To ration or not

[MaggieMae]

Shared here is William Falk's experience with his aging father. Falk is Editor-in-Chief of THE WEEK magazine:

When my father went back to the hospital a year ago, he was clearly close to the end: His lungs and liver were barely functioning, his abdomen was filling with fluid, and he could no longer lift himself out of bed.

The hospital's doctors nonetheless treated him aggressively, punching a hole in his chest to insert a drainage tube, which quickly led to uncontrolled bleeding, an infection, and a plunge in blood pressure.

Within 12 hours, my father was in a coma, with no chance of recovery, sustained only by a ventilator and a tangle of multiple IV drips. He spent four days in the ICU, until I overcame the resistance of two doctors and had the machines turned off, as per my dad's living will.

Medicare paid upward of $20,000 for these last days of my father's life, during which he received little comfort, moments of agonizing pain and fear, and all the medical care in the world, and then some.

In the historic debate over health care reform now beginning in this country, we will hear much talk of "rationing." If health care is rationed, we'll be told, we may be denied drugs or surgeries or treatments based on cost, effectiveness, or the patient's condition of age. It sounds cold and heartless, except when you consider that the only real alternative to rationing is unlimited medical treatment--including a refusal to "lose" the battle with death even when death is near. Unlimited care, of course, requires unlimited spending, which is not viable.

Rationing in some form is inevitable; the only question is when we'll finally be able to admit to ourselves that even in America, there are limits to everything.

 

[Political Junky]

Shared here is William Falk's experience with his aging father. Falk is Editor-in-Chief of THE WEEK magazine:

When my father went back to the hospital a year ago, he was clearly close to the end: His lungs and liver were barely functioning, his abdomen was filling with fluid, and he could no longer lift himself out of bed.

The hospital's doctors nonetheless treated him aggressively, punching a hole in his chest to insert a drainage tube, which quickly led to uncontrolled bleeding, an infection, and a plunge in blood pressure.

Within 12 hours, my father was in a coma, with no chance of recovery, sustained only by a ventilator and a tangle of multiple IV drips. He spent four days in the ICU, until I overcame the resistance of two doctors and had the machines turned off, as per my dad's living will.

Medicare paid upward of $20,000 for these last days of my father's life, during which he received little comfort, moments of agonizing pain and fear, and all the medical care in the world, and then some.

In the historic debate over health care reform now beginning in this country, we will hear much talk of "rationing." If health care is rationed, we'll be told, we may be denied drugs or surgeries or treatments based on cost, effectiveness, or the patient's condition of age. It sounds cold and heartless, except when you consider that the only real alternative to rationing is unlimited medical treatment--including a refusal to "lose" the battle with death even when death is near. Unlimited care, of course, requires unlimited spending, which is not viable.

Rationing in some form is inevitable; the only question is when we'll finally be able to admit to ourselves that even in America, there are limits to everything.

What happened to your father is not unusual. I have a living will, as he did, to prevent this very thing from happening.
If you want to call denying dramatic efforts to save a person who is surely dying, rationing, then I approve of it.

 

[Nik]

We always ration. Its just whether we fuck over the poor and only give to the rich, or whether we give to those most in need.

 

[strollingbones]

i sure hope all of you with a living will etc realize that it dont mean shit.....first you aint gonna sue...live or die....when you are so close that the living will comes out...you are near the end...you can do all the dnr orders you want....next of kin will be the ones deciding...if the next of kin objects to unplugging you will stay plugged

 

[sealybobo]

Denying someone healthcare because it will cut into profits is the ultimate in rationing.

Or how about denying healthcare because of pre existing conditions?

 

[strollingbones]

as for rationing health care....is this just for the old or will it be for the young....will pro birth people not object to letting little sick premmies die....i would say premmies are a pretty constant drain on the health care system....so now will pro birthers set a keeper weight?

 

[Ravi]

Insurance companies ration now. They decide if they will pay for your treatment or not.

My father was in the hospital for two weeks on Medicare and had excellent care. Not only that he was cured of his problem...he very easily could have died. He also got a visiting nurse and successful follow up surgery.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Shared here is William Falk's experience with his aging father. Falk is Editor-in-Chief of THE WEEK magazine:

When my father went back to the hospital a year ago, he was clearly close to the end: His lungs and liver were barely functioning, his abdomen was filling with fluid, and he could no longer lift himself out of bed.

The hospital's doctors nonetheless treated him aggressively, punching a hole in his chest to insert a drainage tube, which quickly led to uncontrolled bleeding, an infection, and a plunge in blood pressure.

Within 12 hours, my father was in a coma, with no chance of recovery, sustained only by a ventilator and a tangle of multiple IV drips. He spent four days in the ICU, until I overcame the resistance of two doctors and had the machines turned off, as per my dad's living will.

Medicare paid upward of $20,000 for these last days of my father's life, during which he received little comfort, moments of agonizing pain and fear, and all the medical care in the world, and then some.

In the historic debate over health care reform now beginning in this country, we will hear much talk of "rationing." If health care is rationed, we'll be told, we may be denied drugs or surgeries or treatments based on cost, effectiveness, or the patient's condition of age. It sounds cold and heartless, except when you consider that the only real alternative to rationing is unlimited medical treatment--including a refusal to "lose" the battle with death even when death is near. Unlimited care, of course, requires unlimited spending, which is not viable.

