NHS: The best reason to dump Obamacare!

[Seth]

Neither one of them works worth a fuck...

World
‘So Much Harm to Patients’: British Doctors Describe NHS as ‘Worse Than Communist China’
Jul. 12, 2013 3:32pm Erica Ritz

Proponents of President Obama’s “Affordable Care Act” often suggest skeptics look across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom as an example of what can be made better with the American health care system.

But doctors in the United Kingdom have about had it, it seems, calling their own system “worse than Communist China.”

A recent report in the U.K. Telegraph chronicles the conclusions of the British Medical Association’s annual conference, where doctors loudly lamented the undue power of abusive managers and bureaucrats, who seem to have as much or more power in hospitals than the actual doctors.

“The result is the perfect toxic professional working environment for this explosive mixture to generate disasters such as Mid Staffordshire which did so much harm to patients,” said Dr. Peter Holden, a member of the BMA’s GP negotiating committee.

“Not even in Communist China did they have managers overruling doctors in the operation of hospitals and health services,” he added.
British Doctors Call the NHS Worse Than Communist China at Annual BMA Conference

Lyn Hill-Tout the new chief executive of Mid Staffordshire Hospital Trust speaks to the media on the day that Robert Francis QC Publishes his inquiry into Stafford Hospital on February 6, 2013 in Stafford, United Kingdom. (Photo: Getty Images)

The Mid Staffordshire “disaster” is a reference to the revelation that up to 1,200 people died unnecessarily at an NHS-run hospital between 2005 and 2009, some suffering from starvation or dehydration and left in complete squalor (this is the case where people were drinking the water out of flowerpots they were so desperate).

Dr Keighley, who is set to retire after roughly four decades in the profession, said he has seen an alarming turn in that “we now see health boards talking about ‘their’ patients – almost implying that the doctors it employs or contracts with are mere technicians in the pursuit of their corporate aim.”

The shortage of doctors willing to work in such environments is creating a crisis of its own, and those who can still handle it are warning about the impacts their “burnout” has on patients.

“The more stressed I got, the more detached I became from my patients”, Dr. Amy Small said, according to the U.K. Guardian. “I started to cut them off while they were talking, trying desperately to ignore the little cues that they dropped indicating they had things they really needed to talk about. I felt their care was starting to suffer. I wasn’t the doctor I wanted or aspired to be.”

The 32-year-old said there’s “no way” she can continue at her current pace for the next 2 years, “never mind the next 35.”

Of those who remain, some blame the government’s “micromanagement” and fixation with “oppressive box ticking” for decreasing their efficiency.

“Why am I now asking large numbers of patients if they do gardening, or old people with Zimmer frames if they go cycling?” Dr. Laurence Buckman asked. “General practice is stretched beyond capacity, saddled with box-ticking administration, unrealistic workload and declining resources.”

[Audley Strange]

Much of that criticism, as you can see, is about the shoddy corporatisation of management and privatisation of more and more facets of the NHS. The crisis is caused not by those who have a dedicated vocation and though I have a lot of issues with some of the NHS culture, one thing is certain, patient care suffers when you pay people exorbitant salaries to cut costs.

A lot of the problem is in fact that since the late 80's when this whole thing was decided it was rolled out as a shambles and it never recovered. You can have private care and you can have public care, you can't have a mix of both. The shocking shambles that is Mid-Staffs is caused by mismanagement, not by the concept. Mismanagement is not something exclusive to the public sector.

Obamacare is fuck all like our NHS and frankly I don't know how anyone could think it a good idea.

[Rum]

Personal and family experience? Saved my life, my father's and mother's lives, the life of my father in law and my daughter.

The NHS is awesome.

[Audley Strange]

Personal and family experience? Saved my life, my father's and mother's lives, the life of my father in law and my daughter.

The NHS is awesome.

In comparison to other places, it sure is. Again it might be a bit shit from time to time, but it's still one of the best things our countries have invented.

[Tero]

So what's the problem Seth? You are not going to use Obamacare, you were going to pay cash. And you dot live in the UK. Problem solved.

[Tero]

Since you will pay Obama's fine, we'll let you use the energency room when you are near death. We won't charge your estate for the morphine.

[Pappa]

Personal and family experience? Saved my life, my father's and mother's lives, the life of my father in law and my daughter.

The NHS is awesome.

+1

Excellent value for money too.

[DaveD]

Without the NHS I would definitely have been blind in one eye by now, and probably in both.

[FBM]

Before Obamacare, I couldn't get health insurance no matter how much money I was willing to pay. Now I can. I'm sold. Not saying it's perfect, but an improvement over the system that drove me to bankruptcy over a horse wreck and complications.

[pErvinalia]

I just came across these two links in a slightly related article. I haven't actually read them, but they probably add to the discussion. The claim in the article I was reading was: "The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that when Obamacare is fully implemented, 31 million people will still not have insurance. And those who do have insurance will be paying higher premiums for less coverage. The nation will become a nation of underinsured who, when they get seriously ill, are at an even greater risk of bankruptcy."

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/may/cbo-n ... -uninsured
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/april/ins ... ealth-care

[FBM]

From that first link:

"In our current projections for 2023, the ACA reduces the number of people without health insurance by 25 million, leaving 31 million uninsured (compared with 30 million in our February estimate)."

IMO, it still beats the shit out of the previous "system." 25 million isn't negligible and I expect the initial form of Obamacare to be tweaked as time goes along. I seriously doubt it will survive unamended until 2023.

[Jason]

This hamster's farts smell of elderberries. Your argument is invalid.

[Seth]

Much of that criticism, as you can see, is about the shoddy corporatisation of management and privatisation of more and more facets of the NHS. The crisis is caused not by those who have a dedicated vocation and though I have a lot of issues with some of the NHS culture, one thing is certain, patient care suffers when you pay people exorbitant salaries to cut costs.

A lot of the problem is in fact that since the late 80's when this whole thing was decided it was rolled out as a shambles and it never recovered. You can have private care and you can have public care, you can't have a mix of both. The shocking shambles that is Mid-Staffs is caused by mismanagement, not by the concept. Mismanagement is not something exclusive to the public sector.

Obamacare is fuck all like our NHS and frankly I don't know how anyone could think it a good idea.

No, the concept is deeply and irrevocably flawed because it entitles people to medical care by imposing the costs thereof on other people. Therefore, those who are the sickest, the sickest 5 or 6 percent, will consume more than 75% of the available health care resources, leaving nothing for everyone else, and as the population ages, more "healthy" people will be paying more of their hard-earned wages to pay for the larger and larger percentage of non-producing retirees.

The economics of socialized medicine are not a mystery, they are an utter disaster in progress because the math is immutable, just as it is with Obamacare. Any system that does not control costs is going to fail, and when you vest medical care as a right (which it's not, and I'll explain why if you like), people will overuse it and abuse it. It's an iteration of the "tragedy of the commons."

The ONLY way to control medical costs is to make people pay for their own medical care. This encourages them to live a healthy lifestyle and take care of themselves and put money aside for future medical needs, as it has me. Those who cannot do so must rely on charity, altruism and enlightened self-interest of society by asking for help rather than demanding it at the barrel of a machine gun.

[Jason]

Hamster farts.

[Seth]

Personal and family experience? Saved my life, my father's and mother's lives, the life of my father in law and my daughter.

At what cost to others and society? Sorry, but none of your relatives has a right to medical care that is provided by placing others into involuntary servitude.

Everybody dies. Everybody. Some sooner than others. That's life, get used to it.

The NHS is awesome.

No it's not, it's evil.