Are you old? A little chubby? A smoker? Well then, no cancer treatment for you. You can’t be surprised. This is the inevitable end of socialized medicine and a British cancer specialist is spelling it out pretty clearly.
Times Online reports:
A leading UK Cancer Specialist warned that the National Health Service (NHS) is facing very difficult choices about which diseases would be treated and which would not in the coming future. Professor John Smyth of Medical Oncology at the University of Edinburgh, gave a speech at the International Science Festival, Edinburgh. In his speech “The Future of Cancer Treatment – can we afford it?”, he stressed on the fact that in the wake of limited public funding, very stringent decision can be made over the types of diagnosis and drugs to use in the future.
He questioned as to how to allocate funds towards treating over one disease over another. He enquired about what was to be the criterion of giving preference. He elucidated on the fact that the NHS had been stretched to its maximum value treating people suffering from heart disease, cancer and stroke. The breakthrough of new medicines was putting amplified pressure on the limited resources of the health services.
So get that. New medicines are bad in a socialized healthcare framework because those pesky people actually want new medicines.
And BIG GOVERNMENT will be deciding which diseases get treated and which people get the treatment? Something tells me that our representatives in the House and Senate will be taken care of rather well.
I’m not criticizing Smyth here. He’s right in what he’s saying. The government can’t afford to cover everything and costs will eventually lead to rationing. But that’s because government healthcare doesn’t work. At some point they’ll be rationing.
Just a quick question here. One argument says that because someone allowed themselves to become obese then they don’t deserve to be treated because they essentially brought it upon themselves or they’re not a good risk in the future. Now, I have to wonder, will the government say that many AIDS patients shouldn’t be treated because it’s likely they either persisted in the homosexual lifestyle or had unsafe sex which is considered high risk behavior? You think? So in reality, the government would be disallowing treatment for the politically incorrect.
With government controlled health care you would ultimately end with groups lobbying for the government to cover diseases.
Professor John Smyth said that the country was already saddling with ageing population. Therefore, there are very few people who are contributing towards the health care budget, this is aggravated by the financial recession. Hence the Health Services are under a lot of pressure. As strides are being made in Medical Sciences, a way needs to be found to properly apportion available resources and funds to the patients.
Man, it’s almost like we need more babies to be born to grow up and financially support the country. The interesting thing here is that socialism might actually work for a little while as long as each generation was bigger than the last but the socialists just can’t help themselves. Babies are a burden and must be…thinned. But with people having less children the taxpayer base is gone so there’s nobody to support the generation that aborted millions of babies. So it turns out that their own selfish ideology is their destruction. Unfortunately, we’re all victims too.
April 28, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Yes, I definitely want socialized medicine. It works very well in Canada and the UK (as well as the rest of the EU). Just like here in the US, those who work full-time get their own private insurance, which affords them “better” coverage.
On another note, here in the US, if you smoke, are overly obese or have a pre-existing condition, you are likely to not find any insurance coverage at all. Meaning ALL medical expenses will be out of your own pocket. I think you unwittingly made the point for socialized medicine in your opening paragraph here.
April 28, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Any time the gov’t gets a plan in motion and it’s “universal” every tax payer in America gets less pay and more paying out to the gov’t. Who wants that? And, those who do not work because they like the gov’t teet (so to speak) already get everything free off our backsides. The difference is that when the gov’t plan is in place just that much more of our money is taken.
I’ll keep my freedom to choose, thank you very much.
April 28, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I’m purposely not making use of our current socialized medicine and opting to pay out of pocket. I definitely don’t want socialized medicine.
Let me ‘splain.
My job ends on Thursday (company closing, really). I have to get personal insurance for me, my pregnant wife, and my 5 kids. In order to get on a government program, I have to run in circles getting documentation, jump through hoops, and then transfer all of our medical care to different doctors (my wife’s Ob isn’t covered, nor is my children’s pediatrician). Well, our pediatrician knows my micro-preemie’s medical history, so I’d rather not have the learning curve. And that will only cover my wife (because she’s pregnant) and children. And I’ll probably have a premium (minimal though it may be) because I have too much money sitting in the bank. So, in order to save my time and keep our current doctors, we’re getting private insurance. If I’ve got to spend money anyway, I might as well do it in such a way that I get to choose my doctors.
We spent a heck of a lot of time last night looking at plans, and I’m ready to opt out of traditional insurance as well, and just have catastrophic coverage. Because of the goofiness of the plans, the delivery of #6 will cost me around $4000 ($2500 deductible plus 20% of costs beyond that) out of pocket, plus my monthly insurance cost of $600. If I want a lower deductible, I can bump my monthly cost to $1000. Yeah, that’ll save me money.
Once the delivery is done, I plan on switching to a higher deductible plan and paying cash as much as possible for regular visits (a sick-child visit yesterday cost us $66 out of pocket, no insurance involved). We’ll squirrel away the money saved on the monthly premium and use that to pay for unexpected trips to the hospital (like Saturday’s ambulance ride and ER visit for #5).
Anonymous, people with pre-existing conditions, who are old, obese, or smoke can all get insurance, it just costs an arm and a leg. But they’d be better off actually sitting down and figuring out costs and the best course of action, rather than trusting their lives to socialized medicine.
