British Hospitals Collapsing under weight of failed Socialized Medicine

[longknife]

by Douglas V. Gibbs
UK hospitals on the verge of collapse as socialized medicine fails

If you want to get a good look at the future of healthcare in America, compliments of the"Affordable Care Act," the monstrosity reform law known not-so-affectionately known as Obamacare, look across the Atlantic to Great Britain. Because of that law, our system is set to become nearly as socialized a system of medicine as is the system in England, where top doctors are now predicting that a number of hospitals there are "on the brink of crisis," the BBC is reporting.

That's not politics, that's reality.

According to the Royal College of Physicians, a trio of issues - rising demand, increasingly complex cases and falling numbers of hospital beds - is contributing to the destruction of the healthcare system there.

In fact, the college's assessment said urgent care was already being compromised, warning that the situation was going to get worse unless some real workable solutions were implemented.

As is usually the case, especially in the U.S. - where messianic faith in the "government-knows-best" approach is rampant among our entrenched bureaucracy and many of our elected leaders - British paper-pushers are tut-tutting the school's assessment, claiming the country's National Health Service (NHS) can handle any challenge, pending or in the future.

Worsening standards, smaller budgets, less care

Learn more: Natural News* Political Pistachio: British Hospitals Collapsing under weight of failed Socialized Medicine

And this is exactly what Obozo wants for us. I don't care about those lying ads trying to scare seniors about higher costs! I DO NOT want Death Panels and the restrictions placed by this socialist piece of excrement.

 

[Katzndogz]

The hospitals are collapsing because the doctors are leaving.

NHS suffers ‘brain drain’ of doctors - FT.com

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. NHS suffers ‘brain drain’ of doctors - FT.com

The National Health Service is suffering a “brain drain” of doctors as more medics trained at taxpayers’ expense choose to pursue their careers overseas, according to Financial Times research.
Most go to Australia or New Zealand, say recruiters and doctors’ organisations, and data suggest more now choose to stay longer or settle permanently.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Morons, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is not equivalent to the NHS. Are you both liars (by so implying) or willfully ignorant?

In the rare possibility you're both ignorant, see:

Key Features of the Law | HealthCare.gov

 

[Greenbeard]

If you want to get a good look at the future of healthcare in America, compliments of the"Affordable Care Act," the monstrosity reform law known not-so-affectionately known as Obamacare, look across the Atlantic to Great Britain.

Oh good lord.

Reminds me of JFK in 1962:

I understand that there is going to be a program this week against this bill, in which an English physician is going to come and talk about how bad their plans are. It may be, but he ought to talk about it in England, because his plans--because his plans and what they do in England are entirely different.

 

[Mad Scientist]

1962? Medicare wasn't even passed yet. We we different then too.

 

[Greenbeard]

1962? Medicare wasn't even passed yet. We we different then too.

Indeed, it wasn't passed yet. That's why he was giving a speech arguing for its passage.

The point is, anytime anything happens there's some contingent who starts babbling about the ills of the British system. And Kennedy's response remains pitch-perfect: they should talk about it in the U.K. because that's not (ever) what we're doing here.

 

[PatriotPotato]

A problem in Britain is too little state funding; not too much state funding.

 

[ChristinaMathew]

That is something very bad. Now it is the public that is going to suffer because of this.

 

[Political Junky]

The Veteran's Administration in the US is the purest form of Socialism...works great.

 

[longknife]

The Veteran's Administration in the US is the purest form of Socialism...works great.

The VA is probably one of the worst run agency in the federal government!!!

And things are getting worse every day as veterans from earlier years are aging and thousands have returned from Iraq and are returning from Afghanistan.

While it has thousands of paper pushers, it lacks sufficient medical facilities and qualified people to staff them. This makes no sense as, among those returning from the various battlefields, are highly-qualified medical personnel who understand their fellow vets far more than anyone else.

Las Vegas is a perfect example of the VA boondoggle - it has an extremely high rate of vets and retired military personnel but it has taken more than 30 years to build a centralized hospital/medical facility to serve them. [One built several years ago was done so badly that it had to be shut down.] The one just finished is so far north of town that most disabled vets on limited incomes will not be able to get to it without a costly taxi ride.
{most of those are paid by vouchers - at taxpayer expense!]

I'm certain things are far worse in other areas.

And, there is no way to compare the VA medical facilities to Britain's socialized mess.!

 

[longknife]

The Veteran's Administration in the US is the purest form of Socialism...works great.

And there's this just in the news:

VA’s HR chief resigns amid conference scandal

By Rick Maze - Staff writer @ VA’s HR chief resigns amid conference scandal - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times
Posted : Monday Oct 1, 2012 15:03:16 EDT

Two multimillion-dollar conferences for Veterans Affairs Department human resources officials have resulted in the resignation of the agency’s top personnel official, as an internal investigation found excessive spending and evidence that some of those planning the events had improperly accepted gifts from potential vendors.

