deowll says:

I did enjoy the podcast. As normal some of the things Adam said were insane but amusing.

I talked to a local Dr. Yesterday. She said neither she nor any other local Dr. has even seen a case of swine flu yet. They are seeing cases of another bug they call the summer flu. This is a county in TN. They know because they are testing for flu and the positives are being tested for swine flu.

I asked her about government funded heath care and she said we already had rationing in that each company and the government all have limits on what they cover. Every policy only covers certain treatments and no more.

She prefers government coverage because even though she gets less money they do pay up. The private insurance companies force her to keep a full time staff person on the phone trying to get them to pay for what they have contracted to pay for.

There is a major problem in that the Alabama hospitals want to force all TN patients to take all tests there in order to get the money for the tests rather than just allow someone to fax them them the results of previously taken tests in TN. We are a border county.

She has already adopted electronic records.

Putting all medical records into identical format and putting them on line available with proper authorization would save a lot of money and speed up service in the long run.

The local Doctors working with the local hospital do share test data.

I’m still stuck with the observation that a person with prostate cancer only has 1/4 the chance to recover in England as the US. My 70+ Uncle just had radiation treatment for prostate Cancer. He wasn’t on his last legs and is an active person. He and his wife live at home. Attend church regularly and aren’t senile. They are very active do gooders. They help a lot of people. Letting him die seems extreme. This problem is typical of English health care and not just limited to prostate cancer.

In Canada they don’t use stints because a stint cost a thousand dollars. It is also a heck of lot less invasive than a bypass and the odds of the patient making a more or less full recovery and having years more of quality life are excellent while the bypass patient is a heck of lot more likely to die and recovery is a lot longer after they cut your chest wide open.

You don’t have the option of using all the various anticancer drugs though in some locations you can most of them,23/25, and in some locations, Ellesmere Island, you only have access to one kind. This is typical of other problems.

Free government care in both England and Canada is having third rate insurance that won’t cover many life saving procedures and you do have to take a number and wait even when waiting can kill you.

That is why one Canadian Dr. said he regularly sent patients to the US. If you can cover the bill and you want to live screw government health care.

If we go the normal government health care route he was going to send his patients to Asia possibly including India even though he didn’t want to stress his patients by sending them that far even by air.

In other words if you can afford it you would definitely need, not just want, a supplementary policy that would cover things the turd provided by the government with your tax dollars would not pay for and get you much faster and better service.

I think in England you can get decent health care if you have the cash or a private insurance policy. Things may not be that good in Canada. You most likely do have to leave the country.

As to how badly you get screwed by some health care providers without insurance a daughter of a friend whose family can’t get decent health care coverage because she’s fat were out 30,000 for a tonsillectomy for their kid and a broken nose by her husband.

Of course I’m also told that people with insurance are paying for coverage of those who get treated without insurance and they partially pay for coverage for government patients because that often doesn’t cover the full tab.

There is no way that a job that requires you to be one of the top 10% in smarts just to get in medical school and study without pay until you are 32 while running up a staggering dept then be on call 24/7 can offer low pay and still attract people to the profession.

I think that walk in clinics run by the high ranking nurses who can contact a gp if needed may be a better alternative than expecting the gps to tend to all the new patients that are going to want to show up if we go to government paid health care. They can’t work 24/7 and couldn’t give good service because of exhaustion if they tried. Their quality of life would suck.

The walk in clinic option is clearly the way to go if you want to extend universal health care to everybody. They can deal with the little stuff just fine, been there and done that with swimmers ear and a friend got a few stitches after being lightly kissed by his chain saw, and they can refer you if things aren’t that simple.

brendal says:

Where did you find that pic of my great grandfather??!