Portstewart, Northern Ireland — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told a group of liberal activists meeting in Las Vegas they shouldn’t worry about not getting the single-payer provision in the new health care law. “We’re going to have a public option,” Reid said. “It’s just a question of when.”
Remember the objections conservatives and many Republicans raised during the debate about government-run health care and the danger of eliminating private health insurance, despite its many flaws? Recall that Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) was frequently cited as an example of where the U.S. health system might be headed: coverage for all, but with lower quality, long waits for major surgery and denial of care when the government decides the procedure is not “cost effective”.
Anyone who believes a U.S. health care system based on the NHS model can somehow fare better than Britain’s had better consider this recent headline and story from London’s Sunday Telegraph: “Axe Falls on NHS Services; Hip operations, cataract surgery and IVF rationed; Cancer care, maternity, pediatric services at risk.”
Rationing? Oh yes, and it is something the unconfirmed, recess-appointed U.S. health care czar, Donald Berwick, strongly favors.
British government leaders had promised to protect frontline services. The Obama administration also made similar promises in order to win enough support from members of Congress, most of whom never read the bill before they voted for it.
Here’s what America can look forward to if it follows the NHS model, according to an investigation by the Sunday Telegraph: “Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends.” Never has “take two aspirin and call me in the morning” sounded more callous.
Nursing homes for the elderly would be closed, the number of hospital beds for the mentally ill reduced and general practitioners would be discouraged from sending patients to hospitals. Accident and emergency department services would also be cut.
Thousands of jobs would be lost at NHS hospitals, reports the Telegraph, “including 500 staff to go at a trust where cancer patients recently suffered delays in diagnosis and treatment because of staff shortages.” Katherine Murphy of the Patients Association called the cuts “astonishingly brutal.” She expressed particular concern at attempts to ration (that word again) hip and knee operations. “These are not unusual procedures,” she said. “This is a really blatant attempt to save money by leaving people in pain.”
What do politicians care about that? In Britain, as in America, top officials (including Berwick who has lifetime health coverage given to him by the Institute for Health Care Improvement) will always have access to the best care, even while they decide the rest of us cannot.
This paragraph in the Telegraph story should send chills down the spine of every American: “Doctors across the country have already been told that their patients can have the operations only if they are given ‘prior approval’ by the Primary Care Trust, with each authorization made on a ‘case by case’ basis.”
When cost, rather than the value of life becomes supreme, rationing will inevitably lead to other cost-cutting policies. And yes, despite protestations from those who favored Obamacare that “death panels” would not be part of the equation, you can count on them. They will, of course, be called something else. We wouldn’t want to disturb any remaining moral sensibilities we might have.
It has taken the NHS 62 years to get to this point. America’s journey should be a lot shorter given the declared goals of Harry Reid and Donald Berwick.
It is more than ironic that this is taking place in the year when Britain is observing the centenary of the revered nurse Florence Nightingale. Given the prevailing attitude toward the value of human life and its care, her replacement might be the likes of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Hemlock, anyone?
— Cal Thomas is a columnist for Tribune Media Services. tmseditors@tribune.com
Comments
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cato_the_elder (anonymous) says…
If Congress had simply (1) prohibited insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and (2) established a mechanism for the truly needy to receive health care rather than creating a huge bureaucracy designed to control everyone's health care, most of us could have supported that. Instead, unless this is quickly derailed and, especially, defunded after new members of Congress take office in January, we will continue down the road toward government-controlled health care and the further deprivation of our liberties as free citizens of the United States.
jafs (anonymous) replies…
Wow, I sort of agree with you.
Although there would have had to be something in there to help keep costs down, don't you think?
werekoala (anonymous) says…
Yes, Cal, because in America, everyone has coverage, anyone can get any procedure they need, and there are no shortages of anything. Certainly we don't have faceless bureaucrats deciding whether or not people are allowed to get expensive procedures based on the bottom-line cost.
Actually, I guess from the perspective of a stuffy rich old white guy he's right; if money's no object, I'm sure our current system seems great to you. I wonder if he'd feel the same way if he was a plumber...
But if you're like the 95% of us who have to scrape for a living, it looks a lot different. It continues to boggle my mind that somehow a bunch of rich people and corporations have managed to convince a plurality of my fellow citizens that they have their best interests at heart. And that a bunch of non-profit policy wonks are the real enemy. Crazy, innit?
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, that's just his Invisible Hand pick-pocketing you...
notajayhawk (anonymous) replies…
Wrong, koala. *I* should be the one to determine who has my best interests at heart, whether that's an insurance company, the government, or being allowed to take the risk of paying for my own healthcare.
jafs (anonymous) replies…
Generally agreed.
