A hundred and one thousand unnecessary deaths-here
Our health system's failure creates an annual 101,000 more deaths than if we had a health system like , say, Australia.
In today's FT Nicholas Timmins (no link at the FT's request-but go to FT.com and search for Global Insight/Nicholas Timmins) quotes a study by-among others- Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine showing that for deaths under the age of 75 from diseases that are treatable the US has the worst record among the top 19 industrialized counries. And if we performed as well as not only Australia but also France and Japan we'd have 101,000 fewer deaths per year.
And of course in many of those 19 countries-the UK for example-if you don't like the National Health Service you can go to a private physician whose rates will be much lower than those here since the NHS is not mandatory. It's a public option.holding down the rates of those private physicians.
Not an accident. Nye Bevan designed it that way - see Michael Foot's Biography of Bevan.Bevan's approach , unlike our's at present, was to produce the bill first and argue about it later.Pretty much in line with the poker mantra " You can't beat something with nothing".Faced with a clear understanding of what would happen if they sat on their hands the British medical establishment presented sensible compromises to Bevan which he took to Parliament.
And it works. It's worked for me. It's worked for various members of my family who've lived in the UK for the last 20 years.It worked least well for the first ten of those years when Margaret Thatcher attempted to destroy it by creating the long waiting lists which she then pointed to as evidence of its failings- and which have been essentially eliminated by the Blair/Brown Labour Party.But live on among the right wing here.
The author of that article admits quite openly that NHS is not perfect. And it's beyond dispute that our system needs reform.
But Timmins's key point is that the real debate here should be focused on delivering health care to the uninsured, not on ramming the nationalized healthcare down everyone's throat in a 20 year time span, starting with the public option.
August 15, 2009 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
No that's not Timmins' main point.
His main point is that there are 19 nationalized medical systems which are so much better than our private one that they save the lives of people who die here.
If it takes 20 years for us to achieve a system which prevent the needless deaths we experience under our system then that will be 20 years in which people die and/or suffer illnesses which could be avoided .
If "ramming" nationalized health care down everyone's throat avoids those deaths and that pain, that's an argument for ramming.But as Bevan recognized freedom of choice is a value which must be respected to the extent it can be without endangering the obligation of the Government to its citizens. People like driving fast, but we have speed limits. People like to minimize government involvement in their health system but in our case that means
an unnecessary annual death toll of 101,000. So we need goverment intervention.
The real death panels are the private insurance
company managements like the ones who refused Obama's mother assistance to reduce her pain.
The job of a ceo is to make money. And the job of an insurance company ceo is to make money by not honoring claims. In principle private health insurance is incompatible with public welfare.
But freedom of choice is a value altho not equal to freedom from pain and/or unnecessary death. Thus like Bevan permitting a private medical system Obama needs to tolerate a private insurance system. In parallel with the public one. Put another way, we need a private option.
Cheers.
August 15, 2009 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
We do not have a system.
August 15, 2009 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
More like a dysfunction. ;)
August 15, 2009 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly like a dysfunction.
August 16, 2009 3:02 AM | Reply | Permalink