’)Although standing by her views, Ms Spall said she was horrified by how the CPR had used her words.
‘What I said is what I believe, and I stand by it, but the context it has been used in is something I was not aware would happen,’ she said.
‘The irony is that I campaign for exactly the people that socialised healthcare supports. I would not align myself with this group at all.’
Ms Brickell, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer after being refused a smear test because she was too young, said her words had been ’skewed out of proportion’ by the CPR.
She told The Times: ‘The NHS let me down and I just wanted to make the point that people should not rely solely on it.
‘But what I said has been skewed out of proportion… My point was not that the NHS shouldn’t exist or that it was a bad thing. I think that our health service is not perfect but to get better it needs more public money, not less. I didn’t realise it was having such a political impact.’
Dr Karol Sikora, a British cancer specialist who has often spoken out against the NHS, said he had also fallen victim to the same technique.
He told the Guardian: ‘They came and saw me in my office about a month ago and I gather I am appearing in some advert. They didn’t tell me that would happen.’
Conservatives misrepresenting themselves to people? I’m shocked.
The thing is
1. Nobody is saying the NHS is perfect, but it clearly provides a serious safety net to British citizens
2. The reforms being advocated in the US don’t come anywhere near to setting up a system like the NHS here (they should, but that’s another story)
3. Conservatives have an entire movement that, at its core, is concerned with never telling the truth about things. That’s kind of messed up.
I really have no idea why conservatives feel health insurance reform is an anti-business measure. I employ 25 people and our most out of control cost is health insurance, which leaves us with the uncomfortable option of reducing or eliminating coverage every year that we get a 15% premium increase. To me, this is actually just one of those situations where pro-business actually means pro a certain kind of business, and in this case it is the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. I would strongly recommend that Obama get out to small businesses and seek our support. We are the engine of innovation (and should be), not health care bureaucrats.
“Bah those Brits don’t know how bad they have it. EEEEEEEEVUL SOCIALISMS AND RATIONING!!!!!! TEH HORRORS!!!!!! BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA”
Something like that……
OW: Conservatives have an entire movement that, at its core, is concerned with never telling the truth about things.
Which, if possessed of any honesty or conscience, you’d think would give them some pause.
If their side is so correct, why do they have to lie to support it?
Progressives lie by omission on the topic of the NHS.
You all refuse to admit the very frightening problems with an the program itself and not just that its costs are always increasing exponentially and at a faster rate than they are in the US.
http://blog.american.com/?p=2898
(don’t be frightened by the link – the truth resides there in easy for you to read graph form)
If you all would grow up and actually read the statistics you’d know why folks in the middle and on the right are fighting this.
You win Phil- we will NOT go to a socialized system like England has- oh wait, that’s not what Obama is supporting. But keep on fighting against something that no one is proposing.
Would the conservative trolls who keep trying to draw false eqivalences and make unrelated points in these threads please paste pictures of LOLcats instead of linking to other blogs? The LOLcats would probably do a better job of distracting from the issue at hand, and be more entertaining to boot. Kthxbai.
Phil,
1) I don’t suspect anybody is unaware of the problems with NHS. OW is merely pointing out that the people who the right has promoted as NHS critics are not clamoring for the healthcare delivery system that we have in the U.S. Quite the contrary – they just want a better NHS.
2) Forget about the rate of health insurance cost increases. We spend $5,311 in the U.S. versus $2,317 in UK (2003, OECD) on health expenditures. In addition, the average cost per employee for health insurance is between $8,412-9,576 (Towers Perrin, 2009), you can see why this is insane. It would take 201 years for U.S. per capita costs to converge just looking at healthcare costs. I suspect with administration (i.e. health insurance company profit) that would be another 150 years… I am not willing to wait that long assuming trends continued that long. Are you?
3) Because GDP tends to capture all of the economic activity in an economy rather than that activities’ impact on an average American, a better measure would be median wages, which have been flat for a number of years while GDP and healthcare costs have skyrocketed. This explains why so many people are going without health insurance these days. You do know that 1/6 people goes without, right?
So, Phil, I have pretty well refuted everything you’ve said. Are you willing to look at this and recognize that the right is pretty much full of shit? Are you willing to understand why I am suspicious of the American Enterprise Institute which somehow believes they speak for me as a business person? Or are you just a dogmatic ideologue.
