Aug 18 2009
A Real Life Victim Of An NHS Death Panel
This heart rending story of a denied test on a young woman not only underscores how the ‘death panels’ operate, it thrusts the human tragedy of government run health care deep into one’s soul:
Mrs Brickell, first asked for a smear test at the age of 19 but was told she didn’t need one until she was 20-years-old. A year later, when she returned to her doctor, she was told that the age had been raised to 25. At 23, she was diagnosed with an incurable cervical cancer.
My oldest daughter is 24, and this just tears at my heart. This woman has been condemned to die by a faceless, cost obsessed death panel trying to skimp on costs by delaying a simple, life saving and inexpensive test. This is Obamacare if we go with a government run health care system. This is unacceptable.
Update: This condition is easily treated if caught, which makes me all the angrier at the NHS Scrooge’s who denied a simple screening test to this young woman.
I don’t care how many times the White House says there are no “death squads” there are. Granted they are called by some sweet, fancy name, like “helping you die with dignity”, “reducing your pain with a really good pill”, or “the government loves every old person in pain, and stands ready to help”. One undeniable truth, all these fancy named programs happen to be in the part of the bill that talks about SAVING MONEY IN HEALTH CARE.
NOW TELL THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA AGAIN, HOW STUPID YOU THINK THEY ARE!
A perfect example of government’s “85%” rule. If something covers 85% or more of cases, that is what they go with. They are worried about averages and probabilities, not about unique individuals with unique circumstances.
If a treatment only works 5% of the time, you can forget about getting it … even if you might be one of the 5% that it works for.
And the numbers become self-fulfilling because as alternative treatments are never tried, the numbers never change to back those treatments up.
Government health care is ALWAYS a bad idea in all but basic, routine services such as vaccinations and first aid emergency response.
Republicans now lead Democrats by 5 points in the generic Congressional polling.
It was just the opposite in January. If the Democrats can just manage to keep talking between now and next November and keep that circular firing squad going, it looks like we will see a wholesale cleaning out of Congress.
Just in passing somewhere this morning on one of the news portals I saw a story of a UK woman who had a child on the sidewalk because she was denied an ambulance trip to the hospital.
AJ,
Let me illustrate how ignorant you are with respect to health care reform issues.
First, you repeatedly compare the UK health care system with the health care reforms being proposed by Democrats without realizing that they are two totally different systems. The UK has the most progressive government run health care system in the world – the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. None of the health care reforms being proposed in the U.S. are even close to that. The current proposals are far more similar to Medicare – you know, that U.S. government funded program that has been insuring seniors for over 40 years. Funny how you can’t seem to find any horror stories about the one government program currently being run by the U.S. government. It is like me citing the violence in Columbia as a reason why we need gun control in the U.S.
Second, the British woman in this article talks about how she was ultimately able to get the necessary treatment through her “private insurance”. I thought private insurance couldn’t survive if there was a government public option plan? It appears that private insurance has been able to survive in the UK, which you apparently believe is the model comparison for the health care reform proposals currently being discussed. In other words, in the UK those with money can get there own private insurance and those without money will at least have some health insurance.
Third, while American women in this country can typically get their insurance to cover the cost of the HPV screening, private insurance companies often times will not cover the vaccine and HPV is among the list of pre-existing conditions that insurance companies won’t cover. So American women can get the screening, but there totally screwed if the test is positive. Here is an articel from AARP that notes the fact that uncertainly about insurance coverage issues has contributed to a low vaccination rate among young women who test positive for HPV.
Not that you care about the “facts” – they get in the way of your scare campaign!
Look folks, Conman has descended from Nirvana to let us all know the liberals will free us of all our mortal worries!
LOL!
Conman,
That woman is dying (or nearly died) because some bureaucrat tried to save a few pennies. The fact you defend that kind of system tells us all we need to know about the faux compassion of liberals.
Exactly, AJ, Conman attempts to divert attention from the reality by attempted “frame dragging” of the conversation to a different subject. It doesn’t matter who runs the hospitals, the government will get to decide what treatment you get and when under Obamacare and that is the point.
A “green eyeshade” should never make health care decisions based on some table of statistics, it doesn’t matter who actually does the procedure. The point is who decides what procedures are done.
As usual, Conman attempts to refocus the discussion on details unrelated to the point.
[…] […]
AJ,
Please tell me you don’t believe that private insurance companies are not trying to save money on their claims? Are you really that naive? Do you honestly believe that for-profit private insurance companies are less concerned about saving costs than the government? Maybe you can explain why there is a laundry list of pre-existing conditions private insurers won’t insure. Maybe you can explain the House Energy Committee report which found that during the previous five years, three health insurers—Assurant Health, WellPoint, and Golden Rule—saved more than $300 million by rescinding nearly 20,000 policies based on omissions policyholders made in filling out enrollment forms? http://www.slate.com/id/2223680/
You never explained why all of the examples you list are in the UK. Where are all of the Medicare horror stories? If the U.S. government is that cold and ruthless when it comes to costs savings, don’t you think there would be plenty of horror stories right here in the U.S. after 40 years of this government run program in operation? The irony with the whole cost-savings scare tactic is that conservatives are usually the ones advocating the need to cut Medicare costs because it is unsustainable, and now suddenly they view cost saving measures as death panels.
One other thing – you REALLY should read the articles you link on your post and not just the first paragraph. She is not dying or nearly dead – the article clearly says that she is in “remission” and has had “three clear scans in a row”. If she lived in the U.S., she could never get health insurance ever again in her life (cervical cancer is a pre-existing condition that is uninsurable) unless it was a group employer plan. I’ve lost track how many times you say something in your post or response to comments that is completely contradicted by the article you link to.
Conam,
It’s so simple even your meager math skills can get through this. The screening test costs about $50. If this was an insurance company this young lady would be getting these tests so she can live a long and productive life – and pay premiums Einstein!
But instead, the UK will be shelling out thousands times that $50 trying to deal with her cancer.
I mean Doh! What moron doesn’t get the fact insurance companies want healthy, premium paying customers so they actually OVERDO the screening tests.
Another reason they overdo the tests is because they can be sued if they refuse it and someone has the disease and something develops later. The government would be immune to being sued if they refuse the tests.
Hey, here’s an idea. Ask a politician if one can opt OUT of the “public option” once they are in. If it turns out that it sucks and people want something better, can they opt OUT of the public plan?
I haven’t seen anything that says they can.
[…] example, I posted on a true life victim of government health care death panels. The bureaucrats in the UK decided to cut some more costs, […]
More on the Canadian system:
Thousands of surgeries may be cut in Metro Vancouver due to government underfunding, leaked paper
http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=1878506&sponsor
[…] it to Katie Brickell, who “first asked for a [pap] smear test at the age of 19 but was told she didn’t need […]