‘Single Payer Is a Rational Health-Care System’:

Willie71 · **#261** by **Willie71** » Oct 26, 2017 2:13 pm

In our system, I went to emergency last Thursday after getting a pretty bad dog bite. From arrival at the hospital to walking out the door stitched and bandaged up, was 1h, 50min. Nine stitches, and supplies for three days of dressing changes were all included, no charge to me at the point of treatment. I can’t complain about that level of service at all.

Now I have an appointment at the vet for my 7 year old Great Dane who I worry may have cancer or had a stroke. Serious behaviour change two months ago with +++ anxiety and confusion.

Macdoc · **#262** by **Macdoc** » Oct 27, 2017 12:23 am

If you're not seriously ill, you don't get seen until all seriously ill people are taken care of

Yup ...you walk in with a sugar problem service is right quick....even the walk in clinics can boot you along very quickly if they see something they don't like.

Went in for a little bump on a testicle and fell down the rabbit hole ....blood and sonogram same day, speciallist two days later, surgery the next week, chemo the week after that for 6 treatments then spinal chemo then 17 radiation treatments - 5 months or so later no more cancer and that was 7 years ago.
The can put the pedal to the metal if they consider it dire.

My cost was a few dollars for anti-nausea pills and parking. The only wait was for the biopsy ...a few days of OMG angst :coffee:

Fallible · **#263** by **Fallible** » Oct 27, 2017 6:24 am

I got ushered through to the Comfy Chair Room (a section of A&E for the about to croak but still capable of sitting upright) and an emergency CT, results early the following day, many pain drugs, specialist appointment, whipped the bastard out, bang, bang, bang. Also cancer patients here get all their drugs free, plus massages, aromatherapy, wig making service and counselling, all free, if needed. Failing system though, you see.

aban57 · **#264** by **aban57** » Oct 27, 2017 6:31 am

Fallible wrote:I got ushered through to the Comfy Chair Room (a section of A&E for the about to croak but still capable of sitting upright) and an emergency CT, results early the following day, many pain drugs, specialist appointment, whipped the bastard out, bang, bang, bang. Also cancer patients here get all their drugs free, plus massages, aromatherapy, wig making service and counselling, all free, if needed. Failing system though, you see.

You're so partial.

Fallible · **#265** by **Fallible** » Oct 27, 2017 6:34 am

I know, its weird how the NHS making me not dead has coloured my view of it...

Teague · **#266** by **Teague** » Oct 27, 2017 9:47 am

Sendraks wrote:
Scot Dutchy wrote:This is not quality or service:

A&E waiting times: Huge spike in patients forced to wait more than 12 hours

Rise branded 'catastrophic' after 1,597 patients waited more than 12 to be admitted between January and March this year, compared with just 15 patients in 2012

This is just one of many reports of failures in the NHS. It is being starved of money.

Lets put this "failure" into context shall we.

In that time period, the official stats say there were 1,598,216 decisions to admit to English NHS hospitals.
So of the total number of admissions, only 0.09% waited for more than 12 hours.

Obviously no patient should be subjected to a 12hour wait and that is a goal the system strives towards but, you do need to consider that the overwhelming majority of patients do not experience that kind of wait.

I'm not going to pretend that there are no problems but, they are not nearly as big or as catastrophic as you make them out to be.

It remains the case that you have no evidence to support your assertion that the NHS is a failing system.

I would love to know the details of these "waits" to see how and why they occured. I would also be surprised if thr NHS hadn't looked at that to see what went wrong and how to improve things and it's not even 1 tenth of one percent.

I found this which is ntohing to do with anything we're discussing but adding it for interest

http://theconversation.com/creating-a-b ... ands-30270

and this which Sc ot shouldn't read...

http://www.heritage.org/health-care-ref ... -americans

Teague · **#267** by **Teague** » Oct 27, 2017 9:49 am

aban57 wrote:I jusst found an article written by Scot

http://newsthump.com/2016/05/24/nhs-doc ... onditions/

Teague · **#268** by **Teague** » Oct 27, 2017 9:54 am

Oldskeptic wrote:
Teague wrote:
Oldskeptic wrote:
The man was only identified as Rick in Michael Moore's Sicko and apparently there is no way to verify Moore's story or the exact circumstances. But don't let that stop you from repeating it despite not even knowing where the story came from.

The fact that I remembered the story is good enough to crap all over your dumbfuck reply. It doesn't even matter if "Rick" is real or not, the facts of the outcome would be the same unless you wish to argue they wouldn't be?

Except that Michael Moore lies more easily than he tells the truth.

