A Little Healthcare History
Debunking Michael Moore’s claims of the wonders of socialist medicine has been one of the main goals of this site ever since Jim and I started it lo these many years ago. In honor of the imminent release of Sicko I decided to peruse the archives of both MOOREWATCH and my own blog, Right-Thinking, to dig up a few of the numerous stories detailing the horrors of the type of government-run healthcare system that Moore is going to call for. And for you members of the press who might be reading this, here’s a whole list for you to use. You don’t even have to do a Lexis-Nexis search.
Hospitals across the country are imposing minimum waiting times - delaying the treatment of thousands of patients.
After years of Government targets pushing them to cut waiting lists, staff are now being warned against “over-performing” by treating patients too quickly. The Sunday Telegraph has learned that at least six trusts have imposed the minimum times.
In March, Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, offered her apparent blessing for the minimum waiting times by announcing they would be “appropriate” in some cases. Amid fears about £1.27 billion of NHS debts, she expressed concern that some hospitals were so productive “they actually got ahead of what the NHS could afford”.
In other words, the government was ordering doctors to make patients wait and suffer because the NHS couldn’t afford to pay for all the treatment that was going on.
The median wait time [in Canada] between a referral by a family doctor and an appointment with a specialist has increased to 8.3 weeks last year from 3.7 weeks in 1993, according to a recent study by The Fraser Institute, a conservative research group. Meanwhile the median wait between appointment with a specialist and treatment has increased to 9.4 weeks from 5.6 weeks over the same period.
Average wait times between referral by a family doctor and treatment range from 5.5 weeks for oncology to 40 weeks for orthopedic surgery, according to the study.
40 weeks for orthopedic surgery? But hey, it’s free!
A fourth generation Kiwi has renounced her citizenship after a year-long battle with the Immigration Service over getting residency for her husband of 32 years.
Mari McGuire says she is ashamed to be a Kiwi.
McGuire’s husband, American folk singing star Barry McGuire, has been refused permanent residency because the service says his age - 70 - and heart condition would make him a burden on the health system. McGuire, who had a US No 1 hit in 1965 with the anti-war song Eve of Destruction, has a pacemaker.
The couple’s $1 million-plus home - built on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula north of Auckland 18 months ago - goes up for auction today. They will return to California.
New Zealand’s compassionate free healthcare system did a cost/benefit analysis on this patient and determined that he’d be a detriment to their system. So, where are they going? Back to the evil capitalist USA, where McGuire will undoubtedly get all the healthcare he needs.
“We like the idea (of medicare) when we’re in a car accident at 2 a.m. and we don’t want to have to worry. But there’s a bunch of stuff on the fringe — increasingly on the fringe — and people think because the government doesn’t pay for it it’s not important. But that’s not the case, and we’ve got to start working to change that mentality.”
Schumacher, a family physician in Windsor, said his patients routinely go to Detroit for diagnostics like MRIs or PET scans. The wait for MRIs in his area is six months, but just six days in Detroit; PET scans aren’t covered under OHIP.
“That is money that our community is losing,” he said. “We need to find a way to repatriate that.”
My comment from the post: “Now this is a fascinating little coincidence. In Bowling for Columbine Michael Moore took us to the crime-ridden cesspool of Detroit. Then he pointed across the river to the shining, happy socialist Utopia of Windsor, Ontario, and questioned why we couldn’t be just like them, with their unlocked doors and unlimited, free health care. But here we see that Canadians in Windsor, who don’t feel like waiting six months for an MRI, have to cross over into the evil, heartless, capitalist, for-profit system of their mongoloid American cousins to receive treatment within a reasonable timeframe.”
QUEENSLAND’S Government has been accused of forcing more than 100,000 people to languish on “secret” waiting lists for surgery at hospitals statewide.
Documents tendered to the Morris inquiry today revealed 108,571 patients in July last year were yet to receive an outpatients appointment, to determine if they should be placed on official surgical waiting lists.
Official surgical waiting lists? But I thought Australia was a free healthcare utopia, where everyone got everything they need all the time.