Rationing in some form is inevitable; the only question is when we'll finally be able to admit to ourselves that even in America, there are limits to everything.

Once one is able to state the problem, it becomes so easy to prove the thesis.

This is not the kind of example of rationing that most are opposed to.
This is:
In the Province of Quebec, patients suffering from serious incontinence - ie, they have to aller aux toilettes jusqu’� 12 fois par nuit (that’s 12 times a night) - have to wait three years for a half-hour operation. That’s 3 years times 365 nights times 12 trips to the bathroom.
The central point about socialized medicine is that restricting access is the only means of controlling costs.
In Canada, Citizens Wait 3 Years For A Half Hour Surgery To Fix Incontinence | KXNet.com North Dakota News

Or this:
A woman of 61 was refused a routine heart operation by a hard-up NHS trust for being too old.
Dorothy Simpson suffers from an irregular heartbeat and is at increased risk of a stroke. But health chiefs refused to allow the procedure which was recommended by her specialist.
The school secretary was stunned by the ruling.
"I can't believe that at 61 I'm too old for this operation
NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery | Mail Online

Or this:
"Nice refuses, on grounds of cost, to recommend some drugs for patients with advanced kidney cancer. The consultants, who include the directors of oncology at Britain’s two biggest cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London and Christie hospital in Manchester, claim there is enough money in the NHS to pay for the drugs. "
Top doctors slam NHS drug rationing

 

[RodISHI]

I think it should always remain on a case by case decision on care and treatment. I've said this before yet one more time...While out to see my dad who recently had heart surgery a neighbor lady was telling me about her mother in law with advanced Alzheimer's receiving heart surgery that could extend her life up to fifteen to twenty years. The woman does not know who she is now why extend her misery? On the other hand dad has had cancer, an aortic aneurysm the size of a grown adult's fist, heart surgery twice in the last two months and he has hope of feeling half normal soon, old but still a certain quality of life worth living. Each family and person should be able to make those decisions based on their own circumstances. It would be wrong to take those choices away from the individual....people are not robots or machinery that can be simply dismissed because of cost or inconvenience.

 

[Nik]

Shared here is William Falk's experience with his aging father. Falk is Editor-in-Chief of THE WEEK magazine:

When my father went back to the hospital a year ago, he was clearly close to the end: His lungs and liver were barely functioning, his abdomen was filling with fluid, and he could no longer lift himself out of bed.

The hospital's doctors nonetheless treated him aggressively, punching a hole in his chest to insert a drainage tube, which quickly led to uncontrolled bleeding, an infection, and a plunge in blood pressure.

Within 12 hours, my father was in a coma, with no chance of recovery, sustained only by a ventilator and a tangle of multiple IV drips. He spent four days in the ICU, until I overcame the resistance of two doctors and had the machines turned off, as per my dad's living will.

Medicare paid upward of $20,000 for these last days of my father's life, during which he received little comfort, moments of agonizing pain and fear, and all the medical care in the world, and then some.

In the historic debate over health care reform now beginning in this country, we will hear much talk of "rationing." If health care is rationed, we'll be told, we may be denied drugs or surgeries or treatments based on cost, effectiveness, or the patient's condition of age. It sounds cold and heartless, except when you consider that the only real alternative to rationing is unlimited medical treatment--including a refusal to "lose" the battle with death even when death is near. Unlimited care, of course, requires unlimited spending, which is not viable.

Rationing in some form is inevitable; the only question is when we'll finally be able to admit to ourselves that even in America, there are limits to everything.

Once one is able to state the problem, it becomes so easy to prove the thesis.

This is not the kind of example of rationing that most are opposed to.
This is:
In the Province of Quebec, patients suffering from serious incontinence - ie, they have to aller aux toilettes jusqu’� 12 fois par nuit (that’s 12 times a night) - have to wait three years for a half-hour operation. That’s 3 years times 365 nights times 12 trips to the bathroom.
The central point about socialized medicine is that restricting access is the only means of controlling costs.
In Canada, Citizens Wait 3 Years For A Half Hour Surgery To Fix Incontinence | KXNet.com North Dakota News

Or this:
A woman of 61 was refused a routine heart operation by a hard-up NHS trust for being too old.
Dorothy Simpson suffers from an irregular heartbeat and is at increased risk of a stroke. But health chiefs refused to allow the procedure which was recommended by her specialist.
The school secretary was stunned by the ruling.
"I can't believe that at 61 I'm too old for this operation
NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery | Mail Online

Or this:
"Nice refuses, on grounds of cost, to recommend some drugs for patients with advanced kidney cancer. The consultants, who include the directors of oncology at Britain’s two biggest cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London and Christie hospital in Manchester, claim there is enough money in the NHS to pay for the drugs. "
Top doctors slam NHS drug rationing

