Over the jump and scroll to the bottom for UPDATE
If you follow the British papers, then you’re aware of the saga of Jade Goody, a 27 year-old British celebrity, mother of two young sons, now dying of cervical cancer. What you might not realize is how Jade Goody’s imminent death is a cautionary tale of what we Americans can expect with Obama Universal healthcare.
Understanding the impact of ObamaCare can begin with simply observing the UK paper, The Sun running a petition campaign, Jade’s Legacy, to lower the age of screening for cervical cancer (pap smear) from 25 to 20.
An American woman unfamiliar with the UK NHS will look at that age range in confusion. Does British medicine really (and erroneously) only recommend pap smears at 25?
Let’s be clear here, and this is something all Americans should know about the UK NHS — in a country where the legal age of consent for sex is 16 — British women are currently barred from getting pap smears until they are 25 years old. The NHS “invites” women between the ages of 25 to 65 for smears — age 25-49, once every 3 years, 50-65 once every 5 years. American women are advised to start going for paps annually once they are sexually active, or minimally age 21 if not. The UK NHS refusal to allow smears, even to women who are mothers, under the age of 25 leads to startling cases.
Amy Cullum fears she may have cervical cancer but when she went to see her doctor to book a smear test, the 24-year-old was horrified to be told she couldn’t have one until she was 25.Miss Cullum, whose own mum had a hysterectomy at the age of 26 after battling cervical cancer, pleaded with the surgery to give her the test, but they stood firm. Staff told her that even if they carried out the test the laboratory which analysed the swab would not look at her sample because she was underage.
Worried sick about her symptoms, Miss Cullum called the family planning clinic hoping they might help, only to be refused a test through them as well. [...]
Earlier this year, Londoner Katie Hillard revealed she too was refused a smear test. Now, the young woman has been diagnosed with cervical cancer and, despite undergoing a hysterectomy, has been given just months to live. She says a smear test could have saved her life.
Is it little wonder that the cervical cancer mortality rate in the UK is almost twice that of the US?
Why did the UK raise the age of screenings? Cost, of course. Since cervical cancer is relatively rare in women under 25, why waste money testing them all when it means preventing only a few hundred deaths? What are the lives a few hundred women in the grand scheme of nationalized medicine?
Think that will never happen here?
Obama is on record stating that healthcare is a right, but even he concedes this anti-liberty “positive right” will not live up to his previous billing
“Each of us must accept that none of us will get everything we want, and no proposal for reform will be perfect.”
The $787 billion stimulus bill started the ball rolling of a Federal take over of what constitutes almost 17% of the GDP, with wording vague enough to allow Obama plausible deniability on “socialized” medicine.
One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide†your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.†According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.â€Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.
New Penalties
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users†of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user†isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time†(511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough†decisions elected politicians won’t make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses†and “forgo experimental treatments,†and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
While Daschle is officially gone from the Obama administration, his fingerprints are all over ObamaCare.
Even Obama-cheerleader, NYTimes, grudgingly writes
Britain, France and other countries have bodies that assess health technologies and compare the effectiveness, and sometimes the cost, of different treatments. [and we see what it means to individuals like Jade Goody, eh? ... ed.] [...]Lawmakers and lobbyists agree that researchers should compare the clinical merits of different treatments. Whether they should also consider cost is hotly debated.
Representative Charles Boustany Jr., a Louisiana Republican who is a heart surgeon, said he worried that “federal bureaucrats will misuse this research to ration care, to deny life-saving treatments to seniors and disabled people.â€
The House Appropriations Committee inadvertently stoked such concerns in a report accompanying its version of the economic recovery bill. It said that research comparing different treatments could “yield significant payoffs†because less effective, more expensive treatments “will no longer be prescribed.â€
Since initial ObamaCare is the Fed at arms’ length with a private face still allowed, it isn’t the socialized single-payer system House Democrats are pushing with HR 676. It is really more economic fascism where the Feds will dictate the terms and conditions of how your doctor will run his/her practice, with disincentives for going outside the “recommended guidelines.” Some believe the IT portion of ObamaCare is pretty much dead on arrival, but the $1.1 billion to study “cost effectiveness” of medical treatments can certainly continue apace and providers brought to heel with that.
Certainly, the current “economic crisis” is not being wasted by the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats in their gleeful haste to put into law sweeping legislation so vaguely drawn it constitutes defacto dictatorial powers. A crisis that has blugeoned people into wanting “fundamental change” as soon as possible.
In haste we may give up our liberty for a “right to medicine” and in leisure we will give up our young daughters, our grandparents, our less-than-perfect siblings and our too-premature newborns to death.
UPDATE Via Michelle Malkin comes this bit from the NYTimes
The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system.
Signaling, too, the ObamaCare strategy for strangling the private medical sector The One keeps saying He will allow plebes to “choose.”
