Real Change in British Healthcare
A white paper set to be released in a couple of weeks in Great Britain ought to command the attention of President Obama and his newly appointed little redistributionist chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. According to the Telegraph, Great Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is about to undergo the most radical change in its 60 year history. Here's the money quote:
The plan... is designed to place key decisions about how patients are cared for in the hands of doctors who know them. Tens of thousands of administrative jobs in the health service will be lost as a result.
The NHS, about which Dr. Berwick rhapsodizes as, "...not just a national treasure; it is a global treasure," has yielded results that could only warm the heart of an apparatchik. According to Michael Tanner at Healthcare-Economist, as of 2008 some 750,000 people in Great Britain were on a waiting list for hospital admission. In fact, one hospital was ordered to impose a minimum wait of 122 days before treating patients or risk withdrawal of governmemt funds. Dr. Berwick's utopian system of rationing by the NHS has resulted in 40% of cancer patients never seeing an oncologist. Kidney dialysis, open heart surgery, and care for the terminally ill are all rationed.
Great Britain has looked at this inhuman and inhumane system, and decided to euthanasize 150 "Primary Care Trusts" and "Strategic Health Authorities." The authority and the money will go to the doctors instead. The plan will face stiff opposition from, you guessed it, public employee unions, but the grisly statistics of government run healthcare speak for themselves.
That is, unless you are Don Berwick. "I am a romantic about the NHS," he cooed, while warning the Brits, "Please don't put your faith in market forces." Eschewing freedom generally, he confessed that what he calls, "the Holy Grail of universal coverage," could only be realized through, "...collective action overriding some individual self-interest." Back before Sarah Palin used the term "death panel," Berwick called on the health care community to, "...reduce the use of unwanted and ineffective medical procedures at the end of life." Or as the President himself suggested, give Grandma a pain pill and send her home.
Great Britain appears to be pulling back from the abyss, even as President Obama plunges in, using a recess appointment to avoid the transparency he so transparently lied about. In one sense, his maneuver is a tacit acknowledgment that he is out of step with the American people, and illuminates an unseemly desperation on his part. Still, the brute thuggishness of it all, the outright hostility to the American people, our Constitution and the very spirit of representative government is breathtaking. It's like he is channeling Hugo Chavez, no?
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Real Change in British Healthcare
That's it. The Bolton recess appointment was consistent with Bush's stated agenda -- there was defiance but no hypocrisy. This appointment really shows all pretense of bipartisanship breaking down. And in the process -- you're right on Dave -- reveals desperation and a transparent betrayal of all the assurances offered to date.
Re: Real Change in British Healthcare
My sources in the UK tell me that Andrew Lansely, the new Health Secretary, is likely to be much more radical -- in a market-friendly sense -- than anyone expected. Some early evidence from his first speech:
NHS England has 1 million employees, most of them administrators, for 50 million citizens, and the main focus of the "old ways" is institutional self-perpetuation. Lansley needs to deal with the UK system as he finds it, and I wish him luck in moving the juggernaut. But seeing that government-run health care is not the road to the promised land, why must we in this country follow Obama and Berwick down the socialist road?
Jun '10
Re: Real Change in British Healthcare
And yet, there are millions of Brits who say they love the NHS. I suspect they're either represented by the 20-year-old, whose only experience with the NHS is falling off a bicycle and getting their broken arm set in short order, or alternately, some despondent pensioner, who longs to embrace the sweet release of death, and will never seek out a doctor, but in the meantime loves not paying health insurance premiums. "Love you NHS."
May '10
Re: Real Change in British Healthcare
I have lived in 12 countries and am on my second tour of the UK - The health care system here is a clear winner for the prize of worst I have experienced. I find it truly bizarre that Dr. Berwick professes to love the NHS and even more bizarre that we have put him in charge of a significant part of our system.