Numbers Point to Problem Created When Legislation Driven by Headlines
By Chris Patterson
Another horrifying announcement from our newspapers a few weeks ago - millions of Americans are uninsured. It's so often repeated, we no longer have to ask what people are going without. This is about health insurance.
Most articles began with alarming statistics, as the Austin American-Statesman did: "The number of Americans who lack health insurance climbed by nearly 6 percent in 2002, to 43.6 million, the largest single increase in a decade, according to figures to be released today by the Census Bureau."
Such stories, and agitated editorials that followed, are geared to evoke cries of outrage for the victims. We are led to believe that this "crisis" is "growing" and, like random urban violence, not one of us may be spared.
Editorial pages have been calling on legislators - state and federal - to do something, and do it quickly. They call for more laws, more spending, more taxes, more government.
We need to breath deeply, calm down and look at the facts.
The National Center for Policy Analysis, based in Dallas, recently examined the numbers of "uninsured."
Almost three-fourths of the newly "uninsured" are people who are making over $50,000, according to the NCPA report, and simply choose not to purchase health insurance. While this decision says many things about the cost of medicine, it does not mean that people without health insurance are poor and desperate for help.
Since 1993 the number of uninsured in households with annual incomes above $75,000 increased 114 percent, according to the NCPA. On the other side of the economic divide, the study finds the number of uninsured with annual incomes below $25,000 fell by 17 percent.
The NCPA uncovered some facts that don't make it to the newspapers. For example, young adults are less likely than other age groups to have health insurance, while those over 65 are almost all insured. Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 make up some 41 percent of the "uninsured." This makes sense. We all remember the invincible years of the twenties - that is a healthy age and most young people are making the economic decision not to waste their money for insurance they do not need at the time.
Most interesting of NCPA's findings is the length of time people remain uninsured: just under a year in 75 percent of the cases.
The shrillness of many press releases and news stories disguise the fact that many without health insurance are making a rational choice. Trumping feelings over fact, the uninsured are portrayed as hapless victims of hard employers and greedy insurers.
While passing legislation to create more programs that spend more money might make for good politics, they do no good in the long run and often deflect resources from the truly needy.
Perhaps the only accurate conclusion we can draw from headlines is that a great many Americans are opting to take care of themselves in ways not reflected in insurance headcounts. Instead of creating more programs, lawmakers should search for ways to make it easier for us all to plan and pay for our individual health care needs. Rather than raising taxes to slay an illusionary dragon, legislators could reduce the mandates making health care - and health insurance - so expensive for every one.
Chris Patterson is director of research for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan research institution.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Originally posted by gwenith
Why do you not examine the systems overseas to see how they have managed??? Although we do have high taxation here it includes the free health care and when you factor in the amount the average person in the USA has to pay for insurance I am much better off financially than many and I do not have to worry about one accident causing bankruptcy.
IN-deed...but it's a "liberal thing"....
preposterous. but I won't stoop to say "that's a conservative way of thinking".......
Survival Rates in the British NHS vs. U.S. Hospitals
By Brian Carnell
Friday, November 28, 2003
There is some support in the United States for "solving" America's health care problems with a state-run health system like Canada and European countries have. Fortunately, although there might be a lot of support for a generic health care system like this, such support tends to vanish when people start seeing the details (e.g. HillaryCare).
British paper The Telegraph had a story back in September about a study comparing the performance of the UK's National Health Service with that of the United State's mishmash of private, semi-private and public system of hospitals. The difference was quite striking,
Patients who have major operations on the National Health Service are four times more likely to die than Americans undergoing such surgery, according to a new study.
. . .
The results showed that just under 10 per cent of the British patients [in the study] died in hospital after major surgery, compared with 2.5 per cent of the American patients.
What would explain such a high difference in mortality? Are British surgeons and nurses less competent than Americans? Do Americans use technologies that the British don't have access to?
Part of the difference in mortality rates is explained by a feature of most nationalized health care systems -- the increased waiting period from diagnosis to surgery.
The joint study, carried out by University College London and a team from Columbia University in New York, found that patients in Britain who were most at risk of complications after major surgery were not being seen by specialists and were not reaching intensive care units in time too save them.
The other part is due to cost-cutting measures in Great Britain when it comes to post-op care. Quite simply, in the United States someone undergoing such an operation would be treated in post-op by another surgeon and an anesthesiologist, typically in a critical care unit.
Prof [Monty] Mythen . . . said: "In The Manhattan hospital, the care after surgery is delivered largely by a consultant surgeon and an anesthetist. We know from other research that more than one third of those who die after a major operation in Britain are not seen by a similar consultant.
"In America, everyone would go into a critical care bed -- they go into a highly monitored environment. That doesn't happen routinely in the UK."
Which brings up my other pet peeve about nationalized health plans proposed for the United States. Advocates of such plans frequently blast HMOs for interfering with the doctor-patient relationship by dictating what doctors can and cannot offer their patients. But a nationalized health system would simply substitute a single entity -- the federal health agency -- for the various HMOs. Call it the mother of all HMOs.
The trend in countries that have nationalized health care is not some utopian health care system where doctors get to treat patients regardless of cost. Rather it is a system where health care is explicitly rationed by state and/or national health care agencies and health care decisions are completely subsumed to the need to control costs.
Source:
US surgery safer than under NHS. Thair Shaikh, Telegraph (UK), September 7, 2003.
Patients who have major operations on the National Health Service are four times more likely to die than Americans undergoing such surgery, according to a new study.
The difference in mortality rates was blamed on long NHS waiting lists, a shortage of specialists and competition for intensive care beds.
The joint study, carried out by University College London and a team from Columbia University in New York, found that patients in Britain who were most at risk of complications after major surgery were not being seen by specialists and were not reaching intensive care units in time to save them.
