Obamacare is the same as Universal Healthcare seen throughout Europe and Canada. It is rationed care using "death panels" to determine outcome and cost savings. Therefore, a persons life is inconsequential to the cost effectiveness of a procedure or therapy. It is a bitter truth, but people in America refuse to accept it. Obamacare means death to all seniors citizen because they are not cost effective to tax payers. It means survival of the fittest. The younger you are means a better chance to get treated faster; in order that, they will more productive to society. It means temporary fix with a pill than a permanent solution with a procedure.
(BBC) Surgeons say patients in some parts of England have spent months waiting in pain because of delayed operations or new restrictions on who qualifies for treatment.
In several areas routine surgery was put on hold for months, while in many others new thresholds for hip and knee replacements have been introduced.
The moves are part of the NHS drive to find £20bn efficiency savings by 2015.
The government said performance should be measured by outcomes not numbers.
Surgeons have described the delays faced by patients as "devastating and cruel". Peter Kay, the president of the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA), says they've become increasingly frustrated that hip and knee replacements are being targeted as a way of finding savings.
"We've started to get reports over the last nine months that access to these services are being restricted. General Practitioners were told not so send as many patients to hospital, maybe to delay referrals until the end of the financial year while perhaps introducing thresholds for surgery."
He says that simply delaying surgery by one means or another does not improve the outcome for patients as their condition can deteriorate.
"The double jeopardy is that patients wait longer in pain, and when they have the operation, the result might not have been as good as it otherwise would have been had they had it early. "
Professor John Appleby, chief economist at the Kings Fund, says it is a mystery why these operations are being targeted for savings. "I find it difficult to understand. Hip operations are quite expensive, but patients get a lot of benefit for that money. This is actually very good value for money indeed."
These delays and restrictions are a response to the financial challenge facing the NHS in England. The scale of it was set out under the last Labour government, but the decisions on how to find those savings are being made now.
The coalition government has stopped performance managing the 18 week waiting time, although it remains a legal right under the NHS constitution.
A Department of Health spokesman said: "When clinicians and patients are making decisions about joint replacement surgery, it is right that other procedures - which could provide better outcomes for patients and provide better value for taxpayers - are also considered.
No comments:
Post a Comment