UK Health care dying

[Luna1968]

This is interesting. Thought i would share.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallyp...-medicare-for-all-is-collapsing/#52d380e536b8

 

[Victorian Gray]

This is interesting. Thought i would share.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallyp...-medicare-for-all-is-collapsing/#52d380e536b8

The NHS is *not* medicare for all. It's an actual publicly controlled health care system. The closest thing the US has to it would the the VA medical system which has it's own doctors and hospitals.

 

[TheVrolok]

The NHS certainly has it's own problems, that said, tough decisions do need to be made on a population level. Not everyone can get everything all the time. It's just not possible. Some prefer "most" get "pretty good" care, some prefer "rich" get "great" care and "poor" get "shit" care.

 

[Jhhnn]

This is interesting. Thought i would share.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallyp...-medicare-for-all-is-collapsing/#52d380e536b8

It's part & parcel of the Tory austerity program. You know, the UK equivalent of the GOP. Conservatives can fuck up anything.

 

[fskimospy]

I am zero percent surprised that this ended up being a piece by a right wing think tank.

Amazing how conservatives are either unwilling or unable to understand the difference between real news and this.

 

[pmv]

It's part & parcel of the Tory austerity program. You know, the UK equivalent of the GOP. Conservatives can fuck up anything.

Although I agree, the gloomy part of me wonders whether the problem with the system is that Tories, very much like death, are inevitable. The trouble with a fully state system is it means a constant political fight to ensure it's adequately funded. It actually gets good results relative to the funds put into it, but the difficult part is ensuring those funds get put into it.

While those waiting lists are longer than, say, France, never mind the US, the system also costs less as a share of GDP than the French system or, I think, any European health care system (and a lot less than the US).

It's also constantly subjected to pressure for creeping privatisation.

Also I am a bit suspicious of the part at the end of that Forbes article that refers to prostate cancer. The stat about how long you live after diagnosis is going to be greatly affected by how early people are diagnosed.

But early diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean you are actually going to live any longer in total, it simply means more time elapses between diagnosis and death, because you will pick up more smaller cancers. This would make the stat look better without actually changing the outcome in a way that makes any difference to life expectancy overall. Most men get prostate cancer if they live long enough, it's almost as inevitable as conservatism.

 

[glenn1]

Britain has decided on their preferred trade offs when it comes to healthcare and can live with the benefits and consequences of that choice. The U.S. has chosen different trade offs and lives with those benefits and consequences.

 

[Greenman]

I am zero percent surprised that this ended up being a piece by a right wing think tank.

Amazing how conservatives are either unwilling or unable to understand the difference between real news and this.

The information came from the Royal Collage of Surgeons, do we have reason to depute the information they released?

 

[Jhhnn]

Britain has decided on their preferred trade offs when it comes to healthcare and can live with the benefits and consequences of that choice. The U.S. has chosen different trade offs and lives with those benefits and consequences.

We'd obviously choose differently if the GOP got out of the way-

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...-care-coverage-is-governments-responsibility/

It's voters' #1 issue going into the 2020 election. And Trump has a terrific plan, but he can't tell us about it until after the election, probably because it's no plan at all.

 

[MixMasterTang]

The information came from the Royal Collage of Surgeons, do we have reason to depute the information they released?

There was literally only 1 statistic that cited the Royal College of Surgeons in the entire article.

 

[Jhhnn]

The information came from the Royal Collage of Surgeons, do we have reason to depute the information they released?

No. OTOH, it's important to recognize that Tory austerity is really to blame for it & a lot of other hardships imposed on the British people. Other countries who put enough into their systems have them functioning well.

 

[fskimospy]

The information came from the Royal Collage of Surgeons, do we have reason to depute the information they released?

Only a tiny part of that piece is that information, the rest is the author’s interpretation of it. Considering the fact that the NHS is nothing like any proposed implementation of ‘Medicare for All’ it is likely that the rest of the piece is similarly dishonest. For example the author describes wait times and such as inevitable outcomes of the government running the system while neglecting to mention that they spend literally half what the US spends on health care each year. That sure seems like important information that might explain it too! Gee, I wonder why they left that out.

Remember, the author writing it is paid to promote right wing policies. That’s literally their job. Why would you trust them to be accurate?

 

[JSt0rm]

There was literally only 1 statistic that cited the Royal College of Surgeons in the entire article.

Conservative be all like...

with every "news" article they post to reinforce their preconceived ideas.

 

[TheVrolok]

But early diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean you are actually going to live any longer in total, it simply means more time elapses between diagnosis and death, because you will pick up more smaller cancers. This would make the stat look better without actually changing the outcome in a way that makes any difference to life expectancy overall. Most men get prostate cancer if they live long enough, it's almost as inevitable as conservatism.

To this exact point, that's precisely what the weight of prostate cancer screening data says. I think the summary of availabile literature was in JAMA in May of last year (referencing the PLCO, CAP, and ESRPC) stated. (Yes, I know ESRPC is a little murky and may suggest the opposite, but in reality probably not).

 

[Victorian Gray]

Once again I must point out that the two systems being talked about are nothing alike. One is a national, publicly run health care system (the NHS) and the other is, essentially, a type of single payer medical insurance (Medicare).

The article is nothing more than propaganda for the ignorant.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Britain has decided on their preferred trade offs when it comes to healthcare and can live with the benefits and consequences of that choice. The U.S. has chosen different trade offs and lives with those benefits and consequences.

what are the benefits of the American healthcare system again?

