No Matter What Lies the Right Wing Screams, the Brits Love Their Health Care System

[marmar]

Guardian UK, via AlterNet:



No Matter What Lies the Right Wing Screams, the Brits Love Their Health Care System

By Denis Campbell, The Guardian. Posted August 13, 2009.

Republicans and right-wing pundits in the US have tried to scare us about Britain's public health system -- because it works.



The claim

Ted Kennedy, 77, would not be treated for his brain tumor if he was in Britain because he is too old – Charles Grassley, Republican senator from Iowa.

The response

Untrue, says the Department of Health. "There is no ban on anyone of any age receiving any treatment, " said a spokesman. "Whether to prescribe drugs or recommend surgery is rightly a clinical decision taken on a case by case basis."

The claim

Government health officials in England have decided that $22,750 (£14,000) is what six months' life is worth. Under their socialised system, if a medical treatment costs more, you're out of luck - Club for Growth

The response

The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) decides whether new drugs represent value for money for the NHS in England and Wales. It replied: "This is a gross misrepresentation of how Nice applies health economics to try and address the central issue: how to allocate healthcare rationally within the context of limited healthcare resources. Nice assesses the cost of a treatment in terms of a cost-utility analysis which takes account of the quality adjusted life year – the amount and quality of extended life it is hoped the patient will gain. The current ceiling is £30,000 but exceptions are made."

The claim

In England, anyone over 59 years of age cannot receive heart repairs, stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed – an anonymously authored, but widely circulated, email, largely sent to older voters

The response

Totally untrue. Growing numbers of patients over 65 with heart conditions are having surgery, including valve repairs and heart bypass surgery, says Professor Peter Weissberg, the British Heart Foundation's (BHF) medical director. For example, the average age at which people have a bypass operation has risen from 58 in 1991 to 66 in 2008. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141950/no_matter_what_lies_the_right_wing_screams%2C_the_brits_love_their_health_care_system/

[bbernardini]

1. Here's another one I hadn't heard before, re: breast cancer.

Somebody wrote this in a LTTE that was a response to mine:

"Let's look at another death squad possibility under the new plan ... in the UK expensive drugs to treat women with advanced breast cancer were denied ... why? Because they were too expensive for a country where socialized medicine has forced rationing. Being denied those life saving drugs is a death sentence to the women who need them. Because of all the publicity here in America and the protests in the UK, those women are now getting the drugs they need, but absent that protest and this debate ... socialized medicine was their death sentence."

[excess_3]

2. health insurance companies have what role? .nt

[Hugin]

3. Okay, one I keep hearing repeatedly is that if one has smoked or is a smoker they will be denied...

under NHS.

Is there ANY truth to this claim?

[YOY]

5. I am going to say the answer is that is untrue as can be. Because it sounds like BS.

n/t

[Hugin]

6. I thought so, too.

You must realize I'm surrounded by a large contingent of VA hypocrites.

Y'know the type... "KEEP YER SOZALISMISTIC GOOBERMINTAL HANDS OFF'A MY VA BENFITS!!"

Well, that's one less feather in their bullshit cap... Along with the claim about Stephen Hawking! :lol:

[stray cat]

4. NY times - states their preference for theirs versus US but they are 25 billion in debt

for health care program

[Hugin]

7. Pfft, $25 Billion... That's NOTHING! We spent 100 times that to keep the banks living large.

And... What has the middle-class received in return? Nothing, but, a worthless Mortgage relief plan and gutless Credit Card reforms.