Brickbat: The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

Opolja / Dreamstime.com

The British National Health Service reports some 4.3 million patients, a 10-year high, are waiting on surgery. They are supposed to have to wait no more than 18 weeks for non-urgent surgery, but 211,434 patients have been waiting more than six months.

Comments

[Adans smith]

And some young twit in New York wants to bring this disaster here.

[Rhywun]

A lot of other twits young and old, too. The health care providers are writing the legislation as we speak. It's pretty much part of the Dem platform now.

[Rhywun]

A lot of other twits young and old, too. The health care providers are writing the legislation as we speak. It's pretty much part of the Dem platform now.

[Tom Bombadil]

You say 'twit', I say 'twat', let's call the whole thing off.

[Jerryskids]

You can have it fast, you can have it good, you can have it cheap. Pick any two.

[Adans smith]

Sounds like some women I 'know' .

[Fist of Etiquette]

Do they even have the option there?

[Adans smith]

Waiting on lists is what they choose to do together.

[Longtobefree]

They have an option to have the courts refuse to let them leave the country for treatment, as I recall.

[Oli]

In Germany, we have it fast and good. I only keep 50% of my salary though, but I'm sure that number could be increased without negatively affecting healthcare.

[I am the 0.000000013%]

I'm pretty sure more than 50% of my USA salary is going to the government when you factor in all state, local, and federal taxes, tariffs, user fees, license fees, etc...

So, to be totally ethnist. My sense is that anything Germans decide to do, they do it with a dedication and competence that very few other peoples do.

It will be telling if my purported German ethos fades with the recent amount of immigration. If it does, it helps explain the real problem that needs solving, which is a huge number of people are content to let someone else work for their benefits.

I also wonder about groups of people's health issues. I come from an extended family that is mostly descended from long ago German emigrants. Out of the 100 or so people in my extended family I know well, none of them have health issues. Most of my relatives live great lives until their late 90's. I'm pushing 60 and I've had only a few colds, the stomach flu a few times when my kids brought it home from school, and several broken bones that needed to be set and immobilized, all of which healed with complications.

If any large group reflected my family's health care needs, they wouldn't have much need of health care. I wonder if that observation might explain some of the outliers in socialized medicine.

[I am the 0.000000013%]

Why oh why can't we edit our posts!

That should be without complications

[Radioactive]

In Britain the choices are different; dirty, indifferent and unavailable. Now pick two.

[gaoxiaen]

In Taiwan, everyone is covered and it's inexpensive. Here there is no medical, insurance company, and AMA collusion. Economies of scale, motherfuckers.

[IceTrey]

The obvious cost might be inexpensive but what about the hidden costs? What are taxes like for instance?

[Oli]

I'm all about small government, minimal bureaucracy and free economy, but I do believe that every citizen should have access to good and affordable medical care. I'm aware there's no great way to achieve this, and that it means taxes that need to be paid. You can't have people dying, because they can't afford to pay for the treatment they need, and call yourself a civilized society.

Privatization, deregulation, competition-- yes, yes and yes. But there mustn't be a point where you have to decide between physical and financial death. There was a libertarian proposal at some point, where everything above 15-20% of household income should be covered by the state. Something like that might work.

[I am the 0.000000013%]

Smart phones, which are the culmination of insane amounts of technological innovation, are available at costs affordable to almost everyone in the USA. The regulation on smart phones has been pretty minimal.

Health care is technology based - it should follow the curve that smart phones do, but it doesn't because the FDA constricts the flow of innovation to the tiny amount they can approve in any given time.

Replace the FDA with many private competing certification agencies and we can start seeing health care explode in efficacy and costs plummet to commodity levels.

You will *never* reduce the cost of health care with government regulation - there is no evidence it has ever happened, and plenty of evidence to indicate it hasn't.

All the government can do is shift costs and add on a healthy surcharge for doing so.

[Cynical Asshole]

You can have it fast, you can have it good, you can have it cheap. Pick any two.

And with the NHS, you'll get none of the above.

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

Don't let them kill you baby
Don't let them get to you

[Fist of Etiquette]

They are supposed to have to wait no more than 18 weeks for non-urgent surgery...

Or else what?

[Longtobefree]

Or else they wait longer; didn't you read the article? Oh, wait, Reason.

[Fist of Etiquette]

WRONG. Or else budgets get increased.

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

You think money in correlates with increased services? You poor poor man.

[perlchpr]

If you re-read carefully, he didn't say anything about an increase in service... 😉

[Rockabilly]

The British National Health Service just don't do it right.

We got some eggheads at the Kennedy School of Goober Mint that have a plan called 'Single Payer' that will enable every American to be covered for life, and it includes breast and penis enhancements.

How could anyone say no to that?

[libertynugget]

Is this going to be a Remy Video?

[Radioactive]

only if the health care gods deem it necessary.

[Brian]

Don't worry: it's free to wait, so it's ok.

[Tom Bombadil]

" but 211,434 patients have been waiting more than six months"

This is a small price to pay for Medical Care that is FREE. Yes, literally FREE. Nobody pays for it. Doctors grow on trees and hospitals spring up like mushrooms, and it is FREE. Did I mention it is FREE?

[Radioactive]

and the drugs flow like water?

[Radioactive]

and the nurses are all beautiful and friendly?

[Tom Bombadil]

And the schnozberries taste like schnozberries.

[gaoxiaen]

The turtles had everything turtles might need. And They were all happy. Quite happy indeed. They were until the State...

[Feminist Killjoy]

A friend of mine in Nova Scotia, where we have a similar sort of health care as the nhs, was recently diagnosed with liver cancer. He was given a potential surgery date nearly 4 months away, though from all indications they'd caught it at the "it hasn't spread yet, but if it spreads it'll be difficult to contain" stage. Last night I found out it got bumped up to a couple weeks from now after an interesting chain of events. His sister wrote a strongly worded letter to the premier. She got a call from a reporter with the CBC a couple days later. Then he gets the news that they found a spot for him. It is possible someone died.

But yeah, you won't go bankrupt for medical costs, I guess, so you can let that console you for your crappy quality of life before you kick it.

[Radioactive]

Canada is not the garden of Eden & free health care. Actually live there and not just visit Toronto for the poteen and you'll find out.

[I am the 0.000000013%]

You don't have to go bankrupt here either - you just adopt the same solution other countries have. Don't get useful treatment.

[Tom Bombadil]

Had a friend wait about 1.5 painful years to get his hip replaced. In America, you get a free hip when you open a savings account.

[Tom Bombadil]

That comment was for the Canada sub-thread.

[loveconstitution1789]

This is an example of the best parts of Single Payer health care.

The worse parts are much much worse.

[jagjr]

but their healthcare is so much better than ours!!! so claim the fact-free fools.