If You think Socialized Medicine is the Way to go - read this

[Guest guest]

Came across this while looking for something else.

Anyone who thinks socialized medicine is the way to go needs to read this

article...Lynn

Fully socialized medicine: A warning from the United

KingdomBy

Philip Stevens

1 Nov 2007

Vaccination, antiseptics, modern nursing, germ theory, the hypodermic

syringe, penicillin, the discovery of DNA, hip replacements, Magnetic

Resonance Imaging, Viagra. These are all great British inventions that

have revolutionized the understanding and treatment of disease. But if

penicillin had come onto the market in 2007, British patients would be

amongst the last in the developed world to benefit­thanks to our creaking

National Health Service.

A host of international studies show that the British health service

produces some of the worst outcomes for patients compared to dozens of

other countries, both poorer and richer. According to an August 2007

study published in The Lancet Oncology, British colorectal, lung, breast,

and prostate cancer patients are less likely to survive five years after

diagnosis than anywhere in Europe (apart from a handful of ex-Soviet

states) (Berrino et al., 2007).

Also in August, the British Medical Journal reported that three separate

studies all found that the outcome of a stroke was worse in the UK than

in the other European countries studied, despite the cost of care being

as high or higher (Markus, 2007). Back in 2005, the Nuffield Trust

reported that mortality from coronary heart disease in the UK is worse

than every comparable country (Nuffield Trust, 2005).

Such outcomes are unsurprising when one considers how poorly the NHS

employs new medical technologies. According to Sweden’s Karolinska

Institute, the United Kingdom is below average for the uptake of

innovative oncology drugs (Wilking and Jönsson, 2005). There are 61

radiotherapy units in Britain, but only 28 use the latest machines

(Sikora, 2007). In 2004, the UK had almost 4.5 times fewer CT scanners

per million people than the US. Then there are the lengthy waiting lists,

and the fact that 8 percent of inpatients acquire an infection while in

hospital.

 

 

 

The irony is that we are paying dearly for this terrible service. The NHS

now costs more than £4,000 for every family in England each year (with

many paying very much more than that), and we now spend over the

international average on health care as a proportion of GDP. Meanwhile,

thousands of frustrated patients self-finance elective surgery in the

private sector, effectively paying twice. The poor, however, have no such

option, and are forced to put up with whatever the government system

gives them.

So how did we get to this sorry state? The answer lies in another less

auspicious British invention­fully socialized health care.

In the years immediately following the Second World War, a political

consensus emerged that the state should provide “cradle to grave” welfare

and social services for all citizens, regardless of rank or social class.

The fact that the civil service had managed the country relatively

successfully during the war years gave rise to the belief that the state

could easily manage services in peacetime in an equitable and efficient

way.

In 1948, the government nationalized 3,118 independent and locally

administered hospitals, homes, and clinics, and forced every medical

professional to become a public servant. The new National Health Service,

based on principles of solidarity and “social justice” was the first step

towards the post-war socialists’ secular Jerusalem.

What developed from this aspiration was, in essence, a communist-style

command and control system, in which bureaucrats determined what services

where needed by whom and where, and directed resources accordingly. This

system changed little until the 1970s, except that more and more money

was lavished on it, and bureaucratic control became ever-more

centralized.

Medical care certainly improved in these years, but not compared to the

massive increases in personal prosperity that characterised the

period­nor compared to the US market model, nor the competitive insurance

models prevalent on continental Europe. By the late 1970s, the NHS was

looking more than a little shabby.

The Conservative government of the 1980s attempted to reinvigorate the

NHS by instituting some tentative market reforms, but the election of

Tony Blair in 1997 resulted in a return to bureaucratic omnipotence. The

NHS was re-bureaucratized, and subject to an ever increasing flood of

directives, initiatives, and targets. When the NHS failed to respond

satisfactorily, the Labour government opened the cash floodgates,

initiating a 7.1 percent per annum funding (plus inflation) increase up

until 2007­to be financed by direct tax rises.

In the face of immense hostility from his own party and the health

unions, Blair insisted that this euphemistically titled “investment” had

to be accompanied with a degree of market-based reform. Certain

procedures were outsourced to the private sector, patients were offered a

choice of NHS hospitals, and a few “Foundation” hospitals were given more

autonomy over their financial affairs.

As the NHS falls into the clutches of the new Labour Prime Minister

Gordon Brown, the NHS still remains, fundamentally, the centralized

behemoth it always has been. Managers, under pressure from ministers,

often direct resources to meet targets instead of clinical priorities.

They are insulated from the commercial imperative to seek efficiencies

and innovations in order to better serve customers. The unions of doctors

and nurses jealously attack any reform proposals that might disrupt their

monopolies and negotiate ever higher pay settlements that outstrip wage

inflation in the private sector.

Ministers, stumbling from one NHS crisis to another, pour resources

towards whichever interest group is shouting loudest in the media at any

particular point in time. Areas that are low on the political radar

screen, such as mental health, maternity services, sexual health, and

dentistry, are underfunded and of poor quality (The Healthcare

Commission, 2005).