Zadura,
Have you figures on the effectiveness of Britain’s socialized medical system as opposed to ours? Specifically cancer and cardiac survival rates. Which system would you rather be treated in?
AO – Can you tell me why there isn’t a way for America to create a medical system that offers the advantages of the NHS while retaining our cancer and cardiac care (again, the Obama plan is NOT a copy of NHS)? The conservative mantra seems to be that there’s simply no way it can be done, so we might as well not even try.
I’m sure all that this country has achieved in general has happened in spite of such attitudes, not because of them.
AO, here’s some food for thought.
That ought to send him running.
Re admin costs:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0815/is_10_28/ai_108994048/
LA times article –
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rachlis3-2009aug03,0,538126.story
Specifically cancer and cardiac survival rates. Which system would you rather be treated in?
AO raises a good point. Some countries seem to do better with specific types of niche health care. The U.S., for example, tends to do well with breast cancer treatment. Not as good as Cuba, but relatively good nonetheless.
AO, I am curious to know whether any of the folks receiving cancer and cardiac treatment are veterans or over the age of 65. If so, their system of healthcare isn’t so very different from NHS.
Certainly Zaduro,
Some of the patients receiving cancer and cardiac treatment are over the age of 65. They receive treatment at the same facilities, using the same equiptment, receiving the same tests, using the same protocals, using the same staff as the general population.
The first and largest difference between the two is our oldies use a far more modern, far more responsive medical infrastructure than the NHS. Again where would you prefer to be treated if it was your, you know, life on the line?
Again where would you prefer to be treated if it was your, you know, life on the line?
If it’s breast cancer, then Cuba.
AO, so if it is merely a question of providers, I agree with you. I vote for U.S. facilities with single payer healthcare.
Zadura,
What makes a single payer system superior in your mind?
Do you seek to transfer costs or reduce costs?
Who should make decisions regarding treatment and testing?
If your aim is to reduce costs does limiting care to certain individuals fit your view of an equitable system?
AO, nice to have an informed discussion. I seek to reduce pharmaceutical costs, testing costs and administrative costs. These have been determined to be the leading reasons for our extremely poorly performing, overly expensive health insurance delivery method. At least some portion of those costs could be returned to the system to offer better care for the lower and middle classes today who often avoid preventive care in favor of emergency care which they can neither afford nor support good public policy.
As an employer, single-payer eliminates the need to spend on health insurance administration. There is no strategic advantage to offering health insurance – people assume it is a given – but I still have to bring someone into the organization whose part-time job is to review medical decisions and ensure that our insurer makes good on its claims. This is a hidden tax on my employees.
So, my preference is to get rid of this system altogether. I will benefit my employees in other ways, cash or whatever and some of that cash will go to a system that provides universal coverage.
Who should make decisions regarding treatment and testing?
Personally, I favor doctors over Big Insurance representatives.
Zadura,
I have recently had more experience with our health system than I ever wanted to. It has been my fortunate experience to have had tests ordered in quite rapid fashion reacting to changes on the ground( or within the body). Some of those tests would undoubtedly be classified as unneccessary since they did not show anything wrong. Yet those same tests narrowed the range of possibilities and lead to successful treatment.
I too, run a small business and sympathize with the hidden tax aspect you mention and the additional hassles that extra administration tasks cause. I don’t really beleive healthcare is best suited as an employee benefit, this is as you are most likely aware a unexpected consequence of prior government control of wages. This had led to an all to easy to see situation where the link between cost and benefit had been exstinquished by having a 3rd party foot the bill. I think it highly unlikely that having Uncle Sugar foot the bill will erode this type of thinking.
Where I part company with you is having sufficient trust in government to be involved in decisions regarding treatment, testing, and care. Excessive red tape is a government feature not a bug. Furthermore it is my honest belief that insurance company profit is a smaller number than the cost of inefficient government management.
“Where I part company with you is having sufficient trust in government to be involved in decisions regarding treatment, testing, and care.”
A bogeyman, completely.
