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January 29, 2008 |Permalink |Comments (3)
Hey Doc, tell us how you REALLY feel...
From the Telegraph, London, British doctors in a survey tell us how they really feel about the National Health Service, Britain's publicly-funded healthcare system:
Don't treat the old and unhealthy, say doctors By Laura Donnelly, Health CorrespondentDoctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.
Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
So much for the Hippocratic oath. But seriously, this kind of tawdry tabloid news coverage distracts from the real debate raging in Britain -- how does a country, with finite resources and a mandate to provide universal coverage, decide how to allocate those resources? There are no easy answers. What do you think of this decision by the British government (also from the above Telegraph story):
The Government announced plans last week to offer fat people cash incentives to diet and exercise as part of a desperate strategy to steer Britain off a course that will otherwise see half the population dangerously overweight by 2050.Obesity costs the British taxpayer £7 billion a year. Overweight people are more likely to contract diabetes, cancer and heart disease, and to require replacement joints or stomach-stapling operations.
[Picture courtesy of NHS agency auxiliary nurse Tim Burness]
Comments ( 3)
Oh that's freaking great. Just wait till the rabid foes of universal healthcare get a load of this. It's bad enough they use the specter of long lines, rationed and inferior care and socialism to distort and inhibit any real, sensible debate about fixing America's broken health care system.
But Dr. Thomas raises a major point highlighting the difference between American and British attitudes on healthcare. The British government, in particular, makes the hard decision every year of deciding up front exactly how much of the GNP the nation will spend on healthcare. In the business world this is often referred to as "a budget". And the Brits are required to stick to it. So when the country's health declines and costs skyrocket the system has to make hard choices about what to cover and who to treat. It ain't perfect by a long shot, but at least there's some kind of accountability.
That concept is unbelievably alien to Americans. The idea that we would budget how much we spend on healthcare, let alone stick to that budget, is inconceivable. Americans -- that is, insured Americans -- expect their every ailment to be treated by the latest and most expensive medical treatment available, and they sure as hell don't want to pay for it. And don't even suggest Americans should take responsibility for their personal health! That attitude has been a BONANZA for big PHarma and the healthcare industry. And people wonder why America spends more per capita on healthcare than any other country, covers fewer people, and ultimately has poorer results.
Instead of offering money to citizens to eat right, how about offering fat fines to food producers who keep marketing unhealthy foods?
and the implication is that the "old" are "unhealthy" like alcoholics? would the NHS pay us something to get "cured," i.e., younger? sigh.