Brickbat: We'll Get to You in a Moment

After suffering a heart attack, Ken Jones spent 20 hours sitting in "a hard plastic chair" in Gloucestershire Royal Hospital in England before he was seen by a doctor. After he finally got an angiogram, it was discovered he had three blocked arteries. "We recognise that patients continue to experience waits longer than any of us would wish and our staff continue to provide the best possible care," said Gloucestershire Deputy Medical Director Dr. Kate Hellier. "We would encourage the patient to raise any concerns with our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALs)."

Comments

[Rob Misek]

As if subjecting the wealthy to the inconvenience of waiting supersedes the benefit of healthcare for all regardless of social status.

[rbike]

Coming here soon. Brought to you by the AMA in cooperation with the idiots running our government.

[Longtobefree]

But without the PALS.

[mad.casual]

Maybe it's an across-the-pond thing but, for my state-run healthcare bedside manner, "PAL" is close enough to "palliative" to make my libertarian spidey-sense tingle.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"We would encourage the patient to raise any concerns with our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALs)."

The patients who live anyway.

[mad.casual]

Or aren’t amputees or quadraplegic or crippled by polio or a wasting disease…

-Primary Objective: Allay patients’ fears or concerns that they are dealing with a stone cold deaf, uncaring, unthinking bureaucracy.
-Recommended Actions: Issue statement that any such patients having any such fears or concerns bring them to us themselves.
-Primary Objective: Achieved.

At least Robocop had quippy one liners.

[Crackers Boy]

"This man is dead!"
"No. He's just sleeping."
"He is DEAD I tell you."
"He's just pining for the fjords of his home."

CB

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Miracle Max: There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there’s usually only one thing you can do.
Inigo Montoya: What’s that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

[markm23]

It could be worse - AFAIK, the NHS is not yet reenacting another Monty Python skit, "Bring Out Your Dead".

Patient: "I'm not dead!"
Body collector: "He's not dead yet."
Attendant: "He will be soon. Please help me out and take him."

[Jerry B.]

And this is the health care system Liberals think we should emulate.

[SRG2]

n=1

The questions you should be asking revolve around overall health costs, and associated life expectancy/ quality of life.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The answers are obvious to all, including control freaks like you: free markets always do better than centrally planned top-down burrocracies. The difference is that control freaks like you put that last in priority.

[SRG2]

The answers are obvious to all, including control freaks like you: free markets always do better than centrally planned top-down burrocracies.

More axiomatic bullshit. I'm not a control freak but I am in favour of evidence, unlike people like you who mindlessly repeat as universal facts assertions that do not necessarily apply in all circumstances. It's both lazy and cretinous.

What distinguishes health services from other economic activities is the gross inelasticity of demand and inequality of bargaining powerr. But I don't expect you to understand this because you're too wedded to some absurdly simplistic economic ideal you might have learned when you were fifteen and never bothered to rethink.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

The question I always ask is whether individual and private property rights are respected. But that's just me.

[Rossami]

The UK, Canada, China, Russia, East Germany, North Korea, Poland, Belgium, France, the VA. n is very much greater than 1. Pretty much every place that's ever tried government-run healthcare eventually ends up with rationing and poor service.

US health costs are high for two reasons - an unbalanced tort system that encourages unnecessary "defensive" procedures and because the US market still subsidizes much of the innovation in the field. Maybe add a third reason - protectionist tendencies across the health care licensing organizations. Fix those three and US health care costs will not be out of line with other countries.

[Rob Misek]

You’re so full of shit.

I think mortality is probably a better indicator for healthcare than inconvenience for the wealthy.

For those nations.

“As discussed in more detail in a  separate brief, life expectancy at birth was similar in the U.S. and peer countries on average in 1980 (73.7 and 74.5 years, respectively), but the gap has grown substantially in the following decades, as peer nations saw more rapid improvement in life expectancy than the U.S. The COVID-19 pandemic further widened this gap, and life expectancy in 2021 was 6 years shorter in the U.S. than in peer countries (76.4 years in the U.S. and averaged 82.3 years in comparable countries, on average). “

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/archive/?_sft_category=quality-of-care

[American Mongrel]

Except life expectancy in the us is 79.9, not 76.4.
So, the UK was roughly a year longer in 1950 when they started the NHS and its roughly 1.5 years longer now. Great investment there and definitely solely attributably to socialized healthcare.

[Rob Misek]

Yes, all those nations still have higher life expectancy than the US.

What’s your point?

[MatthewSlyfield]

"As discussed in more detail in a  separate brief, life expectancy at birth was similar in the U.S. and peer countries on average in 1980 (73.7 and 74.5 years, respectively),"

Now adjust for violent deaths (accidents involving physical trauma, not just murder) which don't have much if any relationship with the quality of healthcare.

[Rob Misek]

Are you suggesting that US citizens have a significantly greater propensity to trauma and illnesses in general?

Cite?

[SRG2]

The UK, Canada, China, Russia, East Germany, North Korea, Poland, Belgium, France, the VA. n is very much greater than 1.

The “n=1” comment applied to that single anecdote.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALs)

LOFnL

[Get To Da Chippah]

"We would encourage the patient to raise any concerns with our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALs)."

Your pals should have a little talk with my Frustration and Irritation Statement Team.

[MatthewSlyfield]

LOL!

[MWAocdoc]

We should all be asking ourselves, "How can WE bring this kind of health service to the United States?" Just imagine how much better off we will be when the United States National Health Service is implemented!

[Rob Misek]

Can’t fix stupid.

[AT]

"We would encourage the patient to raise any concerns with our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALs)."

You can submit them into this round cabinet. The one with the plastic liner bag.