This is what Hilary, Kennedy, Pelosi, Reid (and their buddy Michael Moore, of course) want for us.We live in an age of unprecedented medical innovation. Unfortunately, most of today's cutting-edge research is conducted outside Europe, which was once a pioneer in this field. About 78% of global biotechnology research funds are spent in the U.S., compared to just 16% in Europe. Americans therefore have better access to modern drugs. One result is that in the U.S., the annual death rate from cancer is 196 per 100,000 people, compared to 235 in Britain, 244 in France, 270 in Italy and 273 in Germany.
It is both a tragedy and an embarrassment that Europe hasn't kept up with the U.S. in saving and improving lives. What's to blame? The Continent's misguided policies and state-run health-care systems. The reasons vary from country to country, but broadly speaking, the custodians of public health budgets aren't devoting the necessary resources to get patients the most modern and advanced medicines, and are happier with the status quo. We often see news headlines about promising new cures and vaccines next to headlines about patients who can't get life-saving drugs as politicians impose ever stricter prescription controls on doctors.
The human toll can be measured in deaths and unnecessary suffering. It also costs us a lot of money. Prevention is cheaper than treatment. Modern medicine can prevent many medical complications that would otherwise require hospitalization and other expensive care. For every euro spent on new medicine, national health-care systems could save as much as €3.65 in later treatments, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research study.
This situation is especially dire in Italy. The government has capped spending on pharmaceuticals at 13% of total health-care expenditures while letting expenses for infrastructure and staff skyrocket. From 2001 to 2005, general health expenses in Italy grew by 31% while expenditure on medicines increased a mere 1.7%. Italian patients might well have been better off if the reverse was the case, but the state bureaucrats who make these decisions refuse to acknowledge the benefits of advanced drugs.
Let's just say “no!”
Couple of comments here:
ReplyDeleteIf it is the place where all the rich people go to get great care, well that is fine, but we aren’t all rich enough to afford to pay as we go. This means that we either have to have health insurance or take our chances without it. And I’m willing to bet the standard of care for someone that can’t pay, is lower than someone that can. Socialized medicine (crappy or not) may be very appealing for someone that has little means and/or no insurance currently as it may actually raise their standard of care and probably won’t effect those that can pay as they go. The people that get screwed are middle class like me that rely on our insurance coverage.
Despite having pretty good health insurance, not like the old days though, I still get smacked with a good sized deduction from my check and out-of-the-blue co-pays like 20 bucks per visit for twice a week physical therapy. I’m not poor, but I quit going because I can’t see spending that kind of money for someone to measure how much my knee bends and have me ride a stationary bike. I got smacked with $200 co-pay for an MRI because the insurance company decides it isn’t a “normal” procedure? I had the insurance company give me the run around about an approved surgery because my primary changed. They refused to tell me whether they would cover it or not. Just told me it would “probably be covered”.
I don’t see how giving free health insurance to SOME people, which is what is really being proposed, will improve things for me at all. The contrary is much more likely to be true.
Larry