Doctors decide care. The question is what gets paid for and how. Insurance companies have no interest in deciding appropriate care. There is nothing in any of this that has government deciding care. Even the Canadians don’t have this. What they do have is the possibility of certain more exotic or leading edge treatments not being covered, plus severe limits on private services. However this is system is not at all what is being proposed here.
Hey, where’d Phil go?
How about an “easy for you to read graph form” showing health insurance cost increases vs. middle class income increases?
And why are health insurance corporations lobbying so hard to stop government influence in their industry, when less government influence will mean more competition (and smaller profits like we’ve seen in the retail and airline industries)?
Outside of emergencies, doctors suggest care and patients (or those most responsible for them) decide care. Insurance companies have much more influence on the latter than the former.
Gumby,
Are you familar with the writings of Brother Zeke? Your position appears to be that their will be no government interference with testing, treatment, timing, or care.
That is hopelessly naive considering we have no idea what the final bill will look like after running through the sausage grinder.
Once the Democrats failed in ramming through an unread bill in great haste everything changed, into what we don’t know. Yet those against this ill conceived measure have the words and writings of many of the architects of this abortion to give us a good idea of what they want. More than enough ammunition to express valid and intelligent opposition to this socialist pipedream.
Remember the basic premise of the Democrat fairytale is expanded coverage at reduced cost with no change to the existing status quo. Not very difficult to poke holes in that bit of economic rhetoric.
Amused 0: Once the Democrats failed in ramming through an unread bill
Have you read the full bill? Have any of the folks who are shouting at town halls read it?
No? Then stop echoing that particular wingnut complaint.
AO you are simply fearmongering if you can’t say what is actually in the bill. If you read the bill and it looks like gubbamint is deciding treatment, then go ahead and raise a ruckus. But this is NOT the model that is being proposed. Not even close. My naivete is completely outgunned by your paranoia.
And I don’t know that “no change in the status quo” (whatever that means) is actually a Dem talking point. Certainly wasn’t the tone of Obama’s Montana speech.
Gumby and Sean,
The current bill is not what will get through the process, Have I read the entire thing, no I have not. Have I read exerpts from it, yes I have. I have also read the writings of some of the arcitects of the bill and have a feel for their sypathies and desires. It is not fearmongering to bring the written philosophies of thee folks under a bright light to try and devine what mischief they will try to bury in this sordid bill.
While Obama has the flexibilty of a snake in his rhetoric the staus quo I refer to is his solumn promise that if we liked our coverage we could keep it. Which incidently is diametrically opposed to his recorded sentiments on the public payer option and the inevitable demise of the private option.
gumby: AO … you can’t say what is actually in the bill
BINGO!
I have also read the writings of some of the arcitects of the bill and have a feel for their sypathies and desires.
And is this reading in any way related to your defamation of Dr. Emmanuel?
Are you familar with the writings of Brother Zeke?
I’m begging you here, AO. Please, please point us to the writings of Dr. Emmanuel at which you hint so darkly.
I have in no way defamed the good doctor. His words speak for themselves. The powers of google are as open to you as they are to me. I have been studying this topic with interest since Obama’s first task force started dropping members for having tax problems before he was our Pres. I find it hard to believe a political junkie such as your self has not been made aware of Zeke’s opinions, they are not a secret.
His words speak for themselves.
You keep saying that, but you can’t seem to point the way to the words that trouble you so.
I suspect that you have read Dr. Emmanuel’s work about as carefully as you have read the house bill.
But if you insist on hiding the ball, perhaps we can go at this from a different angle. One heart is available for transplant. Two suitable patients await a donor organ. The decision is in your hands.
What criteria would inform your decision? Your criteria differ from Dr. Emmanuel’s in what way?
I find it hard to believe a political junkie such as your self has not been made aware of Zeke’s opinions
A correct inference on your part. Congratulate yourself.
The main reason I ask for your sources is to learn whether you have read Dr. Emmanuel’s writings yourself or if you have entrusted the task to serial fabricator Betsy McCaughey.
I see you are unfamiliar with yet another aspect of healthcare although that does not keep you from trying to set up a gotcha moment.
My criteria would differ from the good doctors. Given the situation you describe of two suitable patients
waiting for the gift of life the choice I would make would be to go by the ranking on the list as it is done now. I would not giving further consideration to moving one ahead of the other because of a government formulated weighting of life’s value.