The report, released Monday by the VA’s Office of Inspector General, found $6.1 million spent on two weeklong conferences at the Orlando Marriott World Center Golf and Spa Resort, held in July and August 2011, with about $762,00 being on “unauthorized,” “unnecessary” or “wasteful” expenses, according to the report.

The report is especially hard on John Sepulveda, the VA assistant secretary for human resources, who “abdicated his responsibilities when he failed to provide proper guidance and oversight to his senior executives,” the report says. Sepulveda has resigned.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

The Royal College of Physicians said the triple effect of rising demand, increasingly complex cases and falling bed numbers was causing problems.

Sorry, where did they say socialism was the cause?

 

[auditor0007]

A problem in Britain is too little state funding; not too much state funding.

The argument is used all the time, that countries with government run healthcare are about to collapse. What they never tell you is that they are only paying half or less compared to what we pay in the US, so they are just underfunded a little bit. What is our excuse?

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

A problem in Britain is too little state funding; not too much state funding.

The argument is used all the time, that countries with government run healthcare are about to collapse. What they never tell you is that they are only paying half or less compared to what we pay in the US, so they are just underfunded a little bit. What is our excuse?

Yeah wasn't Canadian healthcare supposed to be collapsed by now?

 

[michaelschaap]

You make an argument that because the UK's socialized medicine is about to fail, that this means that the Affordable Care Act will fail. The Affordable Care Act is not socialized medicine though. This argument that health care reform is socialized medicine is not a new one. It is, above all, deceptive. President Obama fights the same fight that President Truman fought in 1947. As Medicare is now simply a facet of our American society, The Affordable Care Act will be. I believe that as Medicare took some time to be accepted, The Affordable Care Act will also need some time to be accepted.

Michael

 

[Political Junky]

You make an argument that because the UK's socialized medicine is about to fail, that this means that the Affordable Care Act will fail. The Affordable Care Act is not socialized medicine though. This argument that health care reform is socialized medicine is not a new one. It is, above all, deceptive. President Obama fights the same fight that President Truman fought in 1947. As Medicare is now simply a facet of our American society, The Affordable Care Act will be. I believe that as Medicare took some time to be accepted, The Affordable Care Act will also need some time to be accepted.

Michael

Apparently the identical plan that Willard introduced in Massachusetts is working great.

 

[abu afak]

....#ixzz27s5qqFNe]NHS suffers ‘brain drain’ of doctors - FT.com[/url]

The National Health Service is suffering a “brain drain” of doctors as more medics trained at taxpayers’ expense choose to pursue their careers overseas, according to Financial Times research.
Most go to Australia or New Zealand, say recruiters and doctors’ organisations, and data suggest more now choose to stay longer or settle permanently.

Uh...
Australia and New Zealand ALSO have Universal healthcare, just slightly better Natural-resource economies.
We're one of the few who don't and WE have the highest cost of Medical Care in the World.
We spend 50% more than Norway and 2½ times what the Brits do.


141%: How much more the U.S. spends on health care, per person, than the average OECD nation
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/04/09/number-of-the-week-u-s-spends-141-more-on-health-care/
April 9, 2011

At a time when politicians in Washington are battling over — among other things — the future of the U.S. health-care system, it’s instructive to see just how well that system operates. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, we’re doing a terrible job.

A new report finds that the U.S. spends far More on health care than any of the other 29 OECD nations, and gets Less health for its money. Annual public and private health-care spending in the U.S. stands at $7,538 per person, 2.41 times the OECD average and 51% more than the second-biggest spender, Norway.
Meanwhile, average U.S. life expectancy is 77.9 years, Less than the OECD average of 79.4.

Improving the health-care system could go a long way toward fixing the U.S. government’s finances. The OECD estimates that if the U.S. reached the efficiency level of the best-performing countries, the government could save the equivalent of 2.7% of economic output every year. That’s enough to solve about a third of the country’s budget-deficit problem.

The hard part is figuring out how to make the system work better. Here, the report attempts to derive some guidance from the experience of the most successful countries.

Interestingly, the type of system doesn’t seem to matter much. Countries with state-run systems do about as well on average as countries with private systems. Among the things that do matter: Consumers need to have some skin in the game, through mechanisms such as co-payments; care needs to be well-coordinated among doctors’ offices, hospitals and nursing homes; providers of care need incentives to do a better job, such as pay for performance; and the price and quality of services should be better monitored and easier to see.

Many of those features are included in the health-care law the U.S. passed last year, though much has yet to be implemented. Improvements are undoubtedly possible. Whatever we decide to do, it’s time we did something.