulmonologist, or nephrologist. Diagnostic skills from signs and symptoms….maybe…….but diagnostic skills when reviewing labs, CT scan. Differential diagnosis problem list is much shorter with NP or PA compared to Internal Medicine. Sometimes we need to find a zebra when all we see is a horse.

If I were a doctor, I’d be seriously considering not being one. There’s more money to be made as a lawyer nowadays.

Why are we in this hand basket and where the hell are we going?

The proposal that government incentivise primary care is not a socialist or left-wing position, but rather a middle of the road one.

Government could and should tie medical school funding to graduating more Family docs, etc. Raising the reimbursement of primary care specialties will not recreate the Canadian system. In many places there is a glut of specialty care. Common medical problems wind up being taken care of by overpriced docs.

Bruce

As an older person, why am I not thrilled?

Would we ask a bunch of physicians to redesign our Justice System?

No, but if we did, I’d wager dollars to doughnuts that they would do one HELLUVA better job doing that, than a bunch of worthless, corrupt and incompetent lawyers will do redesigning health care.

Another would encourage greater use of nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

NO, NO, and NO to more nurse-practitioners!

My mother was suffering from a chronic cough last December, and needed a referral to a lung doctor, and the doctor she was supposed to see was replaced by a nurse-practitioner, who mis-diagnosed her with pneumonia, and prescribed Levaquin.

Within a few days of taking Levaquin, my mother’s lungs were filling up with fluid, and her muscles wasted away, and she could hardly breathe, and she was hospitalized for what was mistakenly diagnosed as “congestive heart failure”, but we believe that it was a horrible side-effect of Levaquin that made the capillaries leak in her lungs.

The doctors at the hospital were so preoccupied with the fluid in the lungs, that they missed a cancer growing in the upper part of her lung for two months. They finally found it in late February and gave her chemotherapy, but it was too late, and she passed away last March 24.

It’s hard to know for sure, but if that nurse-practitioner hadn’t given her Levaquin, the cancer might have been found earlier, and my Mom would have been stronger to accept chemotherapy treatment, and she might still be alive today.

Nurse-practitioners may be able to treat a child’s sniffles or a sprained ankle, but their competence is limited, and can make terrible errors in case of serious illness. They should NOT be trusted to have the same competence as doctors without adequate training!

If Obama nationalizes health care, is he going to make it illegal to sue government doctors for malpractice and piss off the trial lawyer lobby? If not, who would be stupid enough to be a doctor in BO-world?

No, but the standard of care will be so much lower than it is today that proving malpractice will be virtually impossible. See, everything will be just fine.

“When the medical profession totally unionizes, will the DINOS (Democrat in Name Only Socialists) start paying top dollar to the medical union buddies like they do for construction, schools, etc.”

Currently, Medicaid/SCHIP and Medicare pay about 40% or less on many procedures, less than it costs to provide the care. Hence, many clinics ration taxpayer care to a couple patients a week or less.

The reality the ObamaCare clowns don’t realize is you can’t force doctors to provide care for lower than market rates. ObamaCare might provide coverage for everyone ten times over, but few if any doctors will see you under ObamaCare, at least not without a highly rationed wait.

Don’t believe me? Feel free to sign up so you can wait and see yourself.

How long will it take for obama’s bad decisions to catch up with him—and–how long will it take for people to notice.

jeanie on April 28, 2009 at 5:22 PM

It doesn’t matter. Like social security, or welfare, or medicare, once the bad decisions are made they’re undoable, forever.

I suppose the obvious solution (“obvious” if you’re a liberal) is for the government to provide the malpractice insurance. That way the trial lawyers will be taking their money directly from the treasury. A logical extension would be for government “subsidies” (a.k.a.: protection payments) directly to lawyers that don’t sue doctors.

What a wonderful world we’re going to be living in.

Perfect. The (obviously Gov’t) doc in the pic has the chest xray backward.

mikeyboss on April 28, 2009 at 5:13 PM

Well… ya see… the guy said his back hurt… so….

Abort babies, deny care, elderly get the “eskimo plan”