What would you do, though, if you chose to pay for your own health care and wound up with an expensive and difficult health issue that you couldn't afford to pay for?
Practicality (anonymous) replies…
I know plenty of plumbers. They all make decent money and all have health care, homes, cars, etc. etc.
jafs (anonymous) replies…
Are they union members?
snap_pop_no_crackle (anonymous) says…
Don't worry, the Community Organizer in Chief will just print more money and everything will be fine.
pace (anonymous) says…
The radical republican face has turned against working families, small businesses and anyone who isn't a radical republican or those who give money to radical republicans,. The worst things in the health care bill were misguided reactions to the Radical Republican PR war on all things not radical republican.
notajayhawk (anonymous) says…
I have been saying this from the very beginning of the debate on Obama's healthcare "reform" measures:
When you make everyone dependent on healthcare from the government, what happens in times (like these) when the government simply doesn't have the money?
Nobody ever wants to think about that.
Jimo (anonymous) replies…
If only Obama's health insurance measures did if fact "make everyone dependent on healthcare from the government" when in fact it is a private enterprise system.
Straw man go poof! Garbage in, garbage out.
notajayhawk (anonymous) replies…
Wow, jimmie, even for you, that's - interesting.
So what are you saying? That the trillion-and-a-half we're spending on the 2600 pages of Democratic hogwash accomplishes absolutely nothing? 'Cause you can't have it both ways, jimmie. Either that money's being spent to help people get healthcare that they wouldn't otherwise have access to (which, yes, does make them "dependent" on the government), or the money was p***ed away and we got nothing for it. Which is it, jimmie?
By the way, jimmie, the article this thread is attached to is about the British healthcare system, in which everyone *IS* dependent on the government. Now, the worthless bill that congress passed doesn't go that far, but it's no secret that many Democrats see it as a 'first step' towards that ultimate goal - as evidenced by your own 'If only Obama's health insurance measures did if fact "make everyone dependent on healthcare from the government"' statement.
Jimo (anonymous) replies…
"That the trillion-and-a-half we're spending"
You know, you can't have it both ways.
Today, at GOP.com, what headline do I find "celebrating" Medicare's 45th anniversary?? "Obama’s Chief Medicare Actuary Estimates That Obama’s Government Takeover Of Health Care Will Cut Medicare By $575 Billion."
Note: this isn't 'woo-hoo, Obama finally cuts spending!' but rather 'Look, senior citizens, Obama just cut your money off!'
The fact is that the health insurance reforms save billions of dollars of gov't expenditures.
Jimo (anonymous) replies…
Of course, it depends on your perspective on "dependency"
You believe that absent gov't subsidies to allow the poor but not poor enough families to afford health insurance that their need for financing medical costs just disappears. Sorry, bub, if that's your definition of dependency than you already subsidize dependency when these families access health care in the most expensive and inefficient means possible and then hospitals, doctors, etc. recoup those costs from your pocket.
Newsflash: you are not an island, you are not immune to the well being of those people on the other side of the world let alone next door to you.
voevoda (anonymous) says…
The health plan that Congress passed *isn't* a British-style system, state-run. It is based on our current combination public/private insurance system. Private insurers still decide for themselves what conditions they will and will not cover. The government plans have restrictions, too--they always have.
Only persons rich enough to pay costs out of their own pockets can get any treatment they want and as fast as they want. That will be the case when the new government plan is implemented. It's also the case in the British system. If that constitutes rationing, Cal Thomas ought to object to it on ethical and religious grounds. Jesus certainly did not check pocketbooks or insurance coverage before he healed the sick.
Jimo (anonymous) says…
"When cost, rather than the value of life becomes supreme"
Wow. What chutzpah. The system Thomas champions has the core characteristic of prioritizing cost over life!
Jimo (anonymous) says…
Isn't it interesting that Thomas fails to note that these cuts are being introduced by the "Republican" equivalent government in the U.K. intent on implementing a policy of budget cuts and deficit reduction in the middle of an economic downturn? Sounds familiar.
"Conservatives" insisting that government can't work, working to ensure that government doesn't work, and then pointing to government and declaring that government didn't work! A budgetary Katrina.
snap_pop_no_crackle (anonymous) says…
Do a google search for NHS horror stories. Fascinating reading.....
mr_right_wing (anonymous) says…
A majority of Americans have become like spoiled little children. So you warn them; you eat all that candy you might get sick, and it can make you fat..... They don't care; just give me more, more, more!!
After some time has past we'll hear the cries and moans of "why didn't you tell me this would make me sick!?!" (That's probably about 10 years down the road, unless we get smart an repeal obamacare.)
SFBayhawk (anonymous) replies…
You're right about Americans being too fat. Follow the jigglers into the supermarket.