“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”
By Duane Lester • Feb 26th, 2008Hillary Clinton says her plan to socialize health care is “the most aggressive plan to lower health-care costs.” Barack’s plan “emphasizes lowering costs.”
Neither of these candidates will deliver on their promises. They underestimate the cost of what they are proposing.
Wisconsin wanted to try universal health care, but stopped when they realized how much it would cost the state. Their version of socialized medicine would have cost an estimated $15.2 billion, or $3 billion more than they collected in all taxes.
Pennsylvania’s governor Ed Rendell ran as a health care reformer, promising to create a plan to insure Pennsylvania’s uninsured. But once in office, Gov. Rendell “concluded that such a move would be unaffordable, and perhaps politically unattainable, without serious efforts to control costs.”
California’s Congress rejected Gov. Schwarzenegger’s “universal” health-care plan out of concerns of its high costs.
Massachusetts is one state that has socialized medicine. It is re-learning a hard lesson:
The subsidized insurance program at the heart of the state’s health care initiative is expected to roughly double in size and expense over the next three years - an unexpected level of growth that could cost state taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars or force the state to scale back its ambitions.
State projections obtained by the Globe show the program reaching 342,000 people and $1.35 billion in annual expenses by June 2011. Those figures would far outstrip the original plans for the Commonwealth Care program, largely because state officials underestimated the number of uninsured residents.
Another article says the cost of the health insurance mandate in Massachusetts will rise 85% in 2009. Why? “…the cost increase is largely due to an increase in the number of people signing up for state-subsidized health insurance.”
In typical political form, the current Democratic administration of Massachusetts first blames the previous administration, then says more money is the answer:
In a statement, however, the governor’s spokesman, Joseph Landolfi, said, “It is clear that paying for health care reform will pose a much greater fiscal challenge than was anticipated by the previous administration. We are committed to making health reform a success by aggressively pursuing cost savings and efficiencies in the health care system, as well as working with legislative leaders to review options for additional state revenues so that we can continue to afford this important initiative.”
The key part of that statement is “aggressively pursuing cost savings and efficiencies in the health care system.” This is where your health care turns from what is best for you, to what is best for everyone. This is where the bottom line takes precedence over your well-being. It’s already happening in countries with socialized health care.
Arlene Meeks was on vacation in California when her appendix burst. She was hospitalized and underwent surgery, but when she was ready to go back to Canada, there were no beds in British Columbia for her. The Ministry of Health spokeswoman Marisa Adair claims the reason is threefold:
“It’s the three factors all in one — the fact it was a specialized type of bed that she needed, the fact it was over the Christmas holidays which does tend to be a busy time and then some staff generally around Christmas take breaks,” said Adair.
Certainly is doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that “Lower Mainland hospitals are currently under capacity by approximately 550 beds.” They have a shortage of beds because the government reduced the number by over a thousand beds to cut costs:
NDP Health Critic Adrian Dix says the issue is one that’s continued to plague the Lower Mainland and he’s blaming Liberal government cuts to acute care beds. “The number of acute care beds in British Columbia was reduced by 1,300 in the first mandate of the government, and some of the new facilities being opened won’t be adding to that number.”
A bed was finally found for Arlene, but the ordeal was frustrating for the Canadian.
In Great Britain, there are even more troubling ways of saving money. Colette Mills has been sentenced to death by the budget. She was battling breast cancer when she turned to the National Health Service for Avastin, a drug that when combined with the meds she was taking, was “likely to keep the disease under control for twice as long.”
She was refused the drug by the government and offered to pay for it out of her own pocket. The government then told her that if “they purchased the drug, the mother-of-two would have to pay for all her future NHS care - to the tune of £15,000 a month.”
The NHS is treating Debbie Hirst in the same manner. The NHS refuses to supply a drug which could extend their lives because it just isn’t cost effective. While they both could afford to buy the drug, the government made the decision cost prohibitive to them. The reason for doing so is disgusting:
The Department of Health in Britain argues that individual payments for supplemental treatment can’t be permitted alongside the one-size-fits-all system because that would “undermine” the “fundamental principle of the NHS, now supported by all the main political parties, that treatment should be free at the point of need.”
In the case of Colette Mills, that means “free” but unavailable — “free at the point of need,” but disallowed by the central planners.
Also playing a role in making Avastin unavailable to Mills was the ideology of egalitarianism, the idea that all inequalities are inherently malicious and immoral. As Templeton explains: “The government claims that to allow some patients to pay for additional drugs on top of their NHS treatment creates a two-tier system between those who can and cannot afford them.” In other words, better dead than unequal.
While the British government refuses to pay for a drug they deem to be too expensive, they refuse to allow their citizens to save their own lives because of it wouldn’t be fair to others. It is, however, fair in their eyes to let these women die in order to save money and “the founding principles of the NHS.”
There are other ways of saving money when the budget gets tight.
A recent letter reported on by The Times details instructions given to a group of London hospitals. They were told to postpone surgeries as long as possible “in order to cut the trust’s debt“:
In the leaked letter, Ken Walton, chairman of the trust’s professional executive committee, tells GPs: “This means patients sent for outpatient appointments will only be seen at 10-13 weeks (national target 13 weeks) and elective surgery will be delayed until the sixth month (national target six months).”
It means that the maximum wait of six months promised by the Department of Health will become the minimum. However, the delays will enable the trust to postpone paying for operations, saving it money this financial year.
…
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “The Government denies deficits are affecting patient care, yet as a direct result of deficits, patients are being pushed to the limit of targets. Delaying treatment will not solve the deficit problem.”
Other hospitals there are simply removing patients from the waiting lists.
One patient waiting for a hernia operation in Oxford, Patricia Lloyd, was told she could go private or wait until her hernia got worse and justified emergency admission. Thames Valley Strategic Health Authority is £34 million in debt.
In Fulham, southwest London, the local PCT believes that it can save £695,000 by canceling referrals made by one consultant to another. Again the Department of Health declined to comment. “These issues are local and have nothing to do with central decision-making” a spokeswoman said.
Millions of other patients under the dominion of the NHS could be denied treatments because they are too fat or because they smoke. Former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said the ban on certain procedures based on this criteria was “perfectly legitimate.”
Dr. Peter Bradley of the Suffolk Primary Care Trust said, “We have limited resources and it’s sensible to use money where we know treatment is going to work.”
It’s sensible to deny treatment to people, even though they have paid their taxes into this system which is designed to provide treatment. Did I mention that that Dr. Bradley’s hospital is £ 31 million in debt. In order to save money, they deny care.
But being denied care is not the worst of it. It is suspected that elderly patients are being subjected to “an unspoken policy of ‘involuntary euthanasia.” It is thought they are being left to starve to death in order “to relieve pressure on the National Health Service.”
As the state of Massachusetts has shown, along with Great Britain and Canada, socialized health care generally runs a higher cost than is initially expected. In order to meet the financial goals, the quality of care offered to the patient is compromised. If either Democrat candidate wins the 2008 election and enacts a universal health care program in America, there is no reason to doubt that we’ll face similar results here. The cost of free health care is expensive not only in monetary terms, but also in the cost of lives.
