Here's good news for Olde Pharts:
Why is this "Good News"? Well, it saves you from a bunch of Socialist LugNuts who want to talk to you to, instead of that MRI your doctor says you desperately need? Just try taking Tylenol 3 for the rest of your short happy life.
"The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.
The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after it was derided by conservatives as 'death panels' to encourage euthanasia."
The "Bad News"?
Well, they 'just aren't going to talk to you about it".
Instead, they're just going to deny your request for an MRI. Because it may not be available. Who's going to pay for it?
The Brits
The Brits like this, because under the rules of National Health Care (NHC), if you are too old and need 'special treatment', they just won't give it to you. And if you have 'retired out of country' (although you have contributed to NHC for your whole life), or if your drugs are "too expensive", they won't give it to you.
Perhaps you have paid privately for a drug which may extend your life, because can afford the payments for a specific treatment which the British NHC has denied you? Then you can (and apparently, WILL) be denied ALL other heath care benefits regardless of your previous participation and contributions to NHC.
The Canadians:
How about the many stories that Canadians pay less for health care?
We recently wrote about Canadian Health Care, and the summation (if you believe the source, which I find not entirely unreasonable), if you want to get 'fixed' in Canada, it won't cost you much money. On the other hand, actually GETTING the Health Care may not happen within a time-frame which meets your "immediate care" needs. That is, Health Care may be cheap, but if you can't find a doctor who can treat you before you lose a leg or two ... how much help is that?
The sad fact is that when you can't belly up to the bar, mates, the cost of the drinks is immaterial.
There are lots of articles suggesting that Canadian Health Care is superior to American Heath Care, but they're built upon the same fallacy: talk about the cost, not about the abundancy of health care plans which are available ... now ... when you need it.
There's one guy (Arthur Salm in San Diego, as a GOOGLE-chosen example), who claims that "Canadians Are Not Dying By The Milions").
Good to know, but misleading. Hell, we all die sooner or later. What counts is the Quality of ife.
Let's take a look at Mr, Sam's assertions:
... in Canada, everyone is covered. No one worries about how they’ll pay for medical care, no one is afraid to leave their job because they’ll lose coverage, no one is bankrupted by medical bills, no one has to choose between a prescription drug and putting food on the table. The Canadian government doesn’t mandate or guarantee health insurance; the Canadian government mandates and guarantees health care. Doctors receive payment from, but are not employed by, the state. No “government bureaucrat” determines what test or treatment a patient will receive; if a doctor orders it, the patient gets it. Period.
Lots of stuff in that single paragraph.
And in the entire article, because the author doesn't even mention the difficulties involved in getting in to see an actual DOCTOR, not a NURSE. (Doctor can initiate health-care procedures; nurses can filter access to over-worked doctors.) People with "non-elective" health-care problem get attention in Capitalist America; people in Socialist Canada with the same problem go piss up a rope. If you only have a leg to stand on, in Canada they'll saw off the healthy leg first.
Is this what Fox News means when they say "Fair and Balanced". Should it be the primary health-care criteria in America? I think not. I think if you have one bad leg and one good leg you should let 'em take the bad leg first. Then wait and see what happens to the good leg later.
I only mention this seemingly facetious story because it (a) is described in a previous link, and (b) may illustrate the point that medical care in Canada does not derive from the goal to "be the best physician in the Provence" but from "I get paid the same as a doctor whether or not I provide the best health care".
This is the essence and substance Socialistic Health Care.
Doctors don't have to be 'good' to attract a customer base (patients ... who incidentally don't even have to be able to pay, they just have to show up). Doctors who show up at the beginning of office hours and stay until the end of office hours are paid the same as those who can save lives.
Socialist Medicine is not a meritocracy; on the contrary, it rewards mediocrity.
Now, I don't know about you, but if I take my Ford Explorer to the dealer and ask him to do a brake job and check the suspicious quiver in my front wheel bearings, it's not as important to me as trying to find a doctor who can tell me "your left leg is gangrenous due to diabetes, and we have to take it off NOW because if we don't amputate it now the gangrene will spread and we will have to remove both legs."
And even more important, I want to have confidence that the doctor will amputate the gangrenous leg before the healthy one.
Am I overstating my point?
Good.
Are you paying attention?
Good.
That's all good because the point I am trying to make is that the Doctors in America are not only profit-oriented, they are ego-oriented. That's a good thing in a Doctor, when compared to doctor who don't really care because there is no economic incentive to attract new patients other than to fill their day.
Let me say that in another way:
Good doctors want to save patients. Mediocre Doctors want to save customers..
In a Socialist state, the doctors who attract new patients often are those doctors who have room on their schedule; the doctors who are more than marginally competent are probably not accepting new patients.
I would rather be considered a Patient, than a Customer.
Wouldn't you?
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