Canadians have long prized their public healthcare system as a reflection of national values, and have looked askance at the inequities of private medical care in the United States.
But now that the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled private health insurers should be allowed to compete with the public system, the future of Canadian healthcare is a question mark.
In the short term, the decision may light a fire under provincial governments to improve chronic problems, especially long wait times for surgeries, tests, and treatments. Some experts believe the ruling could eventually spawn a parallel, private healthcare system here.
“For our government, it’s a very strong indictment of the way they’ve handled the system,” says Dr. Albert Schumacher, president of the Canadian Medical Association. “I hope it will move us forward in the debate. ‘Private’ has always been used by politicians as a very evil word, associated with America and for-profit. But it’s not necessarily so.
Note the words “American” and “for profit.”
A 26-YEAR-OLD publishing executive died after spending eight months on an NHS waiting list for a scan that would have enabled doctors to treat her condition.
Sarah Clarke, an epileptic, was referred last August for the scan but suffered a fatal seizure in March despite a plea in February by her consultant to speed up the assessment.
Her mother Gaynor discovered her daughter’s body when she went into her bedroom to ask if she wanted breakfast. “Sarah’s death just wasn’t necessary,” she said. “I just think she could have had a long and fulfilling life if the NHS services she needed were there.”
Clarke’s death is likely to provoke a political row over the “hidden” waits that thousands of patients face for potentially life-saving diagnostic tests. It will also fuel the growing controversy over NHS targets which critics say are distorting doctors’ clinical priorities.
A 26 year old woman died because she was on a secret hidden government waiting list. Sounds like a job for Michael Moore, right?
Windsor, Ontario, doctor Albert Schumacher believes it’s his ethical and moral responsibility to tell patients they can cross the border for faster tests. The president of the Canadian Medical Association said the country’s doctors have no choice when waiting times get unhealthy for their patients.
“Right now physicians scramble to get their patients the treatment they need,” Schumacher said.
“Getting it in a timely way is virtually impossible.”
I wonder how much money Detroit makes from Canadians crossing the border so they don’t have to wait years for surgery.
October 15, 2004
Michael Moore took 9/11 firefighters to Cuba. It’s a good thing he didn’t take them to Canada.
TORONTO FIREFIGHTER Ian Hansen lived an emergency room horror yesterday—the type of scenario he fears for every person he needs to send to a hospital. Hansen went to Sunnybrook and Women’s College Health Sciences Centre last Friday as a day patient to undergo a hernia operation but, because of complications, he wasn’t released until Sunday.
Yesterday Hansen’s girlfriend—who is a Toronto paramedic—took him to Sunnybrook’s emergency room with extremely low blood pressure, fearing he was bleeding internally.
“I was in so much pain I couldn’t sit up,” Hansen said yesterday while waiting most of the afternoon to see a doctor.
“They said there were other people ahead of me and no beds, so I asked for a pillow so I could lie down on the floor. They wouldn’t allow that.
“It’s unbelievable they didn’t have a pillow,” he said.
“I had to leave so I could lie on a park bench outside of emergency and wait. This is a great way to show the state of our health care.
”I’ve seen the horror stories and now I’m experiencing it myself. Knowing the job the way I do, I could have called 911. At least I would be on a stretcher. I didn’t want to jump the queue.”
I don’t know what kind of treatment these firefighters got in Cuba, but in Canada they would have gotten a park bench with no pillow.
Canadians have a greater risk of dying within five years after a common type of heart attack than their American cousins, a study comparing treatments in the two countries suggests.
The research, to be published in an upcoming issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, suggests that more conservative treatments in Canada may be behind the difference in survival rates, said Padma Kaul, an epidemiologist at the University of Alberta and lead investigator of the study.
And why would this be?
“Traditionally, I think, the U.S. practises way more aggressively than Canadian practice in terms of using revasc procedures, and that’s been shown repeatedly,” Kaul said from Edmonton, noting that Canadian physicians are more apt to treat heart attack patients with only clot-busting drugs like TPA and streptokinase.