Patients may get nominally free health care (at the point of care, but

not at the end of the tax year), but they pay the high price of rationed

drugs, lengthy waiting lists, and some of the worst health outcomes in

the OECD.

Tony Blair’s attempt to drag the NHS towards modernity, however, was

beginning to deliver some results. Outsourced cataract and cardiac

operations were beginning to get to grips with the worst waiting lists,

at a reasonable price. Gordon Brown, however, is quietly undermining the

Blair reforms by commissioning a 12 month review to determine what

direction the NHS should take under his premiership. Judging by his track

record, it is likely to be backwards.

If nothing else, Britain has provided to advocates of socialized medicine

a 60-year controlled experiment in single- payer, tax-funded universal

health care. It has had everything its proponents claimed it needed in

order to be a success­lavish funding, strong bureaucratic direction, and

political prioritization­ and yet it still lags far behind the other more

mixed models of health care to be found in Europe and the US.

Even the considerably poorer former European Soviet states, as well as

China, are spurning the NHS model, opting instead for more market-based

systems as they restructure their rapidly growing economies. Only Cuba,

Sri Lanka, Canada, and the UK cling to state-run health care. The mystery

is why UK politicians are so reluctant to embrace the reforms which have

delivered the goods among even our more socially democratic neighbours

such as Sweden.

 

 

http://www.criticalopinion.org/articles/123

[Guest guest]

Aways interesting how so many " freedom-loving " folk view socialized

and beauracratized as synonymous. Don't fall for the propagandists

that use the worst example of an alternative system to defend the

status quo.

 

As a Brit living in (ex-communist) Hungary it's not hard to see the

benefits in a system that allows the patient to see a specialist

without a GP's say-so and where the doctor gets diagnostic results

either instantly (because (s)he performs them rather than relying on

a technician)or within a matter of minutes. That's what you have in

the Hungarian state health system, as with most of continental Europe.

 

Best

 

Pauli

 

 

 

 

, Lynn Ward <lynnward

wrote:

>

>

>

> Came across this while looking for something

> else. Anyone who thinks socialized medicine is

> the way to go needs to read this article...Lynn

>

> Fully socialized medicine: A warning from the United Kingdom

>

> By <http://www.criticalopinion.org/authors/1>Philip Stevens

> 1 Nov 2007

>

> Vaccination, antiseptics, modern nursing, germ

> theory, the hypodermic syringe, penicillin, the

> discovery of DNA, hip replacements, Magnetic

> Resonance Imaging, Viagra. These are all great

> British inventions that have revolutionized the

> understanding and treatment of disease. But if

> penicillin had come onto the market in 2007,

> British patients would be amongst the last in the

> developed world to benefit­thanks to our creaking National Health

Service.

>

> A host of international studies show that the

> British health service produces some of the worst

> outcomes for patients compared to dozens of other

> countries, both poorer and richer. According to

> an August 2007 study published in The Lancet

> Oncology, British colorectal, lung, breast, and

> prostate cancer patients are less likely to

> survive five years after diagnosis than anywhere

> in Europe (apart from a handful of ex-Soviet states) (Berrino et

al., 2007).

>

> Also in August, the British Medical Journal

> reported that three separate studies all found

> that the outcome of a stroke was worse in the UK

> than in the other European countries studied,

> despite the cost of care being as high or higher

> (Markus, 2007). Back in 2005, the Nuffield Trust

> reported that mortality from coronary heart

> disease in the UK is worse than every comparable

> country (Nuffield Trust, 2005).

>

> Such outcomes are unsurprising when one considers

> how poorly the NHS employs new medical

> technologies. According to Sweden's Karolinska

> Institute, the United Kingdom is below average

> for the uptake of innovative oncology drugs

> (Wilking and Jönsson, 2005). There are 61

> radiotherapy units in Britain, but only 28 use

> the latest machines (Sikora, 2007). In 2004, the

> UK had almost 4.5 times fewer CT scanners per

> million people than the US. Then there are the

> lengthy waiting lists, and the fact that 8

> percent of inpatients acquire an infection while in hospital.

>

>

>

> The irony is that we are paying dearly for this

> terrible service. The NHS now costs more than

> £4,000 for every family in England each year

> (with many paying very much more than that), and

> we now spend over the international average on

> health care as a proportion of GDP. Meanwhile,

> thousands of frustrated patients self-finance

> elective surgery in the private sector,

> effectively paying twice. The poor, however, have

> no such option, and are forced to put up with

> whatever the government system gives them.

>

> So how did we get to this sorry state? The answer

> lies in another less auspicious British

> invention­fully socialized health care.

>

> In the years immediately following the Second

> World War, a political consensus emerged that the

> state should provide " cradle to grave " welfare

> and social services for all citizens, regardless

> of rank or social class. The fact that the civil

> service had managed the country relatively

> successfully during the war years gave rise to

> the belief that the state could easily manage

> services in peacetime in an equitable and efficient way.