That's a bit rich coming from you, isn't it? Dodo just told you how SP is cheaper are you erronously said it was more expensive. You are nothing but a troll. Living under your cobbled bridge where you sling your shit from. You've been told COUNTLESS times what reality is and yet you still refuse to accept it and you keep LYING even when you've been told what the truth is.

Fuck me, you even post links to articles that repeatedly PROVE YOUR OWN ARGUMENT WRONG because you have the reading comprehension skills of a 6 year old. Again and again you punch yourself in the face then have the gall to tell other people how much shit they're talking.

Nobody gives a shit about Rick or Micheal Moore. As usual, you have no clue what's going on and this is about all you can cling to right now to try to appear relevant in this conversation.

Instead of reading people's posts and looking for anything tiny pathetic thing to nitpick and then be wrong over, why don't you try reading stuff first and getting your facts right?

Sendraks · **#269** by **Sendraks** » Oct 27, 2017 9:55 am

Teague wrote:
I would love to know the details of these "waits" to see how and why they occured. I would also be surprised if thr NHS hadn't looked at that to see what went wrong and how to improve things and it's not even 1 tenth of one percent.

We won't get much clarity on the first point because of patient confidentiality and also the way the system tracks information. As I said, the main reason during winter is the complexity of cases resulting in a patient being seen, treated and discharged in the four hour wait window.

The main reason this data is published is so the NHS knows how it is performing and can look at how to improve patient flows. The Department of Health does a huge amount of planning for the winter period and is seeks additional resource from HMT to help address NHS capacity issues. The NHS doesn't consider breaches of the 4hr wait to be acceptable, let alone any longer waits.

Teague · **#270** by **Teague** » Oct 27, 2017 10:01 am

Sendraks wrote:
Teague wrote:
I would love to know the details of these "waits" to see how and why they occured. I would also be surprised if thr NHS hadn't looked at that to see what went wrong and how to improve things and it's not even 1 tenth of one percent.

We won't get much clarity on the first point because of patient confidentiality and also the way the system tracks information. As I said, the main reason during winter is the complexity of cases resulting in a patient being seen, treated and discharged in the four hour wait window.

The main reason this data is published is so the NHS knows how it is performing and can look at how to improve patient flows. The Department of Health does a huge amount of planning for the winter period and is seeks additional resource from HMT to help address NHS capacity issues. The NHS doesn't consider breaches of the 4hr wait to be acceptable, let alone any longer waits.

Well I have no complaints - I'm thinking that if that information was available you'd see things like, "waitied too long at A&E when I had a cold" or some nonsense or that a place was understaffed or maybe someone refused to be transferred to another hospital so they could get a bed.

Sendraks · **#271** by **Sendraks** » Oct 27, 2017 10:09 am

Teague wrote:I'm thinking that if that information was available you'd see things like, "waitied too long at A&E when I had a cold"

For something like that, a patient is more likely to be sent home following triage rather than being kept waiting for hours. After all, if you don't see someone and verify whether they need to admitted for further assessment and treatment, having people just waiting places lives at risk.

If someone is waiting a long time to be admitted, it usually means that their case is not a priority and the wait won't place them at any further risk. The ideal is to keep the wait to a minimum but, if someone with more urgent needs comes in, then less urgent cases get bumped down the queue.

proudfootz · **#272** by **proudfootz** » Oct 27, 2017 10:33 am

Under the current profit-driven system here in the States there can be significant waits for medical or dental appointments. I don't see how someone can imagine this doesn't occasionally happen.

Plus there are plenty of occasions where I am simply denied coverage for medical care, which would be fine if I was a millionaire because I could whip out my wallet and plunk $40,000 on the desk without a care in the world.

Teague · **#273** by **Teague** » Oct 27, 2017 1:53 pm

Sendraks wrote:
Teague wrote:I'm thinking that if that information was available you'd see things like, "waitied too long at A&E when I had a cold"

For something like that, a patient is more likely to be sent home following triage rather than being kept waiting for hours. After all, if you don't see someone and verify whether they need to admitted for further assessment and treatment, having people just waiting places lives at risk.

If someone is waiting a long time to be admitted, it usually means that their case is not a priority and the wait won't place them at any further risk. The ideal is to keep the wait to a minimum but, if someone with more urgent needs comes in, then less urgent cases get bumped down the queue.

I was trying to give examples of non trivial things that might make it into these 12 hour waits so in other words, on the face of things these 12 hours sound bad but until we can see exactly what they were for, we don't know how to judge.