My wife and I learned two years ago that I had contracted Chronic Hep C. As the disease ravaged my body and mind, I had to take a break from my I.T. carer of over 15 years. Instead of getting better I developed End Stage Liver Disease. My expensive cobra and medications eat away at my limited social security disability. My wife and I are in our mid 40's were making a very respectable income. My time is running out waiting for a new liver. (I don't have the cash like Steven Jobs obviously does.) I was turned down by the cobra extension because one has to be fired or quit. I was placed on medical leave as a favor from my employer. They did so to give me hope of retaining my career once I am better. So now my cobra will be running out. Social Security does not even allow me to beg for change which I would gladly do to help my wife and daughters through this sad tragedy. My Cobra is running out, and then I have nothing. I started working when I was 12, and paid taxes all those years. When my Cobra ends many doors will be closed to me regarding my pending transplant. Less or even no treatments due to high medical costs will further speed up my passing. Until then, I will have to set and watch my loved ones and friends watch me die with no remaining dignity left. Watching my family them struggle over my medications and argue with insurance companies. Seeing the torment my family endures brings my soul so much sorrow. Even more than my disease. Even my private disability company used the "Pre-existing Condition" clause to cut their ties.

am a single parent who was layed off from Bank of America in 2007. I was offered to stay on the company's medical plan but the premium was over $1300 a month. So I opted for COBRA as it was $770 a month. After Cobra ran out, I was denied medical insurance for pre-existing conditions. I had paid medical premiums non-stop for 40 years and now I cannot get quality medical insurance. I'm 61 and my son is 17. I am very healthy for my age and need a major medical plan. I've tried these guaranteed plans and they hardly cover the expense. My bills for preventative care are barely discounted and resulted in me putting off my annual Mammography. A recent blood test showed low iron and I'll need special tests to determine the cause, but I cannot afford them. Please support health care reform. I'm just one of millions who is in desperate need. My bills are over $15,000! God Bless.

Dear President Obama, Four years ago my only sister died. Maybe she was murdered, maybe she had an accident: it looks as if we’ll never know. My mother has struggled with her mental health for years, but Wendy’s death destroyed her. She took so many psyciatric medications that the side effects gave her heart failure. She’s been in and out of hospitals. She takes shock therapy. It’s clear that someone is going to need to come live near her and look after her as she ages. And I’m the only one left. But, there’s a catch: insurance. I’ve lived in Canada for a decade and am covered by the public insurance here – and thank God. I haven’t had to struggle with insurance as I fought my own battle with trigeminal neuralgia, a debilitating and painful neurological disease. My out-of-pocket medical costs last year – a year in which I had brain surgery and a baby! – were less than $500, mostly related to cleaning my teeth. But I know I can’t go home to America, to care for my mother. No insurance company would touch me. (I am a novelist by trade, so would have no employer insurance.) To go without insurance would be to risk my life and the financial security of my husband and children. It’s breaking my heart. And I think my mother may well die years early than she should if I can’t help her. Can you help us? Erin Bow Kitchener, Ontario

Health Care Stories for America | BarackObama.com

Thousands of them on that website.

 

[Political Junky]

Shared here is William Falk's experience with his aging father. Falk is Editor-in-Chief of THE WEEK magazine:

When my father went back to the hospital a year ago, he was clearly close to the end: His lungs and liver were barely functioning, his abdomen was filling with fluid, and he could no longer lift himself out of bed.

The hospital's doctors nonetheless treated him aggressively, punching a hole in his chest to insert a drainage tube, which quickly led to uncontrolled bleeding, an infection, and a plunge in blood pressure.

Within 12 hours, my father was in a coma, with no chance of recovery, sustained only by a ventilator and a tangle of multiple IV drips. He spent four days in the ICU, until I overcame the resistance of two doctors and had the machines turned off, as per my dad's living will.

Medicare paid upward of $20,000 for these last days of my father's life, during which he received little comfort, moments of agonizing pain and fear, and all the medical care in the world, and then some.

In the historic debate over health care reform now beginning in this country, we will hear much talk of "rationing." If health care is rationed, we'll be told, we may be denied drugs or surgeries or treatments based on cost, effectiveness, or the patient's condition of age. It sounds cold and heartless, except when you consider that the only real alternative to rationing is unlimited medical treatment--including a refusal to "lose" the battle with death even when death is near. Unlimited care, of course, requires unlimited spending, which is not viable.

Rationing in some form is inevitable; the only question is when we'll finally be able to admit to ourselves that even in America, there are limits to everything.

Once one is able to state the problem, it becomes so easy to prove the thesis.

This is not the kind of example of rationing that most are opposed to.
This is:
In the Province of Quebec, patients suffering from serious incontinence - ie, they have to aller aux toilettes jusqu’� 12 fois par nuit (that’s 12 times a night) - have to wait three years for a half-hour operation. That’s 3 years times 365 nights times 12 trips to the bathroom.
The central point about socialized medicine is that restricting access is the only means of controlling costs.
In Canada, Citizens Wait 3 Years For A Half Hour Surgery To Fix Incontinence | KXNet.com North Dakota News

Or this:
A woman of 61 was refused a routine heart operation by a hard-up NHS trust for being too old.
Dorothy Simpson suffers from an irregular heartbeat and is at increased risk of a stroke. But health chiefs refused to allow the procedure which was recommended by her specialist.
The school secretary was stunned by the ruling.
"I can't believe that at 61 I'm too old for this operation
NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery | Mail Online

Or this:
"Nice refuses, on grounds of cost, to recommend some drugs for patients with advanced kidney cancer. The consultants, who include the directors of oncology at Britain’s two biggest cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London and Christie hospital in Manchester, claim there is enough money in the NHS to pay for the drugs. "
Top doctors slam NHS drug rationing

You have no problem with private insurance companies in the US denying treatments because of pre-existing conditions, or other technicalities?
Ask most Canadians if they'd give up their public healthcare .... you'd get a resounding "NO". Why doesn't the conservative government in Canada do away with public healthcare?
Insurance and pharmaceutical companies in the US have done quite a job with their propaganda.