>

> In 1948, the government nationalized 3,118

> independent and locally administered hospitals,

> homes, and clinics, and forced every medical

> professional to become a public servant. The new

> National Health Service, based on principles of

> solidarity and " social justice " was the first

> step towards the post-war socialists' secular Jerusalem.

>

> What developed from this aspiration was, in

> essence, a communist-style command and control

> system, in which bureaucrats determined what

> services where needed by whom and where, and

> directed resources accordingly. This system

> changed little until the 1970s, except that more

> and more money was lavished on it, and

> bureaucratic control became ever-more centralized.

>

> Medical care certainly improved in these years,

> but not compared to the massive increases in

> personal prosperity that characterised the

> period­nor compared to the US market model, nor

> the competitive insurance models prevalent on

> continental Europe. By the late 1970s, the NHS

> was looking more than a little shabby.

>

> The Conservative government of the 1980s

> attempted to reinvigorate the NHS by instituting

> some tentative market reforms, but the election

> of Tony Blair in 1997 resulted in a return to

> bureaucratic omnipotence. The NHS was

> re-bureaucratized, and subject to an ever

> increasing flood of directives, initiatives, and

> targets. When the NHS failed to respond

> satisfactorily, the Labour government opened the

> cash floodgates, initiating a 7.1 percent per

> annum funding (plus inflation) increase up until

> 2007­to be financed by direct tax rises.

>

> In the face of immense hostility from his own

> party and the health unions, Blair insisted that

> this euphemistically titled " investment " had to

> be accompanied with a degree of market-based

> reform. Certain procedures were outsourced to the

> private sector, patients were offered a choice of

> NHS hospitals, and a few " Foundation " hospitals

> were given more autonomy over their financial affairs.

>

> As the NHS falls into the clutches of the new

> Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the NHS still

> remains, fundamentally, the centralized behemoth

> it always has been. Managers, under pressure from

> ministers, often direct resources to meet targets

> instead of clinical priorities. They are

> insulated from the commercial imperative to seek

> efficiencies and innovations in order to better

> serve customers. The unions of doctors and nurses

> jealously attack any reform proposals that might

> disrupt their monopolies and negotiate ever

> higher pay settlements that outstrip wage inflation in the private

sector.

>

> Ministers, stumbling from one NHS crisis to

> another, pour resources towards whichever

> interest group is shouting loudest in the media

> at any particular point in time. Areas that are

> low on the political radar screen, such as mental

> health, maternity services, sexual health, and

> dentistry, are underfunded and of poor quality

> (The Healthcare Commission, 2005).

>

> Patients may get nominally free health care (at

> the point of care, but not at the end of the tax

> year), but they pay the high price of rationed

> drugs, lengthy waiting lists, and some of the

> worst health outcomes in the OECD.

>

> Tony Blair's attempt to drag the NHS towards

> modernity, however, was beginning to deliver some

> results. Outsourced cataract and cardiac

> operations were beginning to get to grips with

> the worst waiting lists, at a reasonable price.

> Gordon Brown, however, is quietly undermining the

> Blair reforms by commissioning a 12 month review

> to determine what direction the NHS should take

> under his premiership. Judging by his track

> record, it is likely to be backwards.

>

> If nothing else, Britain has provided to

> advocates of socialized medicine a 60-year

> controlled experiment in single- payer,

> tax-funded universal health care. It has had

> everything its proponents claimed it needed in

> order to be a success­lavish funding, strong

> bureaucratic direction, and political

> prioritization­ and yet it still lags far behind

> the other more mixed models of health care to be found in Europe

and the US.

>

> Even the considerably poorer former European

> Soviet states, as well as China, are spurning the

> NHS model, opting instead for more market-based

> systems as they restructure their rapidly growing

> economies. Only Cuba, Sri Lanka, Canada, and the

> UK cling to state-run health care. The mystery is

> why UK politicians are so reluctant to embrace

> the reforms which have delivered the goods among

> even our more socially democratic neighbours such as Sweden.

>

> http://www.criticalopinion.org/articles/123

>

[Guest guest]

BSD

Shalom from Israel, where Socialized medicine works! (you forgot us)

After moving here from the States over 8 yrs ago I have found the

services are no worst than in the States and actually slightly better.

And for peanuts a year too! Dont get me started on what the

mega-medical insurance companies have done to this world, you the

patients, let alone the brainwashing it has done to the medical

practitioners. Unfortunately manyof my friends here from Great Britain

agree with your article and rave over the care in Israel compared to

there! The best medicine is preventative medicine!

Light and love, Dr. Tikva tzfatihealing

 

, Lynn Ward <lynnward wrote:

>Even the considerably poorer former European

> Soviet states, as well as China, are spurning the

> NHS model, opting instead for more market-based

> systems as they restructure their rapidly growing

> economies. Only Cuba, Sri Lanka, Canada, and the

> UK cling to state-run health care. The mystery is

> why UK politicians are so reluctant to embrace

> the reforms which have delivered the goods among

> even our more socially democratic neighbours such as Sweden.

>

> http://www.criticalopinion.org/articles/123

>