Why Privatization is bad...

I've seen various stories, mostly from the United States since it's one of the few private healthcare systems in the world, in which private companies do horrible things to cut corners. Take, for example, this new story:
www.cnn.com...

More than 250 dead animals have been identified, inventoried and photographed, the state said. They included animals with rabies vaccination and name tags, indicating they were pets[...]

Fairfax County Police Lt. Rich Perez said some of the animals came from that county and indicated that some of the animals found had previously been turned over to Family Pet Cremations.

The Chantilly, Virginia-based company has contracts with the department to dispose of dead, sick or stray animals, Perez said.

Here's another good one I heard of a while ago. A colleague of mine is actually performing Ph.D. work on a topic inspired by this case:

www.law.com...

Walker County officials laid bare a landscape of decaying corpses at the dilapidated Tri-State Crematory near Noble, Ga. In the days that followed, 339 corpses that should have been cremated by Tri-State were salvaged from the crematory grounds. And Teri Crawford discovered that a portion of her brother's remains preserved in a small urn by his widow was adulterated with bits of metal, rock and silica. The sparkles seen by Crawford's friends were not his ashes, his sister said in a deposition unsealed last month.

Now, what is the conspiracy here, you may ask? Well, here's how I see it. The USA government is one of the few that has yet to socialise healthcase. Could it be that they are being paid so much by private health corporations that they do not WANT to privatize it? Obviously, pharmaceutical companies are giving monetary gifts to politicians, but that happens worldwide, I'm not talking about them. Pharmaceutical companies don't suffer any more in a social system than a private one. The people you Americans should be looking at are the healthcare advisors to your president! Perhaps they are being paid by your medical associations, heads of major private hospitals, and the medical insurance companies in order to keep the practice private and healthcare, and insurance, costs up. I think THAT is a much bigger conspiracy than anything the pharmaceutical companies are doing at the moment.

Ciao,
~MFP

Hey BSL

As someone who worked in a 'socialized' healthcare system, I have to say that when you give government and middle managers a chance to run health they'll spend billions on administration and nice offices whilst at the same time cutting your clinical freedom and funding down to absolutely nothing.

The NHS in the UK is 'cheap and cheerful', which roughly translates as massive waiting lists, poor hygiene in wards and decaying buildings - despite billions raises in taxes. Don't even *try* to see an NHS dentist, because they've either all gone private, or emigrated (me).

In short - is private healthcare inequitable and does it deny access to the most vunerable? Yes.

Is socialized medicine run by the government always going to be underfunded and bureaucratic? Yes also.

The Canadian Health system is supposed to be a good compromise between the two, but as far as I can work out even here, most of the docs head South to work privately, as indeed do most of the patients who are waiting 6 months for a hip replacement.

TD

Thanks for the input Taupe, you're always very knowledgable.

I don't have any experience with the UK health system. My family is split between here (Italia), France, and Canada. Italy and Canada have a system where most people go to public centers and get good basic treatment, and if you need something the public system doesn't offer, they will pay for you to go to a private practitioner of your choice. I'm not sure about Canada, but I think it's roughly the same. Basically, how I see it as an up and coming health professional, I would say probably half the people who show up in the trauma center don't really need to be there. There are a lot of ailments that will end up being treated with over the counter methods, which is why USA has made so much money in healthcare, they advertise a cure for everything and make veryone think they have an illness. I think that's a horrible product of the private health system, so really, I guess you could call that another conspiracy, hehe.

Ciao,
~MFP

The Canadian Health system is supposed to be a good compromise between the two, but as far as I can work out even here, most of the docs head South to work privately, as indeed do most of the patients who are waiting 6 months for a hip replacement.

That is going to change very shortly(at least for routine procedues like hip replacements) with this new program that is currently in trial runs in Alberta.

www.cbc.ca...
Patients who normally would have waited an average of 47 weeks for an orthopedic consultation were treated in under five weeks.

As well, surgeons worked with a team of nurses and physical therapists to move patients through the system quickly and get high-priority cases done first.

Alberta's Health Department contributed $20 million, mainly for additional staff and operating rooms. The speedier surgeries did not result in other health services being delayed or cancelled.

[edit on 2-2-2006 by sardion2000]

Wow! I just read the article linked to in the thread you linked to, and that is amazing how well they restructured their system and how quickly it worked! Bravissimi Canada!

Ciao,
~MFP

Yeah I was rather blown away by the program too, but the reason I was blown away is that it came from a Conservative

Hah! Yeah, that does seem a bit off. Perhaps he's a sheep in wolf's clothing, to re-create an old phrase, hehe.

I'm not yet up to speed on Canadian Health care, Sardion (which is shocking as I'm at a dental school over here), but didn't the Feds just lose over a would-be private health care user in Quebec ? It used to be more or less illegal for private healthcare in Canada, didn't it? Until they lost.

And to confused things even further, Canada does a Provinicial Health set-up, so each province really does it's own thing. All I know is, all the docs in Manitoba have gone South.

Bang. There you go.

cbc link

It used to be more or less illegal for private healthcare in Canada, didn't it?

As always Quebec has to be different then the rest of Canada. But if the Bloc regains power provincially in Quebec expect them to overturn it quickly. The Notwithstanding clause can overturn it as well as it was deemed unconstitional. (That clause allows a party to temporarily override part of the Constitution or Bill of Rights in certain curcumstances but it comes with a political cost usually(unless you're Quebec of course :@@)

And the Bloc is very similiar to the New Democrats in ideology except for the seperatist issue.

[edit on 2-2-2006 by sardion2000]

[edit on 2-2-2006 by sardion2000]

[edit on 2-2-2006 by sardion2000]

As always Quebec has to be different then the rest of Canada.

But if the Bloc regains power provincially in Quebec expect them to overturn it quickly. The Notwithstanding clause can overturn it as well as it was deemed unconstitional. (That clause allows a party to temporarily override part of the Constitution or Bill of Rights in certain curcumstances but it comes with a political cost usually(unless you're Quebec of course :@@

)

And the Bloc is very similiar to the New Democrats in ideology except for the seperatist issue.

Hey Sardion. So did the Feds lose in Federal Court, or did they lose in Quebec courts? And, as far as you can make out, is *any* private medicine allowed in Canada?

In Manitoba the s**t has just hit the fan over a private MRI machine. Or something.

You know, I can't believe just how much well, Provincial your country can be. You can't even register as a dentist nationally - it's all done per region. Damn the British North America Act.

TD

[edit on 2-2-2006 by sardion2000]

[edit on 2-2-2006 by sardion2000]

[edit on 2-2-2006 by sardion2000]

The Federal Court according to that article you posted yet it can be overridden and it really on applied to Quebec as it's still prohibited in Ontario last time I checked(a few months ago)