Exactly.
Data collection is not bad, but it can be expensive. Combining the government’s need for data with the information already collected for medical treatment would be a good step in decreasing cost.
Paperwork administrative staff (to manage insurance and government paperwork) are a material part of our healthcare costs in the U.S.
Cut out the non-essential (and very often, duplicative) paperwork, reduce the staff needed to manage the paperwork and reduce costs (at least in theory). There are always unintended consequences and unforeseen results when change is made…
…but we are overdue for some change (reform).
FWIW.
Will try and give it a look see…
Thanks.
Case in point:
2 weeks ago my wife had a brain MRI that showed her cancer was progressing, and posing an imminent threat to her life. 2 days later we were on a Zoom call with the head of neurosurgery at University of Washington. 2 days later, she was on the table having a craniotomy to remove the tumor. In a socialized medicine system, my wife likely dies before she gets the opportunity to be seen by a competent specialist.
3 Likes
Wishing you and your wife the best, Mr. Burns…
1 Like
A very close friend of mine, a classmate from the Naval Academy, is the CEO of MedCan. There’s a very good reason that most Canadians who can afford it are on the private system…they don’t want to wait, or be told what care they can have.
1 Like
That is the same version that her cousin’s husband gave. I dont think a lot of people are aware of the two separate systems.
The way the Dr. explained it is you can either put your name on a list and wait for an opening in the public system or you can schedule the work to be done immediately in the private system by the physician or specialist of your choice. But of course you have to pay for the privilege and service.
1 Like
Being a Canadian and 71 years old, I’ve had multiple opportunities for exposure to our system. Skin cancer diagnosis to surgery 7 days. Follow up surgery for prophylactic skin cancer surgery, 6months. Wait for MRI never more than a few weeks. CT Scan same day with physician call. My daughter is in med school and she was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer, surgery within two weeks. Granted that I’m in a large urban centre with good doctors in my corner. I pay for a membership that allows me to access the Mayo Clinic with almost immediate care a flight away if I’d I need it. Yes, I have an advantage that I can afford it. However, we’ve not had to use that option as our local care is good. Is Canadian Health care perfect? No but at least everyone here is covered with no issues with exclusions for prior medical conditions. My taxes are higher than a comparable American but it’s a fair trade off.
4 Likes
In an underfunded socialised medical system.
I know almost no-one (IRL) who can afford private health care, and I am well aware that in the US (and many other places) a large proportion of the popn also cannot afford it.
I am not having a go at anyone here, or the US, or anyone really, but I would like to inject a bit of realism, this is a self-selecting audience of mostly very comfortably off people (nowt wrong with that)…
…but out there in the real world people die daily because they cannot afford to see a doctor, let alone a surgeon, in the US, (and now in the UK), and many other countries too.
A model that provides free high quality health care to all in a country seems like an obvious basic requirement for a truly civilised society, and yet sadly doesn’t seem to be available, mostly I guess because it is the well-off folks who are making policy decisions about this stuff.
If that makes me a Socialist (or some other daft political label) then I guess I would be proud to be called that.
(@Elk I know I said I wouldn’t reply etc. etc. but this needs to be pointed out (nay, shouted from the rooftops) so here I am).
5 Likes
ps i’m not a socialist, more of a woolly liberal with lefty tendencies 
5 Likes
A great, aspirational concept.
Alas, I am not so sure our imperfect world, full of imperfect souls, can achieve such a lofty goal; but it is certainly worth reaching for.
1 Like
Thanks, I didn’t want to kill the conversation (“mic-drop”!).
I agree with you, but since we are talking aspirations here here is how in a different world we might fix it.
I have long believed (even though it is wildly impractical) that politicians / policy deciders / whatever should always “eat their own dog-food”.
i.e. MPs (in the case of the UK) should have to live in social housing, and get by on whatever the standard unemployed (or disability) benefits rate is, and have to rely on the remnants of the NHS for health-care, only use public transport, fly “coach-class” etc. etc.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful? 
3 Likes
Also worth pointing out that, although imperfect, the NHS in the UK came damn close to achieving some of these goals. For a while at least.
1 Like
…anyway I’ll bow out of this now I think, before I do actually start getting party-political and ranty (which is not my usual nature, I promise) :).
Back to music!
2 Likes
When I was growing up in the 90’s, I used the NHS quite a bit for both physical and mental ailments, and they were extremely good, very low waiting times, really well funded. It was in the 2000’s that it started going to pot rather rapidly.
1 Like
Ain’t that the truth.
1 Like
It would be nice if a lot of things were “free”, but in reality, nothing is “free”. “Free” healthcare isn’t “Free”, it’s just not paid for directly by the person receiving it. It’s paid for by governments, and those governments are all gradually going broke (some faster than others…). The reason they’re going broke is because they take on responsibility for providing goods & services that would be more efficiently provided by the private sector, and since they are super inefficient, they spend twice as much to deliver the same result.
Socialism doesn’t work, because it’s not sustainable. Socialized medicine has the same underlying flaws as Socialism in general, and it’s also unsustainable. The U.S. has Social Security and Medicare, both of which are basically Socialist programs, and neither of those programs is sustainable (as currently operated) beyond about the next decade. Every (legal) worker in the United States pays in to SS & MC, but somewhere in the 2030’s the SS fund will be exhausted, and Medicare is almost insolvent now. U.S. National Debt just topped $30 Trillion, with annual tax revenues of about $4 Trillion. Where will the money come from to fund the programs that already exist, let alone the money to expand government spending on healthcare? Eventually, you run out of other peoples money…
4 Likes
Social Security and Medicare, as well as any other entitlement, can easily be sustained if there is the political will to fund them as required and to limit them as necessary. It is otherwise a simply matter of accounting.
The U.S. is, of course, in debt as we have chosen to spend more than we tax. Nothing to do with socialism.
We have yet to see a true socialist world economy. We have seen some fascist governments, dictatorships, etc. pejoratively labeled “socialist,” but none which are actually grounded in and functionally operated as socialist.
There are those which are more “socialist” than the States, such as Denmark, working quite well filled with contented people, but no country which is truly socialist. And the Danes have been repeatedly been found among the happiest in the world. (As an aside, Denmark’s national debt is 33% of its GDP; the States, 135%.)
Socialism is not inherently flawed, at least not any more than any other form of government. It is just a hard sell in a country operating as a republic of regulated capitalism such as the States.
But this getting very far afield of @aiki14 's medical rant.
5 Likes
Milton Friedman would disagree with you on that. So would I. So would a lot of people more knowledgeable than you or I.
4 Likes