Category: Health Care Rationing
"In the British Health Service Berwick loves, '750,000 patients are awaiting admission to NHS hospitals. ...The latest estimates suggest that for most specialties, only 30 to 50 percent of patients are treated within 18 weeks. For trauma and orthopedic patients, the figure is only 20 percent. ... Every year. 50,000 surgeries are canceled because patients become too sick on the waiting list to proceed.'"
An IBD poll showed that nearly 2 out of 3 doctors oppose the current healthcare "reform" proposals. A look at the thoughts of those who support one of the current plans is here. Note that none of reasons are new or based on medical expertise. The opposition's reasons are here, and "boil down to three big categories: costs, controls and courts." Read more »
While liberals scoff at the idea of "death panels," this fictional account of an appearance before the "independent group" offering guidance on care---a "group" that the President has said is necessary--- is eminently believable.
British health care was nationalized soon after World War II, but NICE, the health care rationing agency, wasn't created until the late 1990s as a way to control costs. Today NICE routinely denies Britons life-prolonging drugs that are deemed not "cost effective" - drugs that are widely prescribed in America to treat cancer, Alzheimer's disease and other serious conditions. The result, studies show, is that Great Britain's cancer survival rates are among the worst in Europe and lag behind the United States. MORE