 

[Political Junky]

Shared here is William Falk's experience with his aging father. Falk is Editor-in-Chief of THE WEEK magazine:

When my father went back to the hospital a year ago, he was clearly close to the end: His lungs and liver were barely functioning, his abdomen was filling with fluid, and he could no longer lift himself out of bed.

The hospital's doctors nonetheless treated him aggressively, punching a hole in his chest to insert a drainage tube, which quickly led to uncontrolled bleeding, an infection, and a plunge in blood pressure.

Within 12 hours, my father was in a coma, with no chance of recovery, sustained only by a ventilator and a tangle of multiple IV drips. He spent four days in the ICU, until I overcame the resistance of two doctors and had the machines turned off, as per my dad's living will.

Medicare paid upward of $20,000 for these last days of my father's life, during which he received little comfort, moments of agonizing pain and fear, and all the medical care in the world, and then some.

In the historic debate over health care reform now beginning in this country, we will hear much talk of "rationing." If health care is rationed, we'll be told, we may be denied drugs or surgeries or treatments based on cost, effectiveness, or the patient's condition of age. It sounds cold and heartless, except when you consider that the only real alternative to rationing is unlimited medical treatment--including a refusal to "lose" the battle with death even when death is near. Unlimited care, of course, requires unlimited spending, which is not viable.

Rationing in some form is inevitable; the only question is when we'll finally be able to admit to ourselves that even in America, there are limits to everything.

Once one is able to state the problem, it becomes so easy to prove the thesis.

This is not the kind of example of rationing that most are opposed to.
This is:
In the Province of Quebec, patients suffering from serious incontinence - ie, they have to aller aux toilettes jusqu’� 12 fois par nuit (that’s 12 times a night) - have to wait three years for a half-hour operation. That’s 3 years times 365 nights times 12 trips to the bathroom.
The central point about socialized medicine is that restricting access is the only means of controlling costs.
In Canada, Citizens Wait 3 Years For A Half Hour Surgery To Fix Incontinence | KXNet.com North Dakota News

Or this:
A woman of 61 was refused a routine heart operation by a hard-up NHS trust for being too old.
Dorothy Simpson suffers from an irregular heartbeat and is at increased risk of a stroke. But health chiefs refused to allow the procedure which was recommended by her specialist.
The school secretary was stunned by the ruling.
"I can't believe that at 61 I'm too old for this operation
NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery | Mail Online

Or this:
"Nice refuses, on grounds of cost, to recommend some drugs for patients with advanced kidney cancer. The consultants, who include the directors of oncology at Britain’s two biggest cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London and Christie hospital in Manchester, claim there is enough money in the NHS to pay for the drugs. "
Top doctors slam NHS drug rationing

am a single parent who was layed off from Bank of America in 2007. I was offered to stay on the company's medical plan but the premium was over $1300 a month. So I opted for COBRA as it was $770 a month. After Cobra ran out, I was denied medical insurance for pre-existing conditions. I had paid medical premiums non-stop for 40 years and now I cannot get quality medical insurance. I'm 61 and my son is 17. I am very healthy for my age and need a major medical plan. I've tried these guaranteed plans and they hardly cover the expense. My bills for preventative care are barely discounted and resulted in me putting off my annual Mammography. A recent blood test showed low iron and I'll need special tests to determine the cause, but I cannot afford them. Please support health care reform. I'm just one of millions who is in desperate need. My bills are over $15,000! God Bless.

Dear President Obama, Four years ago my only sister died. Maybe she was murdered, maybe she had an accident: it looks as if we’ll never know. My mother has struggled with her mental health for years, but Wendy’s death destroyed her. She took so many psyciatric medications that the side effects gave her heart failure. She’s been in and out of hospitals. She takes shock therapy. It’s clear that someone is going to need to come live near her and look after her as she ages. And I’m the only one left. But, there’s a catch: insurance. I’ve lived in Canada for a decade and am covered by the public insurance here – and thank God. I haven’t had to struggle with insurance as I fought my own battle with trigeminal neuralgia, a debilitating and painful neurological disease. My out-of-pocket medical costs last year – a year in which I had brain surgery and a baby! – were less than $500, mostly related to cleaning my teeth. But I know I can’t go home to America, to care for my mother. No insurance company would touch me. (I am a novelist by trade, so would have no employer insurance.) To go without insurance would be to risk my life and the financial security of my husband and children. It’s breaking my heart. And I think my mother may well die years early than she should if I can’t help her. Can you help us? Erin Bow Kitchener, Ontario

Health Care Stories for America | BarackObama.com

Thousands of them on that website.

Thanks for these examples of how America has failed its citizens.

 

[Nik]

Shared here is William Falk's experience with his aging father. Falk is Editor-in-Chief of THE WEEK magazine:

When my father went back to the hospital a year ago, he was clearly close to the end: His lungs and liver were barely functioning, his abdomen was filling with fluid, and he could no longer lift himself out of bed.

