In Socialized Medicine, Everyone Is A Doctor
Health Reform: The British have found a way to shorten those long, annoying waits for care and lower the rising costs of their universal access system. They'll let patients take care of themselves.
The London Telegraph reported Tuesday that the British government has a "plan to save billions of pounds from the NHS budget." But it won't come without enormous pain.
"Instead of going to a hospital or consulting a doctor, patients will be encouraged to carry out 'self-care' as the Department of Health tries to meet Treasury targets to curb spending," the Telegraph explained.
So when is a universal health care system not actually universal? When Britain's 60-year-old National Health Service can no longer support the weight of its clamoring clientele.
Granted, there should be more self-treatment in developed nations. Emergency rooms and doctors' offices are often overcrowded with patients who aren't in need of urgent need but who go anyway because their insurance or government is paying. That type of open access to health care has led to overuse of the system.
The NHS, though, is hoping to cut down on more than frivolous visits. It's looking for patients with "arthritis, asthma and even heart failure" to treat themselves, the Telegraph said.
Some of the self-care that will be expected of patients includes the monitoring of heart activity, blood pressure and lung capacity using equipment that has been placed in the home.
Patients will be counted on to relate health information to doctors either by phone or computer link. To manage pain, they will administer their own drugs and other treatments.
Patients will also be asked to evaluate the significance of changes in their conditions as well as employ relaxation techniques that the government hopes will help them relieve their stress and avoid emergency room visits caused by panic.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown characterizes the policy changes as improvements that will allow patients to "play a far more active role in managing their own condition." The British Department of Health calls it an "exciting opportunity."
But what they're really saying is "our universal health care system is broken, and you're on your own."
And we ask yet again: Is this the sort of system we want in the U.S.?
The ugly facts will never dissuade those who want to hijack private health care in this country and turn it over to the government. They will continue to use inflated — and irrelevant — data on the uninsured, demagogue, embellish and in general shriek about the woes of U.S. health care, which we unapologetically say is the finest in the world.
But they can't do it alone. They need America's middle-of-the-roaders, and the more the average person learns about the hazards of the British and Canadian models, the less likely he or she will blindly go along with plans to nationalize private care.
A government system in which everyone gets "free" medical treatment might sound humane. But as Britain's NHS has shown, such a program will eventually be besieged with lengthy and sometimes deadly waiting times and overwhelming costs.
From examples across the Atlantic and north of the border we are learning that both the quality and quantity of health care will suffer when the nanny state gets involved. It's a lesson we can ill afford to ignore.