Comment by happyfeet on 3/15 @ 12:07 pm #
John McCain was too scared scared cowering in fear scared to bring this up during the campaign. He just wanted to make new taxes on my health care what I get. Him and his skeezey family. Disgusting.
Comment by alppuccino on 3/15 @ 12:13 pm #
Best way to make healthcare less expensive is to have people die earlier and more often.
Comment by Darleen on 3/15 @ 12:17 pm #
Best way to make healthcare less expensive is to have people die earlier and more often.
The UK NHS got the message long ago.
SOYLENT GREEN!!!11!!1!
Comment by SDN on 3/15 @ 12:50 pm #
You know, these clowns are well on their way to making rebellion the most logical choice. After all, given a choice between dying slowly of untreated cancer, or quickly by being shot to death trying to kill our overlords, I know which one I’d pick.
Comment by happyfeet on 3/15 @ 12:50 pm #
Just for to explain how we got to where we are in our little country what used to have a future of first worldyness and free enterprise and respect for individual liberty. It’s good to remember how much McCain’s unserious vanity campaign cost us I think. Cost us all.
Comment by TheGeezer on 3/15 @ 12:59 pm #
It’s good to remember how much McCain’s unserious vanity campaign cost us I think. Cost us all.
It’s good to remember how much country-club Republicans’ unserious vanity campaign cost us I think. Cost us all.
Comment by geoffb on 3/15 @ 1:03 pm #
Who is a “meaningful user†of healthcare. Answer should be each individual person.
Who decides if a treatment is “cost effective”. Answer should be the patient.
The problem lies in that the real answer to all of these is, the one who pays the piper. That should be the individual as it is in most everything else.
Unfortunately that changed during WWII and hasn’t gotten any better since. The third party payer system that our health industry is stuck with, and that we are addicted to, will be the early death of us all.
Comment by Merovign on 3/15 @ 2:41 pm #
“Well, only 1 percent chance this condition will present, so no test for you!”
And millions of people die lingering deaths, because they aren’t even allowed to pay for a test.
Almost guaranteed to happen.
If the British health care system had been imposed on them from outside, would it have been seen as an act of war?
Comment by happyfeet on 3/15 @ 2:54 pm #
Merovign? You’ve been not here a lot. I hope you’re back. This whole Barack Obama thing is turning out to be just terrible for all concerned especially Americans. Is it worse than you thought it would be?
Comment by Darleen on 3/15 @ 3:29 pm #
That’s the galling thing. Even if individuals are willing to pay cash for a procedure, socialized medicine WILL NOT ALLOW IT — it wouldn’t “be fair.”
Obamabots love to flog the “46 million American’s without health INSURANCE” raw stat while refusing to address that more than half that number voluntarily DO NOT buy health insurance they could afford. Their reasons for refusing to buy insurance provides the answer to how to truly address problems in the American healthcare system.
But the more you hear the Left scream about “healthcare is a right” the more you realize actually FIXING the system is NOT their priority.
Comment by B Moe on 3/15 @ 5:17 pm #
The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs.
This is progressive.
He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses†and “forgo experimental treatments,†and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
Like a right to health-care, for instance?
I’m sorry, but we are fucked. This country has gotten too fucking stupid to survive.
Comment by Little Miss Attila on 3/15 @ 5:47 pm #
Virginia Postrel wrote about this a while back, comparing the systems in the UK and New Zealand with what we have here in the U.S. As she points out, (1) the U.K. is starting to allow people with the means to pay for some care out-of-pocket–but of course the problem is that the word “allow” is part of the public-debate lexicon in countries with socialized medicine at all.
And (2) it isn’t always those with common cancers such as breast cancer and cervical cancer who lose. After all, they can eventually join forces and lobby for a better quality of care. Those who suffer the most from a system that thwarts innovation and experimental treatments are those with more obscure cancers (and other diseases)–they simply don’t have the strength in numbers to fight back against the government bean-counters.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 3/15 @ 7:14 pm #
Do they make Procrustean beds out of memory foam?
Comment by Timstigator on 3/15 @ 7:44 pm #
“If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait till it’s free.”
Comment by B Moe on 3/15 @ 7:49 pm #
Only the government has the right to deny health care, is what they really are saying.
Comment by lee on 3/15 @ 8:14 pm #
I had the same thought when the news broke last week of sheriff Arpaio being hassled for enforcing immigration laws.
More on topic, with regards to health care being a right, someone here recently made the best point I thought by saying nothing is a right that compels others to guarantee it.
Again, let me quote Thomas Jefferson: “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
Tyrannical indeed.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 3/15 @ 8:45 pm #
B Moe,
Tom Daschle is a fascist of the eugenicist variety. Thank God we found out he was a tax cheat before it was too late.