The hospital's doctors nonetheless treated him aggressively, punching a hole in his chest to insert a drainage tube, which quickly led to uncontrolled bleeding, an infection, and a plunge in blood pressure.

Within 12 hours, my father was in a coma, with no chance of recovery, sustained only by a ventilator and a tangle of multiple IV drips. He spent four days in the ICU, until I overcame the resistance of two doctors and had the machines turned off, as per my dad's living will.

Medicare paid upward of $20,000 for these last days of my father's life, during which he received little comfort, moments of agonizing pain and fear, and all the medical care in the world, and then some.

In the historic debate over health care reform now beginning in this country, we will hear much talk of "rationing." If health care is rationed, we'll be told, we may be denied drugs or surgeries or treatments based on cost, effectiveness, or the patient's condition of age. It sounds cold and heartless, except when you consider that the only real alternative to rationing is unlimited medical treatment--including a refusal to "lose" the battle with death even when death is near. Unlimited care, of course, requires unlimited spending, which is not viable.

Rationing in some form is inevitable; the only question is when we'll finally be able to admit to ourselves that even in America, there are limits to everything.

Once one is able to state the problem, it becomes so easy to prove the thesis.

This is not the kind of example of rationing that most are opposed to.
This is:
In the Province of Quebec, patients suffering from serious incontinence - ie, they have to aller aux toilettes jusqu’� 12 fois par nuit (that’s 12 times a night) - have to wait three years for a half-hour operation. That’s 3 years times 365 nights times 12 trips to the bathroom.
The central point about socialized medicine is that restricting access is the only means of controlling costs.
In Canada, Citizens Wait 3 Years For A Half Hour Surgery To Fix Incontinence | KXNet.com North Dakota News

Or this:
A woman of 61 was refused a routine heart operation by a hard-up NHS trust for being too old.
Dorothy Simpson suffers from an irregular heartbeat and is at increased risk of a stroke. But health chiefs refused to allow the procedure which was recommended by her specialist.
The school secretary was stunned by the ruling.
"I can't believe that at 61 I'm too old for this operation
NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery | Mail Online

Or this:
"Nice refuses, on grounds of cost, to recommend some drugs for patients with advanced kidney cancer. The consultants, who include the directors of oncology at Britain’s two biggest cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London and Christie hospital in Manchester, claim there is enough money in the NHS to pay for the drugs. "
Top doctors slam NHS drug rationing

You have no problem with private insurance companies in the US denying treatments because of pre-existing conditions, or other technicalities?
Ask most Canadians if they'd give up their public healthcare .... you'd get a resounding "NO". Why doesn't the conservative government in Canada do away with public healthcare?
Insurance and pharmaceutical companies in the US have done quite a job with their propaganda.

Thats one of the more interesting facts about this. For all the condemnations of NHS that rightwingers like to point out, nobody is talking about getting rid of the NHS in Britain, Canada, or any other first world country that has nationalized healthcare. Even the rightwingers in those countries support it. This is why Republicans are so dead set against it, because theyknow that once people get a taste of it, Republicans will never be able to sell them on the failed idea of private healthcare again.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Once one is able to state the problem, it becomes so easy to prove the thesis.

This is not the kind of example of rationing that most are opposed to.
This is:
In the Province of Quebec, patients suffering from serious incontinence - ie, they have to aller aux toilettes jusqu’� 12 fois par nuit (that’s 12 times a night) - have to wait three years for a half-hour operation. That’s 3 years times 365 nights times 12 trips to the bathroom.
The central point about socialized medicine is that restricting access is the only means of controlling costs.
In Canada, Citizens Wait 3 Years For A Half Hour Surgery To Fix Incontinence | KXNet.com North Dakota News

Or this:
A woman of 61 was refused a routine heart operation by a hard-up NHS trust for being too old.
Dorothy Simpson suffers from an irregular heartbeat and is at increased risk of a stroke. But health chiefs refused to allow the procedure which was recommended by her specialist.
The school secretary was stunned by the ruling.
"I can't believe that at 61 I'm too old for this operation
NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery | Mail Online

Or this:
"Nice refuses, on grounds of cost, to recommend some drugs for patients with advanced kidney cancer. The consultants, who include the directors of oncology at Britain’s two biggest cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London and Christie hospital in Manchester, claim there is enough money in the NHS to pay for the drugs. "
Top doctors slam NHS drug rationing

Dear President Obama, Four years ago my only sister died. Maybe she was murdered, maybe she had an accident: it looks as if we’ll never know. My mother has struggled with her mental health for years, but Wendy’s death destroyed her. She took so many psyciatric medications that the side effects gave her heart failure. She’s been in and out of hospitals. She takes shock therapy. It’s clear that someone is going to need to come live near her and look after her as she ages. And I’m the only one left. But, there’s a catch: insurance. I’ve lived in Canada for a decade and am covered by the public insurance here – and thank God. I haven’t had to struggle with insurance as I fought my own battle with trigeminal neuralgia, a debilitating and painful neurological disease. My out-of-pocket medical costs last year – a year in which I had brain surgery and a baby! – were less than $500, mostly related to cleaning my teeth. But I know I can’t go home to America, to care for my mother. No insurance company would touch me. (I am a novelist by trade, so would have no employer insurance.) To go without insurance would be to risk my life and the financial security of my husband and children. It’s breaking my heart. And I think my mother may well die years early than she should if I can’t help her. Can you help us? Erin Bow Kitchener, Ontario

Health Care Stories for America | BarackObama.com

Thousands of them on that website.