Let's just say it turned out they were all waiting 12 hours for a plaster on their finger because they suffered a paper cut - I don't think it carries the same weight as someone waiting 12 hours to have their leg sewn back on.

WayOfTheDodo · **#274** by **WayOfTheDodo** » Oct 27, 2017 9:15 pm

Oldskeptic wrote:My mother snores and it disturbs her sleep. When she went for sleep therapy they started with the most expensive machine and worked down from there. it finally came down to a low cost mouth appliance that worked best for mom but by then Medicare had already paid a few thousand dollars for non-returnable non-refundable breathing machines.

When I took the time to call Medicare and notify them of what I considered, "milking the system" at best, I was asked why I cared since none of the money over-billed by the providers came out of our pocket.

My mother gets a gets a headache and her doctors order up an MRI and flush another few thousand dollars down the drain and into their pockets.

In my opinion Medicare is a feeding frenzy of gobbling up money no one is watching. So when Bernie Sanders starts talking about the difference in administration costs between Medicare and private insurance being 2% compared to 12% to 18% I'm not at all surprised.

Before Bernie or anyone proposes to expand Medicare to everyone they need to fix the wasteful spending of Medicare. Streamline medicare and make it a shining example of bureaucratic and administrative excellence and then let's talk.

So how do you know there's not an actual valid reason they are doing it this way? Do you know how to do their jobs better than they do?

What if, for example, using the most expensive machinery is beneficial in most cases and ends up saving money in the long run because the expensive equipment gives them a better start for the treatment of whatever is wrong, or saves time and therefore money (again, in most cases)?

Blip · **#275** by **Blip** » Oct 28, 2017 12:52 pm

!	MODNOTE Teague, please see my warning to you here.

Agi Hammerthief · **#276** by **Agi Hammerthief** » Oct 28, 2017 6:44 pm

Fallible wrote:I know, its weird how the NHS making me not dead has coloured my view of it...

Well... those who it made dead are not around to tell the tale
:hide:

Fallible · **#277** by **Fallible** » Oct 28, 2017 6:47 pm

No. But, you know, my point is I'm not going to think the system is failing if my experience is that it succeeded.

WayOfTheDodo · **#278** by **WayOfTheDodo** » Oct 29, 2017 9:08 am

Oldskeptic wrote:Not liking Bernie's ridiculous plan and thinking that he is an ineffectual buffoon

...is retarded. It's based on your irrational hatred of him, and the way you consistently misrepresent his positions.

Hillary sucks. Deal with it. Mindlessly bashing Bernie won't make her suck less. She lost to Donald Fucking Trump, FFS!

Oldskeptic · **#279** by **Oldskeptic** » Oct 29, 2017 3:46 pm

WayOfTheDodo wrote:
Oldskeptic wrote:Not liking Bernie's ridiculous plan and thinking that he is an ineffectual buffoon

...is retarded. It's based on your irrational hatred of him, and the way you consistently misrepresent his positions.

Hillary sucks. Deal with it. Mindlessly bashing Bernie won't make her suck less. She lost to Donald Fucking Trump, FFS!

Well, if you say so.

Willie71 · **#280** by **Willie71** » Oct 29, 2017 4:00 pm

Oldskeptic wrote:
WayOfTheDodo wrote:
Oldskeptic wrote:Not liking Bernie's ridiculous plan and thinking that he is an ineffectual buffoon

...is retarded. It's based on your irrational hatred of him, and the way you consistently misrepresent his positions.

Hillary sucks. Deal with it. Mindlessly bashing Bernie won't make her suck less. She lost to Donald Fucking Trump, FFS!

Well, if you say so.

Most people say so:

On July 11, Morning Consult released a poll naming Sen. Bernie Sanders as the most popular politician in the Senate, with a 75 percent approval rating. He held a 6 percent lead over the runner up, Sen. Brian Schatz. The rankings were based on over 140,000 interviews conducted between April 1 and June 18, 2017. The latest poll provides further evidence that Sanders is the most popular politician in the country.

A survey conducted by Fox News in March 2017 found similar results. Sanders received the highest favorability rating of nationally known politicians: 61 percent. The runner up was Vice President Mike Pence, whose favorability was 47 percent. A Harvard-Harris survey conducted in April 2017 confirmed these results, with Sanders receiving a 57 percent favorability rating. Hillary Clinton received only 42 percent favorability in the same poll. In April 2017, PolitiFact rated the claim that Sanders is the most popular politician in the country even though he lost to Clinton as mostly true.

http://observer.com/2017/07/bernie-sand ... olitician/

Again, your beliefs are out of line with reality.

‘Single Payer Is a Rational Health-Care System’:

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