So, Canada saves money by giving its patients cheaper drugs. Now that’s compassion.
In a country already plagued by skyrocketing sick leave costs, a new survey found that 40 percent of the population thinks it’s acceptable to skip work because they feel tired or have trouble getting along with their colleagues.
The survey, presented Friday by the National Social Insurance Board, showed that Swedes manifestly take advantage of the country’s liberal sick leave system, officials said.
Sixty-five percent of the 1,002 people interviewed also said that a stressful work situation is also a valid reason for calling in sick.
The survey shows “a deep lack of knowledge about what the health insurance is meant to cover,” board director Anna Hedborg said of Sweden’s 9 million residents.
What? You mean give someone something for free and they’ll abuse it? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!
A quarter of people want the government to ban smokers being treated by the NHS for smoking-related illness, according to a BBC poll.
ICM conducted the phone survey of 1,010 adults in England, Wales and Scotland for the BBC Healthy Britain poll on a range of public health issues.
Some 27% said the government should discourage smoking by introducing the ban while 71% opposed the move.
The survey also found the public wanted to see the legal smoking age raised.
Four out of five people said the age should be changed from 16 to 18 to deter young people from taking up the habit.
When the government is providing your healthcare, they have a vested interest in making sure you make healthy choices. Michael Moore, I am sure, has absolutely no problem with this gross intrusion into the private lives of citizens. You know, it’s all for compassion. And what’s a little fascism if it’s done in the name of compassion?
A new study by the Fraser Institute says the number of doctors per capita will drop over the next decade unless Canada relies on foreign-trained physicians.
The study released in Calgary says government restrictions on education and training have caused the problem, which will only get worse between now and 2015.
The study urges governments to allow more qualified Canadian students access to medical training to ease the reliance on foreign doctors.
You know where all Canada’s doctors and nurses are? In America, where the wages are higher. But I’m sure that graduate of Bangladesh Medical School is an excellent cardiologist.
February 28, 2006
Some big fat guy needed an angiogram but he was too fat to fit on the table. (Better keep this in mind, Mikey.) So he was told to go home and wait until they could make suitable accommodations for him.
Nolan said his doctor told him five months ago there was a potential problem with a heart valve and now he has to further wait for a diagnosis.
That’s right, folks. Britain’s compassionate free healthcare system sent this poor fat bastard home for FIVE MONTHS because they couldn’t get a different table. Many years ago I weighed over 400 lbs. I had to have an MRI and was told that the table was too small. The staff made a couple of phone calls, and found a facility about 20 minutes away which had one that would work for me. Capitalism = same day service. Socialism = five months.
November 20, 2005
(A commentary by me, as posted.) Apologies for the lack of posting today. I have been filling out a new application form for some better health insurance. When I started back at work I was presented with an option to join the company HMO or keep the money for myself and buy my own insurance. Since HMOs suck, I decided to buy my own. I found a great PPO plan at Blue Cross for about $335 a month, but the application form is about 30 pages long. They want to know the first time you ever scratched your ass, and who your doctor was at the time. I can’t remember the details of half the shit they’re asking me. I’ve spent maybe, oh, 8 hours doing this so far. It’s unbearable.
Note to lefties: see how this works? I could have gotten “free” insurance through my employer, but the insurance they offered sucked. Rather than whine to the government about how Uncle Sam should be providing me with free goodies from the ample government teat, I decided to (gasp!) buy my own! Now, before any of you gets your delicate little panties in a wad, note that the $335 a month is for the top of the line program that Blue Cross offers. I’ve got their price list in front of me, and there are a number of programs starting at under $100 a month. In other words, anyone who wants health insurance should be able to afford it themselves, and those who cannot—the true indigent among us—can already get healthcare through Medicare and other programs.
I wonder how many of the much-ballyhooed “40 million people without health insurance” we hear so much about are people who actually can’t afford it, versus people who could afford it but decided to buy a new iPod or a pair of fly-ass Nikes instead. In other words, people whose biggest healthcare problem is an inability to manage their money.