Thanks for these examples of how America has failed its citizens.

How about putting your dinaro where you put your dinner, and tell me which country you'll be moving to.

Read and repent:


1. “…while the numbers clearly show that people are happier with their own health care than with the system as a whole, there is no dimension with which their happier than the quality of care they personally receive…a mere 15 percent complain about the quality of care they receive.”.(New England Journal of Medicine)
Health Beat: The Quality Question

2. “…when one digs deep enough, one finds that only 8 million folks can be classified as "chronically uninsured;" that's still a problem, of course, but a much more manageable one, and puts the lie to the canard that our system is irretrievably broken.”
InsureBlog: Vindicated!

“Once you whittle it down, you start to realize that the number of hard-core uninsured who are citizens is in fact fairly small — perhaps half the reported 47 million or less. (about 7.6%)”
IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- The '47 Million Uninsured' Myth

3. “The biggest fallacy of the Obama healthcare plan is that it would cover every America. It wouldn’t. It would provide the option of health care, but it would still cost money and I suspect that lots of those uninsured adults between 18-34 would still rather spend the money on something else. It wouldn’t do any more to insure children than is already being done independently of his plan.”
The Myth of the Uninsured American : Conservative Blog: Urban Conservative 2.0 - Conservative News & Politics


4. "If I lived in New Zealand, I would be dead.
The American health-care system may be a crazy mess, but it is the prime mover in the global ecology of medical treatment, creating the world’s biggest market for new drugs and devices. Even as we argue about whether or how our health-care system should change, most Americans take for granted our access to the best available cancer treatments—including the one that arguably saved my life. "
My Drug Problem - The Atlantic (March 2009)

5. "However, 89 percent were satisfied with their own health care quality and 57 percent with their personal costs. Losing insurance is a concern for 56 percent of respondents with private care, and 60 percent of those with any form of health coverage worried about their ability to afford insurance over the next few years.
Support for universal government-provided coverage fell further when the survey suggested the possibility of higher costs or taxes (35 percent), waiting lists (33 percent), limited choice of doctors (28 percent), or loss of coverage for some treatments (18 percent). ABC News' coverage did not call any of these a "significant hurdle" for supporters of universal coverage to overcome.
News Media Misreport Health Survey - by Joseph Coletti - Health Care News


6. For instance, while 88 percent say their coverage overall is excellent or good, that includes just 33 percent who call it "excellent." While 57 percent are satisfied with their own costs, just 23 percent are very satisfied. And even on overall quality of care, while 89 percent are satisfied, fewer are very satisfied, 52 percent.
As Health Care Costs Take a Toll, Some Changes Win Broad Backing - ABC News

 

[PoliticalChic]

Shared here is William Falk's experience with his aging father. Falk is Editor-in-Chief of THE WEEK magazine:

When my father went back to the hospital a year ago, he was clearly close to the end: His lungs and liver were barely functioning, his abdomen was filling with fluid, and he could no longer lift himself out of bed.

The hospital's doctors nonetheless treated him aggressively, punching a hole in his chest to insert a drainage tube, which quickly led to uncontrolled bleeding, an infection, and a plunge in blood pressure.

Within 12 hours, my father was in a coma, with no chance of recovery, sustained only by a ventilator and a tangle of multiple IV drips. He spent four days in the ICU, until I overcame the resistance of two doctors and had the machines turned off, as per my dad's living will.

Medicare paid upward of $20,000 for these last days of my father's life, during which he received little comfort, moments of agonizing pain and fear, and all the medical care in the world, and then some.

In the historic debate over health care reform now beginning in this country, we will hear much talk of "rationing." If health care is rationed, we'll be told, we may be denied drugs or surgeries or treatments based on cost, effectiveness, or the patient's condition of age. It sounds cold and heartless, except when you consider that the only real alternative to rationing is unlimited medical treatment--including a refusal to "lose" the battle with death even when death is near. Unlimited care, of course, requires unlimited spending, which is not viable.

Rationing in some form is inevitable; the only question is when we'll finally be able to admit to ourselves that even in America, there are limits to everything.

Once one is able to state the problem, it becomes so easy to prove the thesis.

This is not the kind of example of rationing that most are opposed to.
This is:
In the Province of Quebec, patients suffering from serious incontinence - ie, they have to aller aux toilettes jusqu’� 12 fois par nuit (that’s 12 times a night) - have to wait three years for a half-hour operation. That’s 3 years times 365 nights times 12 trips to the bathroom.
The central point about socialized medicine is that restricting access is the only means of controlling costs.
In Canada, Citizens Wait 3 Years For A Half Hour Surgery To Fix Incontinence | KXNet.com North Dakota News

Or this:
A woman of 61 was refused a routine heart operation by a hard-up NHS trust for being too old.
Dorothy Simpson suffers from an irregular heartbeat and is at increased risk of a stroke. But health chiefs refused to allow the procedure which was recommended by her specialist.
The school secretary was stunned by the ruling.
"I can't believe that at 61 I'm too old for this operation
NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery | Mail Online

Or this:
"Nice refuses, on grounds of cost, to recommend some drugs for patients with advanced kidney cancer. The consultants, who include the directors of oncology at Britain’s two biggest cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London and Christie hospital in Manchester, claim there is enough money in the NHS to pay for the drugs. "
Top doctors slam NHS drug rationing

You have no problem with private insurance companies in the US denying treatments because of pre-existing conditions, or other technicalities?
Ask most Canadians if they'd give up their public healthcare .... you'd get a resounding "NO". Why doesn't the conservative government in Canada do away with public healthcare?
Insurance and pharmaceutical companies in the US have done quite a job with their propaganda.

