Thursday, January 29, 2015

Socialized Medicine?

     Look, all methods of providing medical care have problems; if there was a perfect system, everyone would be using it.  But this headline points up a problem in trying to centrally plan something that is inherently unpredictable:

     Patient walks into radio station in hospital gown after operation cancelled at last minute

     Yep.   That's what happened -- after the third time her surgery was rescheduled due to lack of hospital resources.

     I haven't got any sure-fire answers; I'm not even sure of all the questions, but that's not what anyone wants from any health care system.

2 comments:

  1. Yup, here in Ontario, Canada the waiting time to see an orthopedic surgeon is up to 36 months. My doctor was amazed that I got to see a surgeon after only 19 months.

    One of my coworkers had a mild heart attack in November and was scheduled for a stent in mid-December, which was postponed 3 times until mid January.

    Al_in_Ottawa

    ReplyDelete
  2. Someone in the UK - I can't remember who right now, though I doubt it was a politician - has said that the NHS will probably have to abandon the idea of completely free medical care.

    Medical costs in the UK have skyrocketed in recent years. If its free, you will use a lot of it.

    ReplyDelete

Comment moderation is enabled. Your comment will not be visible until approved. Arguing or use of insulting or derogatory language will result in your comment going unpublished: no name-calling. Comments I deem excessively partisan will not be published.