August 19, 2005
Harry Reid had a stroke. My comment: “The senator would also like to personally thank the pharmaceutical industry for spending tens of millions of dollars developing drugs like Plavix, which can literally mean the difference between life and death for stroke victims. He would also like to thank the healthcare industry for also investing untold millions into hospitals, machinery, technology, and techniques to keep people like Senator Reid alive. And finally, the senator would like liberal Democrats to know that, just as soon as he has recuperated, he will be back out on the front lines, fighting for the common man against evil profit-driven drug companies and corporate health care providers.”
There’s plenty more where these came from, if you just care to use the search boxes found on either site.
Comments
Libertarian liberarian wrote:
My mother is an insurance adjuster for Kaiser Permanente and she could tell you some real doozies.
Sure she could...just as I am sure people in the medical field in Canada, England, France...and Germany, could tell you some ‘real doozies’ about health care in their countries.
No healthcare system is perfect, but I definately do not want the government involved.
Lee wrote:
I wonder how many of the much-ballyhooed “40 million people without health insurance” we hear so much about are people who actually can’t afford it, versus people who could afford it but decided to buy a new iPod or a pair of fly-ass Nikes instead. In other words, people whose biggest healthcare problem is an inability to manage their money.
That is an excellent point, in my opinion. I have known people who say they cannot by food for the week, but will go out club hopping over the weekend spending money on drinks and cover charges.
Furthermore, some health problems can be aleviated by actually following doctors orders and getting exercize or following proper diets.
I am a type 2 diabetic and I am on meds. I am also overwieght. My doctor has told me if lose weight and eat healthy, my sugar levels could go down and I can decrease my meds. Sure enough, it seems to be working. I may even be able to get off the meds permanetly if I get to a weight I can maintain, exercise and eat right. Who would have known?
I don’t know if it was covered in another thread or comment, but I have one question that I have yet to see addressed. In these havens of national health insurance, what is the recourse for medical malpractice? Are doctors in Canada, Cuba, France and England subject to the type of lawsuits that American doctors are? One of the factors contributing to the higher cost of health care the exorbitant insurance premiums doctors (especially obstetricians and anesthesiologists) and hospitals must pay. I’ve been trying to research the answer to physician liability in national health countries and haven’t been very successful so far.
Thanks in advance for any answers you can give. Finally saw an “ad” for Sicko.
Sure she could...just as I am sure people in the medical field in Canada, England, France...and Germany, could tell you some ‘real doozies’ about health care in their countries.
Really? I know a million Europeans and a handful of Canadians and I asked them if they thought their healthcare was so bad if they would ever trade it for the American standard and they turned to stone and a gave a very definite no.
/This just in: Cars sometimes crash and officials wonder if we should ban them altogether.
You asked a million Europeans about healthcare? Get back to work, slacker.
Libertarian Librarian wrote:
Really? I know a million Europeans and a handful of Canadians and I asked them if they thought their healthcare was so bad if they would ever trade it for the American standard and they turned to stone and a gave a very definite no.
A million and a handful you asked this question too? Must have been some undertaking.
Anyway, the question was not whether people would switch to an American standard of healthcare.
You said your mother, who is an insurance adjuster, has some stories she could tell you about healthcare. I stated that if you talked to people involved in healthcare in their countries, they could tell you stories as well.
My point...no healthcare system is perfect. Your mother may have some negative stories, but I am sure there are just as many, if not more, postitive stories as well. Same with any country.
/This just in: Cars sometimes crash and officials wonder if we should ban them altogether.
Not sure what you mean by this statement…
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I’m an American living in germany and I gotta say the healthcare here is topnotch. I go to the doctor (of my choosing), present my card and am given the best healthcare I ever had. I was in the US Army for 4 years and their healthcare wasn’t this good. It was also free so I guess their is some ‘socialized’ medicine to be had in america. I can tell you this much. I NEVER, ever, ever want to become sick in America. My mother is an insurance adjuster for Kaiser Permanente and she could tell you some real doozies.