National Healthcare in the United States? Why don't you have a little consideration for all the Canadians who come here for there healthcare?

Where will they go if we socialize healthcare?

 

[Coyote]

You have no problem with private insurance companies in the US denying treatments because of pre-existing conditions, or other technicalities?
Ask most Canadians if they'd give up their public healthcare .... you'd get a resounding "NO". Why doesn't the conservative government in Canada do away with public healthcare?
Insurance and pharmaceutical companies in the US have done quite a job with their propaganda.

Exactly.

Rationing exists now. If you have a pre-existing condition, if you don't have health insurance - your care will be rationed. If you do have health insurance - your care will still be rationed.

The other thing is - the use of "testimonials" - emotional stories to try an make a point - but are these stories the norm or the exception?

Like you note - Canadians and Brits may complain about their healthcare system - but when asked if they want the sort of system we have, almost to a man they say "no".

It seems like all of these rationing examples use the British and Canadian systems for comparison. These countries both utilize one-payer systems right? All of these arguments - these scare stories - are aimed at a one-payer system but that option isn't even on the table for discussion. There are other countries with other models involving mixtures of public/private insurance that are being ignored. Those systems may have rationing of some sort but they have the option for private expenditures if the person can afford it. Which is pretty much what we have - if your insurance won't cover it, and you have the money - you can do it. It's just that, unlike those other systems - ours leaves many people uncovered or insufficiently covered.

Why is that? Maybe they aren't scary enough for opponents to use?

NPR did an interesting series on healthcare in Europe - a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the different systems and how their citizens felt about it. It's rather enlightening.

 

[Political Junky]

Once one is able to state the problem, it becomes so easy to prove the thesis.

This is not the kind of example of rationing that most are opposed to.
This is:
In the Province of Quebec, patients suffering from serious incontinence - ie, they have to aller aux toilettes jusqu’� 12 fois par nuit (that’s 12 times a night) - have to wait three years for a half-hour operation. That’s 3 years times 365 nights times 12 trips to the bathroom.
The central point about socialized medicine is that restricting access is the only means of controlling costs.
In Canada, Citizens Wait 3 Years For A Half Hour Surgery To Fix Incontinence | KXNet.com North Dakota News

Or this:
A woman of 61 was refused a routine heart operation by a hard-up NHS trust for being too old.
Dorothy Simpson suffers from an irregular heartbeat and is at increased risk of a stroke. But health chiefs refused to allow the procedure which was recommended by her specialist.
The school secretary was stunned by the ruling.
"I can't believe that at 61 I'm too old for this operation
NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery | Mail Online

Or this:
"Nice refuses, on grounds of cost, to recommend some drugs for patients with advanced kidney cancer. The consultants, who include the directors of oncology at Britain’s two biggest cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London and Christie hospital in Manchester, claim there is enough money in the NHS to pay for the drugs. "
Top doctors slam NHS drug rationing

You have no problem with private insurance companies in the US denying treatments because of pre-existing conditions, or other technicalities?
Ask most Canadians if they'd give up their public healthcare .... you'd get a resounding "NO". Why doesn't the conservative government in Canada do away with public healthcare?
Insurance and pharmaceutical companies in the US have done quite a job with their propaganda.

National Healthcare in the United States? Why don't you have a little consideration for all the Canadians who come here for there healthcare?

Where will they go if we socialize healthcare?

Not that many Canadians come here for medical care. If you have other information, please share it here.

 

[Nik]

Once one is able to state the problem, it becomes so easy to prove the thesis.

This is not the kind of example of rationing that most are opposed to.
This is:
In the Province of Quebec, patients suffering from serious incontinence - ie, they have to aller aux toilettes jusqu’� 12 fois par nuit (that’s 12 times a night) - have to wait three years for a half-hour operation. That’s 3 years times 365 nights times 12 trips to the bathroom.
The central point about socialized medicine is that restricting access is the only means of controlling costs.
In Canada, Citizens Wait 3 Years For A Half Hour Surgery To Fix Incontinence | KXNet.com North Dakota News

Or this:
A woman of 61 was refused a routine heart operation by a hard-up NHS trust for being too old.
Dorothy Simpson suffers from an irregular heartbeat and is at increased risk of a stroke. But health chiefs refused to allow the procedure which was recommended by her specialist.
The school secretary was stunned by the ruling.
"I can't believe that at 61 I'm too old for this operation
NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery | Mail Online

Or this:
"Nice refuses, on grounds of cost, to recommend some drugs for patients with advanced kidney cancer. The consultants, who include the directors of oncology at Britain’s two biggest cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London and Christie hospital in Manchester, claim there is enough money in the NHS to pay for the drugs. "
Top doctors slam NHS drug rationing

You have no problem with private insurance companies in the US denying treatments because of pre-existing conditions, or other technicalities?
Ask most Canadians if they'd give up their public healthcare .... you'd get a resounding "NO". Why doesn't the conservative government in Canada do away with public healthcare?
Insurance and pharmaceutical companies in the US have done quite a job with their propaganda.

