Sunday, August 2, 2009

OR MAYBE NOT

Thanks to my old pal willy and his COOL BIRTH blog for the link to this health care argument article.

4 comments:

JIm said...

Update on socialized medicine from the UK

Patients forced to live in agony after NHS refuses to pay for painkilling injections
Tens of thousands with chronic back pain will be forced to live in agony after a decision to slash the number of painkilling injections issued on the NHS, doctors have warned.

By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent
Published: 7:45AM BST 02 Aug
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5955840/Patients-forced-to-live-in-agony-after-NHS-refuses-to-pay-for-painkilling-injections.html

Cuts to treatments would save the NHS £33 million. Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY
The Government's drug rationing watchdog says "therapeutic" injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.
Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.
Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment.
The NHS currently issues more than 60,000 treatments of steroid injections every year. NICE said in its guidance it wants to cut this to just 3,000 treatments a year, a move which would save the NHS £33 million.

Butch in Waukegan said...

Back in the USA, insurance companies decided that paying for Viagra is OK, but paying for birth control is a no no.

The “free market” in action.

Here’s McCain’s scintillating defense of his vote to maintain the double standard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2y8dYwq01g&fmt=18

JIm said...

I suspect that in a truly free market, open to interstate competition, you could buy a plan with viagra or birth control or what ever you are willing to pay for. In a tax payer funded plan, if cost, rationing and health outcomes are the criteria of measurement, history has proved them to be failures. Many taxpayers would object to funding any of the above including abortion, probably on moral grounds. They don't want their tax dollar going to fund things they may disagree with. In a private plan the consumer, justifiably has more freedom of choice and control.

JIm said...

A New Poster Of Obama Surfaces in LA

Most, I am sure remember the multi colored poster of Obama, pictured as a messiah. There is a new poster picturing Obama as Batman's the Jocker with SOCIALISM under the picture. I must say it captures the spirit of the man and the moment.
http://www.drudgereport.com/