I Left England Because of Socialized
Medicine. My Life Depended on It.
Daily Signal,
by
James Schmitz
Original Article
Posted By: Judy W.,
11/25/2019 8:05:26 AM
Imagine strapping your infant child into a car seat, only to see his body suddenly jerk forward or backward, arms and legs stiffening, and eyes rolling back in the head.
Alarm quickly turns to panic, which turns to frantic weaving through traffic to get to the hospital. Within minutes of arriving, the child is rushed in for treatment with a team of neurologists by the bedside carefully taking notes.
That child was me. (Snip) Because time was of the essence, I was treated almost immediately with Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). I had to have constant supervision, at least a weekly check, from a neurologist
Reply 1 - Posted by:
John C 11/25/2019 8:22:05 AM (No. 244878)
FTA:
In England and Canada, it is standard for patients to wait twice as long as in the U.S. to see a specialist,
Six years ago a family friend, and WWII vet, citizen of and living in Canada, was diagnosed with an operable condition, but the powers that be there, deemed him was too old for treatment. He is a wonderful man full of life and love. Shame on Canada and socialism.
16 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
chillijilli 11/25/2019 8:31:21 AM (No. 244888)
Yes, exactly right. "Medicare for All" sounds so good on paper but in reality there are major tradeoffs. When my son was working in the UK, he needed a basic endoscopy. The wait time was...9 months! He had "private insurance" though, so guess what. The procedure could magically be done the next day.
That's exactly what will happen in the US if Medicare for All passes. Wait times will be astronomical for the average person. But some type of private insurance will become available for those who can afford it and bingo, they'll go to the head of the cue.
So the Do-Gooders in the US who are crying out that we now have a 2-tiered system that isn't fair will end up having ANOTHER 2-tiered system that isn't fair. And the new one, Medicare for All, will have much more government involvement.
13 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
padiva 11/25/2019 8:39:40 AM (No. 244897)
In 2016, I was told I had Stage 1 breast cancer. Within 3 weeks, I was on the operating table.
8 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
walcb 11/25/2019 8:49:39 AM (No. 244910)
Almost 40 years ago my daughter suffered from infantile myoclonic seizures similar to what the author encountered but not West syndrome. The treatment was also ACTH and was administered immediately. The cost was almost entirely covered by employee health insurance, fortunately the medicine was only necessary for a year. Her recovery was not as complete as his but she managed to achieve an associate degree. I am thankful for our medical profession in this country, it would suffer if we proceed in the direction we are heading towards a more Euro or Canadian system.
7 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Zarin 11/25/2019 8:53:06 AM (No. 244912)
There is no compassion for the old or the sick in socialized medicine. If you are over 65 - sorry - you will not get the operation nor the treatment. If you have a rare chronic disease - the treatment will not be available. And #2 - "Medicare for All" will likely exclude private insurance - except for the elite in Congress & government. Private pay will be made illegal - like HRC's proposed plan in the 1990's.
10 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Strike3 11/25/2019 9:01:33 AM (No. 244923)
Backwards headline. His life depended upon Leaving, not Socialized Medicine. Great stuff if you have nothing more than a hangnail.
3 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Catfur27 11/25/2019 9:02:43 AM (No. 244925)
I live in Buffalo NY... I spoke with two guys ( on separate occasions) that work for The Border Patrol at The Peace Bridge ( one of 4 local bridges connecting to Canada)...I asked " Do you know about how many Canadians /week come to Western New York for medical treatment? " ( Everyone here KNOWS the medical community - and shopping malls - gets LOTS of Canadians)
Without hesitation , both answered "About 3000 "...??...that's about 150,000 medical visits /year by people getting "Free" Health Care..!!??...and that's just in Western New York!!....I'm guessing there are similar numbers in Detroit, Vermont, Washington State ...
... hmmmm....what a great system..... /s
10 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Clinger 11/25/2019 9:24:03 AM (No. 244950)
Mrs Clinger is a leader in a support group regarding a particular serious medical problem. Every day provides data on the superiority of free market healthcare what little there is left of it.
