Obama Care vs Republicans

[Adak]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

But if Adak doesn't keep his "death panels" and "Grandma" fables going,
he would be giving lie to another of his most recent secret fears...



All three of these false rumors come from the same person, Betsy McCaughey
... as was pointed out by UT in post #4 of this thread ( in this link )

Frankly, I didn't think about a "death panel" at all, until I heard Obama say "maybe we just send Grandma home with a pain pill, instead" (of an expensive treatment).

That was your boy, right there. In broad daylight. I'm not sure about the word "Grandma" however. He sort of slurred that one word.

Then I heard about these commissions in Great Britain. They decide what treatments (if they're expensive), will be used, for what type of patients. The older you get, the fewer expensive treatments you qualify for, or the longer you have to wait.

Which I fully understand - you have to manage costs in any insurance plan, whether it's ACA or not. But when the public cheered Obama right after he said that, I was quite sure that they didn't understand just what he was saying would be done here.

Because 95% of the time, the "send them home with a pain pill" will be "send them home to die", since the expensive treatment for the elderly would probably be a cancer treatment, or a transplant of some kind.

You post a link to ONE, just ONE article from ANY Great Britain newspaper or BBC, about a NHS patient over the age of 65 years, who received a bone marrow transplant, or an organ transplant, and I'll re-consider the validity of what I've been hearing (and read on line).

I believe you'll find there are none, unless it was done overseas. You know, in some advanced health care country - like the US.

Australia has a two-tier system. Everyone has a basic NHS service account, but if you want very good health care, you better have your private insurance account, as well. It can get pretty ugly pretty fast, otherwise, for the important stuff.The medical care is OK, but the waiting periods are dreadfully long.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Adak

You post a link to ONE, just ONE article from ANY Great Britain newspaper or BBC, about a NHS patient over the age of 65 years, who received a bone marrow transplant, or an organ transplant, and I'll re-consider the validity of what I've been hearing (and read on line).

Individual patients aren't generally going to make the news, so that's a sort of silly request.

However, trivia to the rescue!

• The oldest recorded recipient of an organ in the UK was an 85-year-old kidney patient.
• The oldest recipient of a cornea transplant in the UK was 104.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Adak

<snip>You post a link to ONE, just ONE article from ANY Great Britain newspaper or BBC, about a NHS patient over the age of 65 years, who received a bone marrow transplant, or an organ transplant, and I'll re-consider the validity of what I've been hearing (and read on line).

I believe you'll find there are none, unless it was done overseas. You know, in some advanced health care country - like the US.
<snip>

A simple Google Scholar search turned up this article...

Heart 2000;83:505–510
• Cardiovascular medicine
Survival of patients with a new diagnosis of heart failure: a population based study
• Accepted 31 January 2000

Abstract
OBJECTIVE To describe the survival of a population based cohort of patients with incident (new) heart failure and the clinical features associated with mortality.
DESIGN A population based observational study.
SETTING Population of 151 000 served by 82 general practitioners in west London.
PATIENTS New cases of heart failure were identified by daily surveillance of acute hospital admissions to the local district general hospital, and by general practitioner referral of all suspected new cases of heart failure to a rapid access clinic.
INTERVENTIONS All patients with suspected heart failure underwent clinical assessment, and chest radiography, ECG, and echocardiogram were performed. A panel of three cardiologists reviewed all the data and determined whether the definition of heart failure had been met. Patients were subsequently managed by the general practitioner in consultation with the local cardiologist or admitting physician.
RESULTS There were 90 deaths (83 cardiovascular deaths) in the cohort of 220 patients with incident heart failure over a median follow up of 16 months. Survival was 81% at one month, 75% at three months, 70% at six months, 62% at 12 months, and 57% at 18 months. Lower systolic blood pressure, higher serum creatinine concentration, and greater extent of crackles on auscultation of the lungs were independently predictive of cardiovascular mortality (all p < 0.001).
CONCLUSIONS In patients with new heart failure, mortality is high in the first few weeks after diagnosis. Simple clinical features can identify a group of patients at especially high risk of death.
In the very first table of this article (TABLE 1) hospital admission. In such cases, the clinical

Table 1 Clinical features of the 220 incident cases of heart failure
Demographics, history, aetiology
Age (years) 76 (67 to 83) (range 29 to 95 years)
Sex 118 (54%) men
102 (46%) women
<snip>

Your "reconsideration" should begin NOW

[Beest]

Originally Posted by Adak

Australia has a two-tier system. Everyone has a basic NHS service account, but if you want very good health care, you better have your private insurance account, as well. It can get pretty ugly pretty fast, otherwise, for the important stuff.The medical care is OK, but the waiting periods are dreadfully long.

Seems to be a little known fact that the UK has plenty of private health insurance. BUPA was the one you would hear about when i was a kid, so I looked them up, founded in 1947, based off an Australian organistaion founded in the '30's. If you have insurance you may well be seen in the same hospital and seen by the same doctors, but ,maybe nicer rooms, better food, shorter wait times etc.
You can be drop in and out of the private stream too, I have a friend whose mother was in pain, so he went private to see a specialist ina couple of days, instead of a couple of weeks or months, and the she was transferred back to the NHS system for treatment.

I also know of someone in the US with severe back pain that was required to take strong anti pain meds, the type for short term relief, that you should only take for a couple of days, for 2 months before her insuramnce would pay for an MRI. (a nurse BTW)

Having had some experience of both systems, the qualiy of the doctorin' is the same in both, beurocracy is equally obscure .
Wait times are longer in the UK for a simple surgery, and the hospitals aren't as new and shiny, but then nobody goes broke or goes without.