(Not that his withdrawal of his nomination is much more than a bump in the road to hell, but still…)
Comment by Spiny Norman on 3/15 @ 8:47 pm #
At this point, I’m beginning to wonder if even throwing the Dems out on their asses in the 2010 midterms will be “too little, too late”.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 3/15 @ 8:53 pm #
Darleen,
I’ve led to believe, by British ex-pats I’ve met, that there are medical clinics in France that cater to Brits fed up with NHS bureaucratic stupidity that offer medical services for cash. Is this option available for Jade Goody, Amy Cullum and other young women?
Does anyone else know?
Comment by B Moe on 3/15 @ 9:12 pm #
More on topic, with regards to health care being a right, someone here recently made the best point I thought by saying nothing is a right that compels others to guarantee it.
The thing of it is, lee, is this is really another example of the Orwellian double-speak that defines the Democrats now. You already have a right to health care, only you are responsible for obtaining and paying for it. What they are actually preparing to do is deny you that right, and take over all rights, responsibilities and decisions themselves. But they say they are doing just the opposite and the loyal little legions of libtards all fucking drink it right up.
Comment by h0mi on 3/15 @ 9:17 pm #
Whenever Ive seen an article, blog post, thread, etc. discussing health care, and the discussion focuses on comparisons between the US and the rest of the world, we always see the following:
- Comparisons between % spend on health care as a share of GDP/GNP, always showing that US health care cost far more than cheaper, nationalized care.
- Comparisons of Infant mortality rates, where the US rate is higher than other countries (like Cuba) though the facts are, the reporting is not using a single unified standard but varies from country to country & is completely and utterly worthless to try to use as a comparion… but this stops few from doing so.
- Comparisons of Life Expectancy rates, where 3rd world nations are lucky to hit 70, European nations routinely exceed the US rate of ~77 years and no analysis is done to factor out things that “universal health care” cannot really properly address like, oh I dunno, a higher murder or death by accident rate, or cultural differences that show notable disparities around the US or among different racial &/or ethnic groups.
All these comparisons, all these arguments, and not once have I ever seen a specific study that shows that if you suffer from a given disease/ailment/injury (or broken out by same), X country does better than Y at the diagnosis or treatment/cure of a disease or ailment, or X country does better than Y at managing medical errors (by nurses, doctors, pharmacists, etc… whether it be incorrect diagnosis, or errors in treatment/surgery). Instead the focus is on assorted metrics that do not actually measure a health care system’s effectiveness.
Comment by B Moe on 3/15 @ 10:05 pm #
How many of you are there, homi?
Comment by Darleen on 3/16 @ 12:55 am #
Spiny
The problem is that the NHS can threaten (and has) that if one goes outside of the NHS and pays cash for a drug/treatment for one thing, they may be barred for life from any other NHS treatment.
Comment by h0mi on 3/16 @ 2:27 am #
“We” as in people participating in the conversation. Sorry ’bout that.
Pingback by Commentary » Blog Archive » Made Redundant on 3/16 @ 5:23 am #
[...] Darleen Click of Protein Wisdom comes this story from England’s universal healthcare system: Young women [...]
Comment by B Moe on 3/16 @ 6:29 am #
Just teasing.
Comment by MarkD on 3/16 @ 8:41 am #
He who has the money makes the rules. That should have been ample warning to restrict the Feds to their Constitutionally enumerated powers. That argument won’t be revisited in my lifetime, unless the Obsidian Unicorn drives us into bankrupcy faster than I fear he might.
HF, you misstate McCain’s proposal. The benefits would be taxable, but offset by a $5000 credit. In round numbers, my 2008 benefits broke down to approx 9500 paid by my employer and almost 4000 paid by me. McCain’s plan would have made that 13,500 taxable. I’d have to be in a 40% tax bracket before the tax on my benefits would have exceeded the $5000 tax credit. This is in NY, where our state legislature has decreed we must have the gold plated medical plan. Full disclosure: very reluctant McCain voter here, against him in the primary.
Somebody always pays. I’m thinking of changing my name to Somebody.
Comment by Ginger on 3/16 @ 8:44 am #
I just want to give out a little reminder to our brush with HillaryCare (What is it with these narcissists naming sweeping socialist agendas after themselves? Ick). Consider Governor Palin giving birth to a Down’s son, much to the horror of the delicate sensibilities of our betters. Had Hillary’s proposed health plan passed, government healthcare would have paid pay for the search-and-destroy amnio for the Governor (or wait, for Bristol…), would have paid for the sane choice of abortion of little Trig, in fact, would even be so kind as to pay for the cost of his actual birth. However, once the Palin parents chose (pro-choice, remember?) to give this child a full life, any resulting health care costs incurred by that chunky little boy with eyeglasses would be on the backs of the Palin family. No Nationaled Health Care for You!!!!