 

[Fenixgoon]

what are the benefits of the American healthcare system again?

you get some of the, or the best care in the world. if you can afford it, that is.

 

[alcoholbob]

Since OP has not returned since posting it's safe to say he knows exactly the difference between a health care system with private versus public healthcare providers but wanted us to know he doesn't care and will continue to pretend they are the same thing.

 

[dawp]

I'm going with the OP didn't actually read the article but just the title and will not be back because he'd have to admit as much.

 

[ch33zw1z]

We'd obviously choose differently if the GOP got out of the way-

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...-care-coverage-is-governments-responsibility/

It's voters' #1 issue going into the 2020 election. And Trump has a terrific plan, but he can't tell us about it until after the election, probably because it's no plan at all.

It's too difficult for you to understand. The big beautiful healthcare is on it's way, this time you can believe him, THIS time.

 

[ch33zw1z]

what are the benefits of the American healthcare system again?

Every bill is a like a free rectal exam. And if you get enough of them, that Trump U education you received made sure you were well versed on the in's and out's of bankruptcy.

 

[pmv]

To this exact point, that's precisely what the weight of prostate cancer screening data says. I think the summary of availabile literature was in JAMA in May of last year (referencing the PLCO, CAP, and ESRPC) stated. (Yes, I know ESRPC is a little murky and may suggest the opposite, but in reality probably not).

I can't quite work out if you are confirming the point! But I guess you are? I think this, prostate-cancer post-diagnosis life-expectancy, has come up before, and the statistical slight-of-hand was obvious to me as soon as I heard it. And I _think_ , from what has been said, it is indeed mostly the case - that that stat is mostly an artifact of the US systems's greater keenness for testing and diagnostic labeling. With other conditions early diagnosis and aggressive treatment might, maybe, be a good thing, but it doesn't seem to be true for prostate cancer, you just get better looking numbers and no real benefit.

The presence of that argument at the end of the article, presented in a misleading and unanalysed way, for me, clearly demonstrates that the article is not serious, and is just coming from a biased position that begins with its desired conclusion. (Forbes strikes me as being a socially-liberal/economically-conservative publication, from what I've seen it seems like a consistently libertarian site...which is an improvement on those "libertarians" that turn out not to be even socially-liberal)

 

[cytg111]

Who would have thought that healthcare is, of all things, something people cares about? Has the Republican Mind Trick met its match?

 

[TheVrolok]

I can't quite work out if you are confirming the point! But I guess you are? I think this, prostate-cancer post-diagnosis life-expectancy, has come up before, and the statistical slight-of-hand was obvious to me as soon as I heard it. And I _think_ , from what has been said, it is indeed mostly the case - that that stat is mostly an artifact of the US systems's greater keenness for testing and diagnostic labeling. With other conditions early diagnosis and aggressive treatment might, maybe, be a good thing, but it doesn't seem to be true for prostate cancer, you just get better looking numbers and no real benefit.

Sorry for not being clear, I was posting as I was getting into bed!

Yes, you're right, I'm confirming the point. The somewhat complicated topics here are lead and length time biases. Lead time bias and over-diagnosis (leading to over-treatment) is certainly a problem.

We have to be somewhat careful in saying "no benefit" in early detection of prostate cancer. The vast vast vast majority of high quality evidence (the trials I mentioned above, again with the caveat that the ESRPC does differ to a digree) tells us that there is no overall MORTALITY benefit in early diagnosis of prostate cancer (and I think the longest follow up period is now 17 years).

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

The NHS certainly has it's own problems, that said, tough decisions do need to be made on a population level. Not everyone can get everything all the time. It's just not possible. Some prefer "most" get "pretty good" care, some prefer "rich" get "great" care and "poor" get "shit" care.

What is wanted is the best care right now for free. People seem to expect about 3/4 of that in real life from my interactions. You know the Golden Rule- he who has the gold makes the rules and likely the nightmare of making things "fit" on diagnosis codes and prior auths and an ever-increasing bureaucracy. Hell, people don't know that most of the private insurance problems derive from the government effectively setting the standard of care that private insurance follows. Solutions may be had but people are in a box where there has to be the status quo, an NHS equivalent or Medicare for all which they believe is just a payment system, but it also dictates how medicine is practiced.

It's probably we stay away from a DMV equivalent solution until things are first figured out. Right now a solution would be to restore medical deductions and expand them along with credits for the poor which are in effect payments to them while we figure things out. That way we have time to test models and phase them in without breaking anything. Hopefully, someone with sense would be doing that, but medicine is a matter of production, patients per unit time, which is the opposite of how things should be. I've been down this road before here and of course, understanding is impossible to pass along, mostly.

For those people who are wondering about the comment about production, the best medical practice is to spend more time with patients not less but do so with medical intelligence. What works is to slow the patient and the process down so that we stop treating complaints and that's it. People who are highly skilled and trained should be interviewing and observing patients with an eye on the individuals physical and mental state. Does someone have headaches? That needs to be addressed but there's edema when there's no complaint but it's significant. That needs to be addressed as is that sore or mole or cough or one of a hundred things that a proper workup beyond the standard once a year physical that people often don't have. That's care, and no one wants to pay for that even if it improves quality of life and lowers long term costs.

Get them in, get them out- NEXT! is a paradigm that payers demand, Medicare or not.