Lunacy in Healthcare

A recent article relates some of why healthcare is in trouble. After reading the article, I ran reports at work to see how our own hospital fared under the same problems. (Yes, I already knew we had an extraordinary number of "habitual offenders".)

Here goes;

1. A illegal immigrant requiring dialysis came to the ER 3 times a week to get approval for dialysis. Each ER visit costs taxpayers an average of $1000.00-1500.00, Dialysis costs an average of $350.00 per session.
That is approximately $156,000.00 per year for ER visits and another $54,600.00 for dialysis for a grand total of $210,600.00 a year for this one illegal. We have a total of 22 illegals doing the same thing to get dialysis. That's better than 4.6 million spent at one county hospital on just illegal immigrant dialysis.

2. One crack smoker-- This woman had asthma, and smoked crack cocaine. By the time she was 42 years old, she had been intubated and put in the ICU 44 times, with an average length of stay of 8 days. 7,000.00 per intubation for 308,000.00, $1500.00 per day in the ICU for $528,000.00 total. She also incurred costs for three heart attacks, four strokes, the last of which ended her life. In all, the approximate total to the taxpayer was almost 2 million on her own.

3. Homeless- We have approximately 30 different homeless patients who come in an average of four times a week for everything from COPD, to substance abuse, to vague undefinable complaints. (Typically-- that its cold outside or hot outside, or to panhandle in the ER--no, we don't allow panhandling.) I only chose the top visitors-- those that use the ER greater than 3 times a week. These thirty patients cost the taxpayers approximately 6.2 million a year.

As you can see, a relatively few patients can result in extraordinary expenses. Our ER sees approximately 120-150 thousand patients a year. You can begin to see how quickly it adds up.


Now, as to the cost;

1. Medical professionals practice "defensive medicine". What that means is, that we might well be fairly positive what you have, due to tort and government regulations, we automatically screen you for anything that might cause your symptoms. This is incredibly expensive and slow, as we have to wait on ALL the results before telling YOU what we were likely to tell you right from the start.
How often does this method result in a different diagnosis? About once in 10,000 cases.
Is that often enough to warrant us working in this way? Depends on if you're the 1 in 10000 wouldn't you say?

2. Every single piece of equipment has to pass FDA approval prior to use-- what this means is regardless what it is, if it's used in medicine, it has to pass years of testing by the FDA to ensure safety. This adds billions to the cost of medical equipment annually. Biomedical companies are not in the business for altruistic reasons, just as you don't work for nothing. 'nuff said?


OK, now for the bugaboo lefties just swoon over. Socialized Healthcare;

British citizens pay over twice the taxes Americans do. Doesn't sound like much, right?
OK, in Britain, they ration healthcare. Healthcare is "free"....when you can get it. (It's only free in the sense that you don't pay for it at point of service,, you actually pay for it in taxes). Patients needing a bypass surgery in the UK wait an average of 175 days to get it. Wait times for a MRI in Canada is a whopping 22 months.
Some reports have initiation of treatment for pancreas cancer in Canada being months, despite the urgent need for interventions immediately.

You see, in socialized medicine, all care is rationed, budgeted, and unavailable once the annual procedures have all been spent, despite need. In the British system, care is more restricted on the elderly, as they have less to contribute to society because their working years are behind them.

When it comes to medical professionals in socialized medicine- Canada and the UK can't seem to keep people in nursing and working as doctors. Both lag behind in OECD averages due to lack of pay, horrible conditions and patient overloads.

Just remember- Government knows what you need for health care better than you do,, right?

Obama Touts Passage of Bill as Advance in Health Care

If you'll remember, I mentioned that this health care reform initiative was a trojan horse for democrats to institute socialized medicine.

Now, think carefully- did President Obama put any spotlight on this provision prior to it's passage? No? Then why is the white House now crowing about the provision?

Didn't the House of Representatives institute a gag order on debate about the bill? Why would they do that?

Was the public given the promised 48 hours to review the bill? No? Why is that?

Were the people voting on the bill given opportunity to even read what they were voting on?

Let me ask a hypothetical; Would you allow a surgeon to operate on you without his knowing what is wrong with you, and how to correct it? Even better, would you allow that same surgeon to act this way with your child?

Then why are we allowing the politicians to act in the exact same way with our childrens future, and our own?

Remember I wrote about this when a Federal Council on Health Care denies you a procedure because it doesn't fit their model on comparative-effectiveness research.

This bill has undone all the progress on welfare reform-- prior to this bill, Clinton had signed a welfare reform bill that shifted the burden of welfare back on the states, thus, the states with incentives to go to work,, also had the lowest welfare. Now, all US working citizens will pay for those states who have the largest welfare rolls. ie, Texas will now pony up for California's pie in the sky wet dream liberal programs. (Just an example, but accurate.)

Want my advice on how to spend that extra 13 bucks week we'll be getting? Buy ammo. At least then you can hunt to provide for your family.