Yet people have listened to the propoganda and presume that the UK and Canada are much better. Fools.
5 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DVC 11/25/2019 9:24:29 AM (No. 244951)
A friend had his friend from South Africa here for a visit of several weeks. One of the reasons for the visit was some routine medical tests which are needed as we get older. Readily available here, on short notice, and the take years to get, if you can get them at all now, in South Africa. A couple of decades back, South Africa had some of the finest, most cutting edge medical care of anywhere in the world. Then the communists took over.
7 people like this.
If you are in one of those "pay nothing and get everything" Medicare Advantage plans that are poorly run you can see a preview of socialized medicine. Basically, their plan is to stall as long as they can and maybe the old patient will give up in frustration or die, My 91 year old aunt in Texas needed hip replacement surgery. After being passed around from one doctor to another the approval finally came. (Her surgeon said he had never seen a hip this bad and was just hoping nothing bad happened while she waited for her day in surgery.) When she was ready for release her plan would not give approval for her to go to a rehab unit, so her diabetic daughter who had recently broken her leg had to make do at her home. The physical therapist who came to her home said that her plan was one of the worst and it would be even harder after the first of the year to get approval for physical therapy.
I have to add that I have two friends who are in those type of plans in Louisiana and are quite satisfied, so it depends on the plan. But I am quite sure the national bureaucracy of medicare for all would resemble the Texas plan.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Skeptical1 11/25/2019 9:43:23 AM (No. 244977)
I'd like to know a little more. Do established patients have to wait nine months between appointments, or can they be seen at the required three-month intervals? And can UK hospital emergency rooms provide the urgent care he sometimes needs? I've read that about 10% of people in the UK have private insurance, and that doctors there are allowed to moonlight on a fee-for-service basis. Did he look into the cost of private care while waiting to get into the NHS system? I guess basically I'm wondering if his problem was partly due to the fact that he arrived in England as an expatriate, and if there was some way he could have remained there and found care.
0 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
chillijilli 11/25/2019 9:47:30 AM (No. 244981)
Sorry for 2nd post. But to answer #5, they won't call it private pay. They'll call it Boutique Consulting o r2nd Opinion or some other name that doesn't include the words "private insurance." That's exactly how the Demos work. They excel at tweaking their words through focus groups so they make their policies sound "just right."
Think about the 1st part of Pelosi's impeachment process---it wasn't an investigation, it was only an "inquiry." The reality is that rich people will always find a way to skip to the front of the cue or avoid it altogether.
5 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 11/25/2019 10:40:44 AM (No. 245056)
It is somewhat better in the U.S., but I have a friend who had a stroke several months ago, and has yet to see a neurologist except during her hospitalization. She has her first appointment this week.
1 person likes this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
DVC 11/25/2019 11:55:35 AM (No. 245194)
We need bumper stickers:
Socialized medicine KILLS
2 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
DVC 11/25/2019 11:57:51 AM (No. 245197)
Actually, #2, both "Hellary-care" (fortunately killed) and "Fauxcahantas-care" make private insurance coverage illegal.
Of course, there WILL be some loophole for the Commissars.
1 person likes this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
bad-hair 11/25/2019 12:37:37 PM (No. 245251)
#5 That's exactly how the Canadian system works. If you are a doc you cannot charge a patient 5 cents out of pocket over the gov pay. The best eye surgeon in Canada gets paid the same per procedure as the worst one. That's why we have so many great physicians in the USA. Once their American patients have been treated they're here to cover Canadian overflow.
1 person likes this.
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He has a form of epilepsy that leaves most people unable to function. One of the two percent that is more fortunate, he needs readily available medical care to stay alive. He went to England for a job, found he would have to wait nine months to see a neurologist, and returned to the U.S. As he points out, people come from all over the world to receive care here that they cannot receive in their own countries.