We as a nation are not yet threatened severly enough that we must cast our elderly onto the iceflows in time of famine.
We as a nation are not yet threatened severly enough that we must cast our elderly onto the iceflows in time of famine.
That’s good. Because nobody is suggesting we do so.
the choice I would make would be to go by the ranking on the list as it is done now
Nice punt. Have you considered a career in professional sports?
Amused 0: I have been studying this topic with interest since Obama’s first task force started dropping members for having tax problems before he was our Pres.
And yet you continually are unable to provide and specific section that contains what you claim is being proposed, unable to provide and specific quote from Dr Emmanuel to support your claim of hat he’s advocated.
Instead you fall back on the typical “find it for yourself on Google” excuse used by folks who are unable to back up what they say.
It isn’t our job to provide support for your claims. It’s very telling that you can’t.
AO, there isn’t really that much difference between a government bureaucrat and an insurance company bureaucrat. Same gumsole shoes, same stupid haircuts, same bad results. I just don’t want to pay for an extravagant lifestyle and you’d be hard-pressed to find a government employee who took their job to support an extravagant lifestyle.
The other problem is the lower class who we all support in their moment of greatest need – emergency care – instead of prevention. This is probably why we on balance have higher mortality and morbidity for preventable diseases than our counterparts in Europe and Asia.
A lifer in the federal government has a pretty decent set up after a lifetime of sucking on the public tit. Think how much cash you’d have to squirrel away to pay for the retirement and benefits those people get. I still maintain that the costs associated with federal management exceed those of the private sector regardless of the golden parachutes. It’s just too hard for the private sector to steal as much as the government wastes.
Then why do we spend more per capita on health care than other countries and get such modest results?
I would make would be to go by the ranking on the list as it is done now
Whoever has been waiting longer? Not always optimum.
AO, do you have any statistics on government vs. non-government? I mean, do you know the relative cost of Medicare administration vs. private insurance? Or the cost of Social Security administration vs. administrative costs of government portfolios? I have seen statistics that show the former far outperforming the latter. And those don’t take into consideration the hidden tax we both acknowledged earlier. Those are administrative costs as well.
And you still haven’t addressed how we are going to deal with all the malingerers who don’t get insurance yet end up sucking up resources in the emergency rooms. Or why we shouldn’t get a system that pays for their preventive care.
Amused 0: A lifer in the federal government has a pretty decent set up after a lifetime of sucking on the public tit.
You are just insistently ignorant, aren’t you?
Amused 0: A lifer in the federal government has a pretty decent set up after a lifetime of sucking on the public tit. Think how much cash you’d have to squirrel away to pay for the retirement and benefits those people get. I still maintain that the costs associated with federal management exceed those of the private sector regardless of the golden parachutes. It’s just too hard for the private sector to steal as much as the government wastes.
Seriously, 0. It’s a trait I’ve seen on the left, too, but never as prevalently and insistently as on the right.
You get an opinion in your head and then, when it is challenged, you show a pathological need to just make up completely unsupported, false and so obviously stupid stuff rather than allow you might be wrong.
It must be hard to have self-esteem that low.
Amused 0: A lifer in the federal government has a pretty decent set up after a lifetime of sucking on the public tit.
And what setup is that, exactly? Got any reports you can point to of hordes of FDA inspectors retiring at 55, of postal workers not sweating putting their kids through college, of Police officers buying large homes in affluent communities? Or are you just making shit up?
Think how much cash you’d have to squirrel away to pay for the retirement and benefits those people get.
How much? Come on, 0, you seem to knowenough to know it’s a generaous amount. So just how much is it? or are you just making shit up?
I still maintain that the costs associated with federal management exceed those of the private sector regardless of the golden parachutes.
Based on what? Got any actual numbers or are you just making shit up?
It’s just too hard for the private sector to steal as much as the government wastes.
How much does the gov’t waste? How does it compare to how much the private sector steals? Got any actual facts to support your view? I’ll help you get started. The amounts spent on the recent “bail out” of banks have been widely reported, you could use those as a starting point for what was “stolen” by Wall St, the private sector. Got any actual gov’t waste to compare it to? Or are you just making shit up?