This, my dear fellow citizens, is just one small example of the kind of progressive, humanitarian, caring coercion that the government would wield over us if we move to a single payer system. Why, why, why would ANYONE want to cede anything, let alone their health care decisions to this bunch of collectivist human waste?
Comment by Ronnie Dobbs on 3/16 @ 11:19 am #
Well, yes, non-treatment is one way to lower costs. The equal sharing of miseries and all that…
Comment by B Moe on 3/16 @ 11:23 am #
I also wonder how long this would have gone unnoticed if a Celebrity hadn’t been one of the victims? And how many commoners are dying in similar situations that are still under the radar?
Comment by jon on 3/17 @ 3:15 am #
There is a vaccine that actually prevents many types of cervical cancer. Not all, but many. The right wing in this country has repeatedly tried to interfere with any steps to make it into something on a recommended list for fear that it will lead to immoral behavior. It is my impression that were this an American celebrity, this actress (or whatever) would expect to be called a slut for acquiring a disease of the reproductive system.
By the way, my “private” socialized medicine sucks if cancer or similar expensive ailments ever enter the picture. I don’t expect governmental socialized medicine to be all that much better, but I do expect to be able to take the money I save to buy insurance or treatments to cover the uncovered services.
Comment by jon on 3/17 @ 3:34 am #
And homi, there are many studies out there. Some countries do just as well as we do with some illnesses, we’re better than many with others, and our diagnostic skills are the most expensive and that’s both a curse and a boon. The overall question is, do we get the quality for the price? And I think the conflicting studies all show that we pay a hell of a lot to keep old people with a lifetime of poor nutrition and exercise habits from kicking it, while other countries have their old people die more peacefully at home. We’ve got entire hospital wards filled with people who would have been dead twenty years ago, which is great if that’s your grandma but not doing much for our bottom line. Is that how we should look at healthcare? Well, it is for private or governmental socialized medicine both.
And the anecdotes of British medicine should always be tempered with the thought that that is only one country’s version. That the British sometimes go to France should tell you all something, as I have a teensy-weensy feeling that France has socialized government medicine as well. I haven’t heard many German horror stories since the 1940s, unless you count East German athletes needing sex changes following recommended pharmaceutical regimens. Nor do I hear much about Finland, Japan, Belgium, or Italy that makes me run screaming to my Glen Beck Shelter.
I have issues with anyone telling me what is or isn’t a required service, even when things are just between me and my doctor. But I’ll accept a government system as long as it’s cheaper than private insurance, does most of the same stuff I get with insurance, and doesn’t interfere with me going outside that system. From what I’ve seen, socialized medicine ends up costing more than advertised, gives less than advertised, and is always going to rise in price. And from what I’ve seen, that still gives it a competitive advantage over the private insurers.
Comment by Ginger on 3/17 @ 8:12 am #
“I have issues with anyone telling me what is or isn’t a required service, even when things are just between me and my doctor.” But hey, you have no problem telling others when to off grandma - especially if she didn’t go vegie and spend enough hours on the spin-cycle. Another f*&%k-h*%d leftie dazzles with his compassionate defense of the least among us.
Yeah- I have lots of faith that our socialist masters are going to craft a wise, thoughtful, intelligent, honest piece of health care legislation. (ooohhh, don’t forget, O even five whole days in the sunlight of public examination). People with your depth of thought, who put a dollar sign on the value of a human life, in control of my healthcare? I’ll pass.
Dear Leader health care for All!!!! (unless you are a soldier)
Comment by BuddyPC on 3/17 @ 3:46 pm #
In late breaking news, Liam Neeson has left the Toronto set of his current production and flown his wife Natasha Richardson to an undisclosed hospital in the US hours after leaving a second hospital in Montreal, following a severe head injury suffered while skiing at the Mont Tremblat resort Monday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090317/ap_en_mo/people_natasha_richardson
” The report didn’t say where in the U.S. the flight was headed.
” ‘According to the family’s press agent, the lady has left Canada around 12:30 today,’ said Michelle Simard of the Sacre-Coeur hospital in a recorded message. ‘We have no information on Ms. Richardson’s health condition, but the family should give more information by tomorrow.’ “
Comment by jon on 3/19 @ 8:34 pm #
Ginger, old people die under both socialism and corporatism. Under our corporatist system, they die after the hospitals make lots of money. Under our and their socialist systems, they die after hospitals don’t always make that much money, though sometimes they do. Which is better? Neither, since the result is the same.
Trackback by The data recovery how to's on 4/3 @ 7:02 am #
The data recovery how to’s…
Data recovery focuses on getting any deleted lost or damaged files and folders back in working order. You can do this in most cases with file recovery software but if that doesn’t work get the drive serviced by one of the data recovery companies….
Pingback by Uh oh [Darleen Click] UPDATED on 4/21 @ 7:38 am #
[...] “Universal Care” is just full of fun things to save money, like letting women die of cervical cancer and breast [...]