“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”
– P. J. ORourke
An NHS Tale.
I stayed in Miami with some (French) friends last weekend, and they told me about what a nightmare of a time they had getting a simple diagnosis of pneumonia for their son from the British national healthcare system, NHS, in London.
When he was about a year old, he would apparently consistently get sick over the course of six months, always on a weekend, and his mother would then take him to the emergency room to be treated by the NHS. They would send her away every time, sometimes giving her an antibiotic which would last only a week, but usually saying that whatever he had was no big deal and was something that every child had. Her husband tried to get her to go to a private hospital, but she thought the NHS would be fine and didn’t want to spend the extra money for it, so they kept trying the NHS.
Finally, after six months of no luck with their “universal healthcare” system, they went to a private hospital, where the baby was immediately given an x-ray and diagnosed with a severe case of pneumonia– and because the pneumonia had been allowed to go on for six months rather than being properly treated, one of his lungs was almost collapsed. He had to stay in the hospital for two days for observation, and the family could stay with him. Their room even had maid service! They did have private insurance which covered most of the cost, and it was still expensive– but less expensive than the alternative of continuing to go to the NHS for diagnosis, which could have cost their son his life.
I lived in London myself once, and I had a small interaction with the NHS that I was completely happy with, but I never had to actually go to an A&E (British emergency room) or to a hospital for treatment when I was there– and those are certainly the most important aspects of any healthcare system. I had another friend who went to an NHS hospital for a cholesterol reading, and in the end they conducted the wrong test. Whether these cases are representative of common experiences or not, the cause of bureaucracy or a shortage of properly trained doctors,they are troubling and seemingly symptomatic of a system that has no personal accountability and no need to provide above-and-beyond service to consumers. In any case, they were lucky that private insurance exists in the UK, because it doesn’t in Canada.
A Tale of Healthcare in China.
Last week, a Canadian medical student told me about how his sister, studying in China, went to the hospital with a virus. The hospital is considered to be the third-best hospital in China, outside of Shanghai. They conducted some tests and came back with a diagnosis– of HIV.
This was based completely on a test of her white blood cell count, which of course could be low from just having a virus (among many other things besides HIV). They not only gave her outdated anti-AIDS drugs like AZT to take home and instructed her to immediately begin taking them, they also put ant-retroviral drugs into her IV. She went home and called her father, who is a doctor in Canada and told her not to take the drugs under any circumstances, because those types of drugs have terrible side effects and could even be fatal. China has taken the next step and created a communist government that Che Guevara would be proud of. Their healthcare system should be a successful example of “socialized medicine,” right?
Universal healthcare, socialized medicine, healthcare, NHS, British NHS, China healthcare, healthcare in China
This falls in line with what I’ve experienced from the NHS (and I’ve heard France isn’t much better).
Daneil
March 5th, 2008
I’m a Canadian who has tangled with socialism and socialized medicine for 42 years and I can confidently say that it’s an unmitigated disaster. I could go on and on about it, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop. Our system is dangerous, demeaning and impossibly expensive. The stats you come across stating that Canadians spend less on health care than Americans are misleading in several ways. They don’t take into account the cost of waiting for hours and hours in rooms full of sick people, missing work and risking contagion. They don’t count as a cost the pain suffered during absurd waiting times for non-elective surgeries such as hip replacements. They don’t count the psychological effect of having half our income taxed away to pay for the bloated and inefficient system.
Canadians constantly commit the fallacy of the false dichotomy by judging their health care system only in comparison to the American system, which is itself quite distant from a free market situation. This is typical of my petty countrymen. They don’t care how miserable their lives become, as long as they can feel morally superior to Americans.
I’ve got friends in England with their own bumper crop of horror stories. Their unanimous advice: Never have a baby in England.
When my friends move to the U.S. they invariably encounter the notion that our system is spectacularly successful, and have a hard time disabusing people of their wrong ideas about Canadian health care. Well, here’s the skinny from the horses mouth: The quality of health care in Canada is the same as that a homeless man would receive walking into a state hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska with no insurance and no money. The very few Canadians who get better care either have connections, or have flown to another country.
I should add that this terrible situation persists in spite of amazing dedication on the part of many medical professionals. It’s quite an amazing system that can take everyone’s sincere good intentions, their hard work, and huge amounts of money, and turn it all into steaming piles of shit. Wow!
Mikey Canuck
March 6th, 2008
Thanks for your thoughts, Mikey. It is interesting that there might be hidden costs not taken into account (waiting room times, etc.) of which health care system is better. I also am SO glad that you realize that the US does NOT have a free market system; many people start the conversation by saying, “The free market in the US has failed in healthcare,” and it’s not a free market system at all or anything resembling it at the moment.
“Their unanimous advice: Never have a baby in England.”
My same friend with the above NHS story told me that her sister and every woman in London has to give birth standing up. I know that’s how things used to be done and perhaps that’s a better way to do it, but it seems like people should be given a choice about such a personal thing.
libertariangirl
March 6th, 2008
My friend’s wife was in labor for six days, but the hospital wouldn’t admit her because their “book” said her contractions had to be less than three minutes apart. They never got that close together. It took yelling and screaming and the police being called before they’d let her in. The Miracle of Birth the socialist way. I’m sure they’ll cherish the memory.
Here’s a great essay on the effect of socialism on the British national character (Linked to my name). It applies with only minor modifications to us here in Canada, where over half the population is employed by the State, either directly or at one remove, and tax freedom day is June 20th. All the news here is either about the Government, or about what the Government need to do about some problem that is afflicting us. We’ve become whining children.
Canada has more natural resources than any country save Russia, an educated populace, the world’s biggest trading partner to the south of us, robust infrastructure and a seacoast in each of the two biggest oceans on Earth. We should be the richest country on the planet. Instead we’ve been recently leapfrogged in terms of GDP per head by the tiny island states of Taiwan and Ireland. We must be doing something very, very wrong for this state of affairs to obtain.
I’m still clinging to the fantasy that I can join the Free State project and live with some semblance of dignity, but it looks more and more like the U.S. government is swelling at an unprecedented rate with nothing in sight to stop it or slow it down. Please tell me I’m wrong.
Mikey Canuck
March 7th, 2008