Reality Versus Empty Promises
This article on Britain’s Nation Healthcare System is an eye opener, and I had no idea that the system had been around as long as it has.
A few excerpts:
Consider Britain’s National Health Service, established in 1948. In 2017, the British House of Lords issued a stunning report on the state of the NHS. It concluded, “Our NHS, our ‘national religion’, is in crisis and the adult social care system is on the brink of collapse. No one who listened to the evidence presented by a vast array of expert witnesses who appeared before us can be in any doubt about this.”
Regarding British performance, medical outcomes for the world’s top killers, cancer and heart disease, is another big story. While American patients’ survival rates for cancer, such as breast, colon, and prostate cancer, are among the highest in the world, the British performance is comparatively poor.
The reason: British cancer patients do not benefit from the kind of robust investment in combatting cancer that characterizes American health care. That investment includes not only the recruitment and deployment of more highly-trained medical staff to serve the patient population, but also a greater reliance on advanced medical technologies and cutting-edge pharmaceutical therapies.
The British, operating under a government “global budget” for health spending, do not even come close to the American effort.
And their summation:
To improve the delivery of health care, Americans need not convert to anything even remotely resembling Britain’s secular “national religion.” Rather than destroy what’s working in American health care, Washington policymakers should take decisive steps to lower health costs through intense competition and empower individuals and families with greater personal choice of coverage and care.
4 thoughts on “Reality Versus Empty Promises”
’60 Minutes,’ back in the mid-70’s, did a segment on how most hospital and all major medical insurance systems fixed their billing on the amount Medicare set for all procedures.
Back in the mid-70’s.
It’s been known for over 40 years that government intrusion raised all costs. And that pricing at fair-market values lowers all costs.
But people still want to nationalize and ‘rationalize’ health care?
It’s not about health care. It’s all about control.
I go back & forth with a crunt on CommonDreams named Joan who puts the NHS up as the pinnacle to be sought. I have linked to numerous studies showing the NHS to be about the worst thing you’d want if you were in dire medical straights.
Her last response? It’s the refusal of the government to adequately fund the NHS. Socialists ALWAYS blame the lack of (my) money for their failures.
As with information technology, defense, agriculture, manufacturing, etc. U.S. innovation and the ability to pay high prices for leading edge technology drives the bulk of innovation in pharma, medical devices and medical services. Government interference is already wrecking havoc with price and availability in the U.S., if we kill innovation completely not only will we head toward Britain’s National Health Service/ Veterans Affairs standards, but all primary and secondary markets for health technology will suffer as innovators turn their energy to markets that reward their efforts-
It’s pretty cut/dry – the more you pay for healthcare the better your healthcare will be. I’m very familiar with the situation in the US – my wife does medical billing for the biggest healthcare provider in the US (and from one insurance company to another the prices for the same thing vary greatly. Pretty much all other insurance companies pay more to offset medicare and vet care). My brother in-law holds multiple patents for medical devices through one of the largest innovators. Without high costs there would be less innovation, less quality care. Dude made over 10 million last year, but if he didn’t have the incentive he’d probably have not become a biomedical engineer – he worked probably 15 years on the latest device – had a team of 10-15 others and it’s insane how much money gets spend on getting FDA approval – someone has to pay, the person getting the benefit of the device…. period.