National Healthcare in the United States? Why don't you have a little consideration for all the Canadians who come here for there healthcare?

Where will they go if we socialize healthcare?

And think about all those American seniors who won't go to Canada because they can't afford American prescriptions. Won't someone think of the business Canada will lose?

 

[Nik]

Health Care Stories for America | BarackObama.com

Thousands of them on that website.

Thanks for these examples of how America has failed its citizens.

How about putting your dinaro where you put your dinner, and tell me which country you'll be moving to.

Read and repent:


1. “…while the numbers clearly show that people are happier with their own health care than with the system as a whole, there is no dimension with which their happier than the quality of care they personally receive…a mere 15 percent complain about the quality of care they receive.”.(New England Journal of Medicine)
Health Beat: The Quality Question

2. “…when one digs deep enough, one finds that only 8 million folks can be classified as "chronically uninsured;" that's still a problem, of course, but a much more manageable one, and puts the lie to the canard that our system is irretrievably broken.”
InsureBlog: Vindicated!

“Once you whittle it down, you start to realize that the number of hard-core uninsured who are citizens is in fact fairly small — perhaps half the reported 47 million or less. (about 7.6%)”
IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- The '47 Million Uninsured' Myth

3. “The biggest fallacy of the Obama healthcare plan is that it would cover every America. It wouldn’t. It would provide the option of health care, but it would still cost money and I suspect that lots of those uninsured adults between 18-34 would still rather spend the money on something else. It wouldn’t do any more to insure children than is already being done independently of his plan.”
The Myth of the Uninsured American : Conservative Blog: Urban Conservative 2.0 - Conservative News & Politics


4. "If I lived in New Zealand, I would be dead.
The American health-care system may be a crazy mess, but it is the prime mover in the global ecology of medical treatment, creating the world’s biggest market for new drugs and devices. Even as we argue about whether or how our health-care system should change, most Americans take for granted our access to the best available cancer treatments—including the one that arguably saved my life. "
My Drug Problem - The Atlantic (March 2009)

5. "However, 89 percent were satisfied with their own health care quality and 57 percent with their personal costs. Losing insurance is a concern for 56 percent of respondents with private care, and 60 percent of those with any form of health coverage worried about their ability to afford insurance over the next few years.
Support for universal government-provided coverage fell further when the survey suggested the possibility of higher costs or taxes (35 percent), waiting lists (33 percent), limited choice of doctors (28 percent), or loss of coverage for some treatments (18 percent). ABC News' coverage did not call any of these a "significant hurdle" for supporters of universal coverage to overcome.
News Media Misreport Health Survey - by Joseph Coletti - Health Care News


6. For instance, while 88 percent say their coverage overall is excellent or good, that includes just 33 percent who call it "excellent." While 57 percent are satisfied with their own costs, just 23 percent are very satisfied. And even on overall quality of care, while 89 percent are satisfied, fewer are very satisfied, 52 percent.
As Health Care Costs Take a Toll, Some Changes Win Broad Backing - ABC News

From one of your links:

Costs in the nation's health care system are ensnaring millions more Americans: One in four report problems paying their medical bills, and nearly three in 10 -- rising to nearly half of women with children -- have put off treatment because of the cost, often despite a serious illness or condition. Both are new highs in polls dating back a decade or more.

Sure is a ringing endorsement of the American system! Our system is so great 30% of our populace puts off treatments because of cost!

 

[PoliticalChic]

Not that many Canadians come here for medical care. If you have other information, please share it here.

"Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux—a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body—and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment. But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin’s insurance didn’t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies—in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada.

She represents a dramatic new trend in Canadian health-care advocacy: finding the treatment you need in another country, and then fighting Canadian bureaucrats (and often suing) to get them to pick up the tab."

"Rick Baker helps people, and sometimes even saves lives. He describes a man who had a seizure and received a diagnosis of epilepsy. Dissatisfied with the opinion—he had no family history of epilepsy, but he did have constant headaches and nausea, which aren’t usually seen in the disorder—the man requested an MRI. The government told him that the wait would be four and a half months. So he went to Baker, who arranged to have the MRI done within 24 hours—and who, after the test discovered a brain tumor, arranged surgery within a few weeks.

Baker isn’t a neurosurgeon or even a doctor. He’s a medical broker, one member of a private sector that is rushing in to address the inadequacies of Canada’s government care. Canadians pay him to set up surgical procedures, diagnostic tests, and specialist consultations, privately and quickly."
Timely Medical Alternatives, has helped—people like the elderly woman who needed vascular surgery for a major artery in her abdomen and was promised prompt care by one of the most senior bureaucrats in the government, who never called back. “Her doctor told her she’s going to die,” Baker remembers. So Timely got her surgery in a couple of days, in Washington State. "
The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care by David Gratzer, City Journal Summer 2007

While these may not represent a statistic, as you requested, the article is very informative vis-a-vis Canadians making arangements to get help outside of Canada, both in the United States.

I'd be interested in your perspective on the article.