Socialist Healthcare Falling Apart.

The NHS could have kept going just fine but our shiny new unelected government appear to be hell bent on sending the country into recession.
 
In 2009, the number of managers in the NHS rose 5x faster than the number of nurses.

Now these managers are in charge of saving money in their hospital trusts, and it seems they plan to cut healthcare rather than themselves. It's pure politicking - hopefully the Government will sort them out.
 
Fade said:
Obama and the Progressive/Socialists in this country should take notice. :rtfm:
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By the way, you may call the NHS "socialist", but it costs the state a lot less per person than what the American state pays. And patients pay a lot less than what American patients do.

Sounds like a win-win to me, and more an "ecomonically efficient" model than a "socialist" one. That's even with its vast bureaucracy. :D
 
smithy said:
Fade said:
Obama and the Progressive/Socialists in this country should take notice. :rtfm:
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By the way, you may call the NHS "socialist",
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I'd call it that too.

but it costs the state a lot less per person than what the American state pays. And patients pay a lot less than what American patients do.

Sounds like a win-win to me, and more an "ecomonically efficient" model than a "socialist" one. That's even with its vast bureaucracy. :D
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The NHS, despite it's faults, is one of the best things about the UK.

Fade reads a scaremongering article and reacts as though the NHS, and by extension all socialised medicine, has collapsed. The thing to remember is, he *wants* it to collapse. And he wants to be able to claim it collapsed because it's "socialist". And anything socialist is bad, mmmkay?
 
Fade said:
So should Canadians.
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Canada went through that in the 90's when finance minister Paul Martin slashed funding to health care, the military and pretty much everything else. We survived and we still managed to maintain health care superior to that found in the US.
 
Glaucus said:
We survived and we still managed to maintain health care superior to that found in the US.
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Superior? Is that why your PMs come here for procedures?
 
redrumloa said:
Glaucus said:
We survived and we still managed to maintain health care superior to that found in the US.
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Superior? Is that why your PMs come here for procedures?
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Forgetting superior for a moment, there is something I don't understand about your and Fade's position on this.

Your Government spends 16% of GDP on healthcare which is the 2nd highest in the world (figures from Wikipedia[/url). For that price it seems the people are very poorly covered. Compare that to a European country that spends half of that (in % of GDP terms) (UK, for example) and coverage is moreorless universal.

There must be something wrong here? It's either waste on an unimaginable scale, incompetance, or someone taking the taxpayer for a ride. Whatever it is, you are getting atrocious value for money! It seems anti-capitalist and un-American to me. I don't understand what's going on? :?:
 
redrumloa said:
Glaucus said:
We survived and we still managed to maintain health care superior to that found in the US.
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Superior? Is that why your PMs come here for procedures?
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The USA may have a superior procedure or hospital. It's a misapplication of logic that such a case proves that the system as a whole is superior. If the USA has the superior heart doctor it's not as if every heart patient in the US can see that particular doctor, especially if they're taking foreigners too. The wealthy will always have the option to shop the world for their healthcare. It doesn't prove that that particular system provides equal care to the other 99% of citizens.

How about another angle on showing this statement to simply be wrong in it's logic... IF traveling to a foreign nation for treatment means the foreign nation has the superior procedure then clearly Canada and Mexico have superior procedures to the US. Why? Because US Citizens travel to those countries to obtain treatment.

smithy said:
Your Government spends 16% of GDP on healthcare which is the 2nd highest in the world (figures from Wikipedia. For that price it seems the people are very poorly covered. Compare that to a European country that spends half of that (in % of GDP terms) (UK, for example) and coverage is moreorless universal. [/url]
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Not only is coverage more or less universal but quality of care is more or less comparable. For example, the USA is about 40th in the UN ranking of the developed work for care and pays the 2nd most for coverage.

As you indicate yes something is wrong here. It is anti-capitalist and it is anti-american. For example GM pays about $1,400 per automobile for healthcare expenses. Honda pays about $500. WHY? Japan has a universal system. The costs are lower for business because the government picks up the expense. The result is Honda has about $1K per vehicle more in profits. A business with more profit can invest in R&D, pay higher wages to the best workers, and return profits to share holders.

Advantage to foreign owned, foreign managed, foreign workers, foreign derived resources and foreign products is anti-american. People seem to be afraid of illegal immigrants (and it should be a concern) but if economic conditions and fleeting wealth is a worry such business practices steal far more wealth and steal far more jobs from the USA and therefore should be more of a concern. (Heck I'd be happy if they were even on the radar.)

What more is wrong? Without addressing the healthcare situation the US is on a course to increase our GDP spending for health from the mid-teens to the mid-twentys within a decade. This should be a concern for everyone. (Well unless they are selfish b***ds that only own stock in healthcare companies.)
 
faethor said:
The USA may have a superior procedure or hospital. It's a misapplication of logic that such a case proves that the system as a whole is superior.
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That's also a good point. Like I mentioned in that other thread I linked to, doctors that are exposed to a great variety of patients tend to stay sharp. The US just happens to have many heavily populated areas, much more so then Canada, and as such is likely to have a larger pool of physicians at their peek for specialized procedures. Canada in contrast has a handful: Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. Winnipeg for example doesn't even do child heart surgery, we fly them out to either Toronto or Edmonton. Not sure if even Vancouver does. But that's just mostly to do with population sizes, it's just rare for young children to require heart surgery and if your kid needs heart surgery, wouldn't you rather it be done by someone who does it every second day rather then every second month? But none of this has anything to do with how patients pay for their medical care.
 
Don't worry Fade, we take note. The US medical industry has been trying to break socialized healthcare around the world. Up until now the US has been the only market it really has a lock on, but it's been bumping up against the limits of what the population can be fleeced for for years and the writing has been on the wall for decades. There aren't enough Americans with enough money to be able to support the private system (in the manner to which it has become accustomed) so it spends millions of dollars lobbying foreign governments about the "benefits" of a private system - but guess what, they may chop away at little bits here and there but ultimately dumping healthcare for all is election suicide. Even two tier is recognized for the wedge that it is.

And in the US support for a single payer system (despite what you might see on TV) still runs about 60% in the US. The US has a higher mortality rate for children under fives than Greece, for crying out loud.
 
Glaucus said:
The US just happens to have many heavily populated areas, much more so then Canada, and as such is likely to have a larger pool of physicians at their peek for specialized procedures. Canada in contrast has a handful: Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. Winnipeg for example doesn't even do child heart surgery, we fly them out to either Toronto or Edmonton.
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It's very similar in the USA. Larger areas have more specialized procedures and providers. For example, most all hospitals do childbirth. However, if the child is born with medical requirements they are helicoptered elsewhere. In my area they do some 'extra checks' to help weed out some of the more problem infants. They understand that a helicopter trip for a medically in danger newborn is a bad idea. If your risk is high for potential problems in birth they recommend you travel about 45 minutes farther to avoid the chance of a helicopter trip.
 
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