From: mascdb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (C D Burdorf)
Newsgroups: alt.california
Subject: Re: Paradise lost and Medi-Cal...
Date: 21 Aug 92 10:16:57 GMT
Organization: School of Mathematics, University of Bath, UK

In article <1992Aug20.165320.4884@tandem.com> kenr@orleans.storage.tandem.com (Ken Rose) writes:
>> 
>
>
>Take less cost, for example.  Some of the lower cost can be attributed
>to rationing health care.  I don't know the age (C.D. in England
>should be able to tell us), but patients with kidney failure after
>a certain age are simply not treated with dialysis.  That's a death
>sentence.  And lets not ignore the possibilty of politics rearing
>its ugly head.  Patrick Buchanan, for example, views homosexuality
>as a sin.  If he was in office, do you think the national health
>service (which as head of the executive branch he would run) would
>fund health care for AIDS patients?  Or might it be rationed like
>other care already is under socialized medicine?  Private insurers
>offer an alternative to the government today, an alternative that
>would disappear with socialized medicine.
>
You have rationing int the states as well.  HMO's limit their
resources and private insurers deny high risk people insurance 
or ask for unrealistically high fees for insurance to certain
groups to discourage them from seeking coverage.


>certain operations are common or rare in adjoining counties or even
>adjoining hospitals.  Medicine is an art, not the exact science
>people expect.  Not all doctors are trained or follow the best
>standards for treatment.  The point is by singling out malpractice
>as a profit-motivated problem, the expectation is created that when
>doctors no longer have profit as a drive that malpractice will
>disappear.

Of course it won't disappear entirely, but by eliminating the
profit motive, you get rid of a large amount of malpractice cases.

>
>A point not addressed by C.D. is where profit can benefit patients.
>Many technological advances in medicine have been led by companies
>motivated by hopes of profit.  Non-invasive diagnostic techniques,
>bio-engineered drugs, etc. are brought to market by firms hoping to
>do so at a profit.  Again, this is not a case of black and white;
>you could reasonably argue that rare diseases are ignored by
>drug companies, that tools cost too much, etc.  

There's no reason why this can't be funded by the goverment.  Most
of it is funded by the government anyway.  Have you ever heard
of the national institute for health.

>
>socialized medicine.  The Federal government runs the VA hospitals
[ stuff about VA hospitals being lame]

VA hospitals are a bad example.  Few doctors want to be in VA hospitals
because they don't make much money, so VA doctors tend to be
the bottom of the barrel which can't get work anywhere else.

>
>Another drawback to socialized medicine (and that applies to many
>insured plans,too) is the lack of a tie between using costly resources
>and having to pay for them.  This means, for example, that people
>with minor problems don`t go to a low-cost or free clinic (where
>they would face a cost, namely time waiting) but drop in at the
>emergency room if things get worse. It is well known that
>emergency rooms are the least cost-effective way of delivering
>routine health care, yet many people routinely use them as their
>main source of health care.  This drives total costs through the
>roof, and yet the big selling point people use in advocating
>socialized medicine is that visits will be "free".   
>

I've never had to wait anywhere near as long in a waiting room
in the UK as I have in private doctors offices in the US.  Since
you have more doctors available here and they get paid less, it
costs less to have them on duty.  It's the basic law of supply and
demand.  The AMA limits the number of doctors in the states so they
can be in high demand and charge megabucks.  When you think about it
there's no reason why doctors should be paid any more than any other
technically trained person like scientists and engineers.
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