Deadly Decline (editorial from Investors Daily)
Posted 11/30/2009 07:05 PM ET
Health Care: As the Senate begins to debate reform legislation, the deadly disasters inherent in socialized medicine in the model nation of Britain should make the discussion a sober one.
While Washington lawmakers, accustomed to the comfort of top-notch medical treatment, consider a federal takeover of the health care sector, patients in Great Britain are dying because that government's system is a mess.
"Up to 10,000 people," the British Guardian reported Sunday, are dying needlessly of cancer each year "because their condition is diagnosed too late, according to research by the government's director of cancer services."
Britain is home to the sort of government-run health care that the political left has tried to push on this country for decades. It is also the home of government-rationed medical treatment. So the sad story of 10,000 needless cancer deaths a year doesn't surprise.
Not every needless cancer death can be blamed, of course, on Britain's National Health Service. In some cases, patients themselves are responsible for the late diagnoses of their diseases.
But the rest can be blamed on the system. Researchers at Durham University have identified four other types of delays patients encounter in receiving cancer care: doctor delay, delay in primary care, system delay and delay in secondary care. All are part of a state-operated system that has a poor record of keeping its trapped patients alive and healthy.
The unnecessary cancer deaths are not the only recent example of the rot in Britain's system.
The Times of London reported Saturday that the health secretary has ordered an immediate probe into "claims that patients are dying due to poor care in at least 27 hospitals around the country."
These are just the latest stories. The poor care that has become the hallmark of Britain's public medicine goes back many years. The long waiting times to see a doctor in the British, Canadian and Swedish government-run systems, as well as the denial of some drugs and what seems to be an institutional neglect of patients, are not new problems.
More government involvement won't correct the ills government has already created. Yet the Democratic leadership in Washington is determined to force more federal control over health care on a public that doesn't want it.
The left wants to be responsible for providing care for all. But what it will be responsible for, if it gets its way, is a deadly decline in the quality of American health care.
SOURCE: UNITED NATIONS’ INTERNATIONAL HEALTH ORGANIZATION as reprinted in Investors Daily
Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S. 65%
England 46%
Canada 42%
Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S. 93%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
U.S. 90%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
U.S. 77%
England 40%
Canada 43%
Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:
U.S. 71
England 14
Canada 18
Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health":
U.S. 12%
England 2%
Canada 6%
Sen. Harry Reid recently said, "Elderly Americans must learn to accept the inconveniences of old age."
I SAY, SHIP HARRY REID’S ASS TO CANADA OR ENGLAND !
And oh Yeah, don't forget who is doing this too us and VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT in the coming election cycle! Reed, Whitehouse, Langevin, and Kennedy have been doing we TAXPAYING folks no favors!!