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October 09, 2005

Health Care Priorities

By Ezra

Everybody should read this post of Kevin's. Everybody. And, while you ingest it, think about this: in other countries, the idea that your "insurance" even can be denied simply doesn't exist. Forget the circumstances, for get disasters, you don't even have clerical errors. Whether you're displaced, traveling, or just ill, when you enter the waiting room, the only talk is about your ailment and how to treat it, not a word is said and not a thought thunk as to how you'll pay for it.

October 9, 2005 in Health Care | Permalink

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Ezra, you and Kevin must have missed this September report otherwise you wouldn't be so surprised.

This study, I think, speaks to a really important myth that is out there," Asplin said. "That is that a lot of Americans think that, sure we have 45.8 million uninsured people, but when they really need care they get it -- and in our study the uninsured callers really needed care and they weren't able to get it."


63% of callers claiming to have private insurance secured timely follow-up appointments compared with just 34% of those who said they had Medicaid.


There was no difference in rates of secured appointments between callers claiming private insurance and those who were uninsured but willing to pay the entire $100 fee for the visit.


98% of clinics screened callers for a source of payment but only 28% attempted to determine the severity of the callers medical condition.

The bottom line is that if you're not a card carrying member of our healthcare system you're going to have a very difficult time getting access to care, " Dr. Brent R. Asplin from Regions Hospital and HealthPartners Research Foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota, told Reuters Health.

In other words, the unofficial and cold-hearted triage of the US healthcare system is that the ability to pay trumps the severity of illness every time. The only way to cure it is a universal healthcare system - which would actually be cheaper for the taxpayers, all myths to the contrary.

Regards, Cernig @ Newshog

Posted by: Cernig | Oct 9, 2005 3:11:53 PM

Before we start rhapsodizing about universal health care, consider that in Canada, most people face waiting lists of several months.

I have no direct experience with Canada, but I did study in Israel for a year. Israel, a quasi-socialist country, has government-provided health care; it is widely acknowledged to be terrible. In a country where one out of every twelve people are certified doctors thanks to the military draft, the standard of care is so bad that when a British friend of mine tore his ear half off, he decided to wait a few days for his father (a private-practice doctor) to arrive on a trip, rather than seek medical care immediately.

Our medical system has issues, but to ignore the horrific problems of medical care in other countries and simply advocate socialized medicine does not get us any closer to a real solution.

Posted by: Mastiff | Oct 9, 2005 4:24:04 PM

Medical care is rationed in this country too, Mastiff, even among those who are insured. The Canadian version of single payer insurance works much like an American HMO. If you have a non-urgent need for service in either system, you may have to wait a while. The French system, on the other hand, tends to have much shorter wait times although at a higher cost to the tax payer.

Rationing service is not necessarily a bad thing. The fee-for-service and PPO models of insurance in this country tend to be pretty wasteful of resources. The same can be said for France.

I worked in a shelter in Texas for a couple of weeks and it was heartbreaking to see the number of people who had been thrown out of the ranks of the insured by that storm. Big bad Pharma contributed three months of medications to the evacuees (I wrote duplicate Rxs for some expensive stuff!), but many of them wound up being hooked up with either charity care or private docs who were willing to contribute services. It was a mess.

Posted by: J Bean | Oct 9, 2005 4:37:22 PM

Canadian healthcare isn't that bad. My mom had a heart attack and was stabilized in her local hospital, she did have to wait a week to get a stent at another hospital that specializes in heart treatments, but it was because the most serious cases, like someone needing a bypass, went to the "front of the line." She's fine now.

The worst part was that the hospitals are barebones. Just a bed with that curtain that screens out the view.

Posted by: Donna | Oct 9, 2005 8:24:00 PM

Mastiff -- You say before we consider rhapsodizing over Canada, we should note that some patients their have to wait a few months to get non-urgent treatments? The article is about an American who can't get chemotherapy for his stomach cancer!!!!! This isn't even a contest!

Posted by: Ezra | Oct 10, 2005 1:15:33 AM

Oh, and for comparative analysis, check out my health of nations series. As it happens, America, a quasi-capitalist system with a mishmash of private care structures, is also widely acknowledged to be terrible. Some folks argue about how to fix it, but not a single observer I know of thinks the status quo laudable.

Posted by: Ezra | Oct 10, 2005 1:17:39 AM

Unfortunatly even here in NZ these things only go so far. There was a brief story on the radio news last week, which I've not seen anything else about, regarding the health department wanting to institute ID checks for elective surgery because they're not recouping all they spend on visitors who leave after treatment. I can hope they won't get that far, but there's enough anti-immigrant sentiment that it might happen. Even if you can get people to feel compassion for thier fellow citizen, its not infinite.

Posted by: Matthew Angel | Oct 10, 2005 7:06:00 AM

Not bloody really, if by "other countries" you mean anything outside of socialized Western European countries. And even then, most of them have various privitized aspects of them, from dentistry to optimetry. And also, just because the service itself is free, doesn't mean the service is worth even going to (witness Japan, whose had a rash medical malpractice and dubious medical degree granting in an urgent attempt to keep the medical sector all japanese, as opposed to letting immigrants perform the job). This is not to defend America's system, or imply it is better or worse thana ny of these other options. What it is saying is the statement "other countries" have better healtcare is a Western-centric, developed country centric viewpoint. Many "other" countries don;t have basic medical care, let alone the ability to have anyone cover it for them.

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