The study followed 1,100 patients at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth and compared them with 1,000 patients who had undergone similar major surgery at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
The results showed that just under 10 per cent of the British patients died in hospital after major surgery, compared with 2.5 per cent of the American patients.
Each year, more than three million operations are carried out on the NHS and about 350,000 of these are emergencies which carry a higher risk of complications.
Professor Monty Mythen, head of anaesthesia at UCL who led the British side of the research, said: "The main difference seems to be in the quality of post-operative care and who cares."
Prof Mythen, who also oversees the critical care facilities at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: "In the Manhattan hospital, the care after surgery is delivered largely by a consultant surgeon and an anaesthetist. We know from other research that more than one third of those who die after a major operation in Britain are not seen by a similar consultant.
"In America, everyone would go into a critical care bed - they go into a highly monitored environment. That doesn't happen routinely in the UK."
Health ministers, meanwhile, will present new figures this week showing another annual rise in the number of intensive care beds - although Britain still lags behind America and much of Europe in critical care facilities.
Would somebody like to comment about the articles on NHS versus US ?
Comment specifically about this part:
Which brings up my other pet peeve about nationalized health plans proposed for the United States. Advocates of such plans frequently blast HMOs for interfering with the doctor-patient relationship by dictating what doctors can and cannot offer their patients. But a nationalized health system would simply substitute a single entity -- the federal health agency -- for the various HMOs. Call it the mother of all HMOs.
The trend in countries that have nationalized health care is not some utopian health care system where doctors get to treat patients regardless of cost. Rather it is a system where health care is explicitly rationed by state and/or national health care agencies and health care decisions are completely subsumed to the need to control costs.
ME:
When I post something like this, everybody just has this as a reply: "I am sure that you can find many articles to 'clog' up this BB". But nobody wants to discuss the findings:
So, should we just say, oh that is some conservative finding less disregard it like Fraser and Canada, or should we ponder it, question it, digest it, and take it to heart?
So, as this article points out in relationship to your comments about public health:
Public health is mostly as preventative care. Supposedly your arguement suggests that national health care is superior in their primary care, versus secondary, and tertiary levels of prevention. However, that study would suggest otherwise. That as you WAIT to see a specialist you end up having a higher mortality rate once they do perform surgery.
kitkat, I don't know why I am bothering to post this, because it is obvious you are not listening to me.... but here goes one more time.... The government DOES NOT determine my care. MY DOCTOR AND I DO. So it is not like an HMO that denies coverage for tests or procesures. It just isn't. A doctor here can order the tests he wants and doesn't have to worry that his patient won't be covered for them. Apples and oranges. It is the first scare tactic used whenever universal care comes up, but it just isn't true. I am not denying there are problems with our system, but that isn't one of them. I don't know why you keep spouting this propaganda. Doctors and nurses do have to provide good care, and it is not the government deciding who gets what. It is medical need that determines care. Government FUNDED and government RUN are two very different things.
I will agree with Fergus WE have universal health and WOW!!! we get the doctor of our choice (GP) - IT is ONLY and I will repeat ONLY in the state run hospitals where you do not have the doctor of your choice BUT you can and do have the freedom to refuse to be seen by a certain medical officer if that is your desire. This is why we have a private/public system - if you want - all the way - the doctor of your choice you go private. It is that simple.
Why we are so poor that the family has to bring in the food. We have scrape the mould off the bread for penicillin and the Cardiac monitors have to double up as security screens We don't have a maintenance crew - just a couple of books on DIY :roll
And we do not have patients in ICU for 3-6 months requiring repeated trips to theatre at no cost to the family - here I am thinking of the young man I nursed who, when rescued from the car had to have his pelvis UNFOLDED. We do not have home health care or goverment assistance or public health campaigns or research!!!!!
We only care for the dregs of society who spend tax payers dollars with complaints that they brought on themselves ( the middle aged man who not only dislocated his Talus bone but "popped" it out through hsi skin)
No - our system does not work
Kitkat - why do you not focus on the real villians of the American health care system - the real parasites chewing up the precious dollars????
The lawyers.
We are seeing this here - with a rise in litigation suddenly the amount that the medical officers have had to pay in health insurance has skyrocketed and so they have had to pass that on by not "bulk - billing" patients i.e. they have to charge above the goverment rebate. Sit down one day and work out how much money is being siphoned off not in big payouts but the hundreds of "nuisance" suits brought everyday and you will soon start to see who the real enemies are.
And I am assuming that Australian doctors and nurses in the public system still have to provide good care for their patients, right Gwenith?
My goodness, Fergus, what ever gave you that strange idea. :eek:
Don't you know that public health automatically equals care by quacks, felons, misfits, and any other who couldn't get into a legitimate school of medicine or nursing?
Why we are so poor that the family has to bring in the food. We have scrape the mould off the bread for penicillin and the Cardiac monitors have to double up as security screens We don't have a maintenance crew - just a couple of books on DIY :roll:
See I think that's how a Canadian finally discovered penicillin... We have so much mouldy food around because we don't care for our patients and then BAM! Penicillin.....
I would challenge any nurse to find a hospital that kicks my hospital's butt in terms of patient care.... We provide state of the art care to sick babies every day and I take it a little personally when someone would call us mediocre without ever even having been here.
I do read your posts. I believe that is your honest opinion about your system. There are too many other views that say that indeed there are problems with care and who dictates that care. What if your doctor wanted you to see a specialist, then how long would you wait? What about surgery? Other reports say different than your experience. But, I do take heed of your opinion !
Oh Lordy Yes'm 
:eek: 
SmilingBluEyes
20,964 Posts
IN-deed...but it's a "liberal thing"....
preposterous. but I won't stoop to say "that's a conservative way of thinking".......