What too many people don’t seem to realize is that socialized medicine is paid for out of pocket, it’s just hidden and taken before it even gets into your pocket.
April 28, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Socialized medicine is a slippery slope. With this being the country of ‘choice’ I can see in the future mandatory pre-natal testing and if you have a positive diagnosis the choice will become kill the baby or pay for all medical care out of your pocket. Australia already denied permanent residency to a doctor (they are short on doctors there) because he had a child with Down’s and that would be too big a burden on the health care system. It wouldn’t take much for them to state that the government will cover your first 2 kids but nothing after that. The government cannot do a better job at health care than the private sector. Name me one time the government has run something well and fiscally sound.
Also it has already happened in Oregon that instead of treating disease in the older population, the state pays for your meds to kill yourself. The death rate from commonly treated diseases is much higher in Canada and the UK. The doctors make far less money (that’s not going to go over well here). My sister in law has Cystic Fibrosis and readily admits she’d be dead if she had to rely on socialized medicine.
April 28, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Utilitarianism, plain and simple.
It necessarily is a system of numbers, equations, and profitability. What the society gain from its investment in the human person.
a la, Matrix, 1984, USSR, Equilibrium, and others.
In a system this large it is impossible to maintain a focus on the dignity of the person. The tree is lost in the forest, so to speak.
April 28, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Heh. I work for a company that models how the Congressional Budget Office will estimate the cost of a piece of legislation.
On health issues, our clients are always surprised to find out how expensive their ideas really are (and we’re just talking about Medicare)
Why, with something as simple as a $50 screening test for a disease, is it so expensive?
Because if your screening test actually works and helps identify disease to be treated sooner, it saves lives.
And when you save lives, those darned survivors take their regular doctor visits and whatnot for several years more than they would have have otherwise lived.
So saving lives in the socialized medicine world is the most expensive thing you can do. If that doesn’t fit the definition of a “perverse incentive” then nothing will
April 28, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Anonymous, I see your proposed situation happening not just for children who test positive for a genetic defect, but for women pregnant with more than some acceptable number of children. I can easily foresee a socialize medicine system that will deny prenatal and delivery costs to a woman pregnant with her 3rd child, but completely willing to pay for her abortion.
Best wishes for your sister-in-law. My one daughter was tested for CF because of other indicators, and I was taken aback at the literature given to us on CF. “If the test (amniocentesis) comes back positive for CF, the only way to not have a baby with CF is through abortion.” When I read that line to my wife, she thought I was making it up. The mentality is already there, and under socialize medicine it would be forced on us.
April 28, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Babies are a burden and must be…thinned. But with people having less children the taxpayer base is gone so there’s nobody to support the generation that aborted millions of babies. So it turns out that their own selfish ideology is their destruction.For shame, Matthew – have you been reading your Chesterton again? This sounds like a pithy summary of many passages of “The Everlasting Man” – especially the chapter where he talks about Rome and Carthage. “For Carthage fell because she was faithful to her own philosophy and had followed out to its logical conclusion her own vision of the universe. Moloch had eaten his children.”
Passages like that have been leaping out at me as I’ve been reading.
April 28, 2009 at 8:04 pm
NOTE TO FIRST ANONYMOUS COMMENTER…I AM IN CANADA, AND SOCIALIZED MEDICINE IS AN ABYSMAL FAILURE FOR THE SICK, AND FOR THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.
THE WHOLE SCHMOSZZLE IS RUN BY SPINELESS, STUPID BUREAUCRATS WHO ARE MOSTLY CLUELESS ACCOUNTANTS SUFFERING FROM ADVANCED PC.
April 29, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Note to Matthew S.,
If you have an 80/20 with a $2500 deductible, your new child will likely cost you out of pocket about $6000. Your new child is a seperate insured with a seperate deductible to be covered. Please make sure you completely understand what you are agreeing to.
April 30, 2009 at 2:04 pm
M.Z., thanks for the reminder. My $4000 estimate was strictly for the C-section and my wife’s hospital stay. I didn’t include nursery costs, nurse time, in-hospital newborn exams/screenings, etc., for the newborn. I forget exactly how that breaks down on the billing. (Gimme a break, this is going to be the longest time between kids for us, I think – 19.5 months – and I’m getting forgetful in my old age)
I don’t expect that to run another $2k, though. It could. In any case, I’m going to end up on a payment plan with the hospital.
May 1, 2009 at 3:32 am
I deal with insurance companies for a living and I can tell you this much, If socialized medicine is anything like the nightmare I get dealing with medicare and medicaid then I give a hearty DO NOT WANT! sure for the little cases socialized medicine might help you out but god forbid you actually get something life threatening (like the cases I work with) then you are out of luck. even with the best assistance programs I can find its only enough to cover a patient’s life saving medicine for 1 or 2 months tops. how do you think it’s going to be when the operating expenses for federal healtcare get even higher using money that they don’t even have to begin with?
May 1, 2009 at 4:19 am
A paramedic friend of mine was at a conference on treatment for heart disease. There were docs from Canada, the UK, and the US there. One of the case studies involved a 72-year-old individual.
Before they even got started, the Canadian and UK docs had a question: “Why treat such an individual at all?” The US docs were stunned.
My mother will be 72 this year.