Healthcare War Stories

Starting about 8 months too late, but here’s some random notes on the Healthcare wars…

Patientpowernow.org

Above videos were produced by i2i.org & the Frasier Institute.

Here’s one from Reason:

Relevant Facilities:

Timely Medical Alternative

In 2003, Timely Medical Alternatives Inc. was formed to help Canadians, on long medical waiting lists, to take personal responsibility for their own medical care and “Leave the queue”.

Interesting Statistics:

Typical Wait Times (after initial visit to a G.P.)

1. Wait to see a specialist for initial consultation
* Public: 6 – 12 months
* Private: 10 days
2. Wait for diagnostic imaging (excluding X-Rays) after seeing surgeon
* Public: 4 – 8 months
* Private: 24 hours
3. Wait for a biopsy (if necessary)
* Public: 2 months
* Private: 4 days
4. Wait for pathological analysis of tissue
* Public: 14 days
* Private: 1 – 3 days
5. Wait for follow-up visit to surgeon to discuss results of diagnostics
* Public: 1 – 3 months
* Private: 7 days
6. Wait for a surgical/hospital date to be set
* Public: 6 – 18 months
* Private: 1 day
7. Wait for surgery after date is set
* Public: 6 – 10 months
* Private: 7 days

In The UK

Telegraph: Want to fix the NHS? Go private, When a hospital fails in the way that the Basildon and Thurrock Trust has, it should be turned over immediately to a private-sector hit squad to sort it out, writes Simon Heffer. Simon Heffer, 27 Nov 2009

DailyMail: The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets
Note to self: looks to be about .56% of yearly births. Would love to see how that compares to the US>

Instapundit, CBO on Healthcare:

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN? CBO: Republican health plan would reduce premiums, cut deficit.

HEH: CBO Health-Care Score Assumes Congress Sticks to Its Promises, Which Probably Won’t Happen, Says CBO. Well, there’s a confidence-builder.

CBO: Senate healthcare bill estimated to cost $829 billion over 10 years.

Other stuff

LATIMES: “Tough love for fat people: Tax their food to pay for healthcare” -July 27, 2009

Food Inc and Grist make similar arguments….

Sources:
The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets, By Jenny Hope and Nick Mcdermott, Last updated at 8:36 AM on 26th August 2009

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HealthCare

For Private:

Via NYT’s:

The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization. … “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”

odd, as that’s not what you hear from NPR…

Kenneth Anderson via Volokh:

Hoover Senior Fellow Scott Atlas on Why American Health Care
is not as bad as you might have thought and, as it happens, has important advantages. (I ran across this in the latest Hoover Digest, and then found it had been making the rounds.) Dr. Atlas is also head of the neuroradiology department at Stanford Medical School. (Full disclosure: I’m also affiliated with Hoover). Dr. Atlas walks through a list of ten:

Krugman vs Canadians

http://eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduznzqGaG

For Government:

Via NYT’s:

The A.M.A., an umbrella group for 180 medical societies, does not speak for all doctors. One group, Physicians for a National Health Program, supports a single-payer system of insurance

Clearly a minority, again, not what you hear from NPR…

Dean Kamen, the most prolific medical inventor of all time:

We spent in all branches of all our pharmaceutical suppliers, $260 billion. … Last year what did we spend supporting professional sports? $409 billion.

Now if somebody in this country wants to explain to me that we ought to be spending about twice as much supporting sports as on all of our pharmaceuticals, then stop spending. You don’t like that drug? You don’t want to cure this disease? Don’t buy it. But don’t make villains out of people so that we can turn what is a real social responsibility issue into a political debate.

Sources:
Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan, New York Times, ROBERT PEAR, June 10, 2009
Obama wants to kill your grandma, Five right-wing myths about healthcare reform, and the facts, Salon, Mike Madden
Popular Mechanics, Inventor Dean Kamen Says Healthcare Debate “Backward Looking”, By The Editors, Published on: August 6, 2009
Reuters, French government to tackle surging health care deficit, Mon Sep 7, 2009
BBC New, French healthcare is ‘badly run’, Friday, 23 January

On tea…..

Too much may be bad

Green tea is good for you, but only if drunk in moderation. While the polyphenols in green tea are credited with preventing heart disease and cancer, it seems they can cause liver and kidney damage if consumed in very large quantities, a review of studies into the toxicity of polyphenols has shown.

“People shouldn’t be too alarmed by this, but those taking supplements may experience problems,” says lead author Chung Yang of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

He stresses that up to 10 small cups of green tea a day is fine. Problems are likely in people who take supplements, which can contain up to 50 times as much polyphenol as a single cup of tea.

source:
New Scientist, Green tea can be harmful in large quantities, 05 May 2007
Chemical Research in Toxicology, vol 20, p 583