Some of the things that Singapore does make a lot of sense. In general, we would benefit from changes that make it easier for me to change health care providers and health care insurance plans. Requiring insurance companies to publish price lists helps. I'm reluctant to force people to save their own money for future health care expenses, but at least that's better than just taking that money away from them.

X-Rays? CT Scans? To diagnose gout?!?!!? What a waste. A simple blood test would do. The only reason to do a CT Scan for gout would be to bilk the insurance company.

here's a different experience: My friend near Oxford has a 93 year old mother, who lives alone 3 miles from her. Three years ago, her mother had a knee replacement and plenty of physical therapy for a good recovery. Seven days a week, carers visit her for 40 minutes in the morning to help her get up, dressed, take her meds, and have breakfast, again 20 minutes at lunch to serve her lunch, then again stop by to get her into bed on days my friend can't make it. She pays nothing for this, and gets to stay in her own home. Oh, she also gets picked up 2 days a week to go to a group day program for company. All other medical care there has been excellent. This woman was the wife of a farmer, never worked outside the home, so this is normal care, nothing special. My friend has nothing but good to say about the health care she, her mother, and daughter get. when her daughter needed orthodontia, she paid...bus fare to the appointments, that's all. She lived in the US for 8 years and is quite familiar with our health care system, doesn't understand why we tolerate it.

"She pays nothing for this"

That may be true, as she's never worked thus never paid taxes. But other people paid for it, and paid plenty. Paid over half their income, as a matter of fact. So unless Americans are paying half their income for their insurance and copays, they really have nothing to bitch about, and nothing to gain. Only the freeloaders stand to benefit here, and frankly I don't care about them. The truly poor have medicaid. The rest need to suck it up and make the lifestyle changes required to afford their own care.

And why should anyone pay for all that care to stay in a private home, when a nursing home is much more cost efficient? You want to stay in your own home, you pay what it takes. Don't ask me to.

A formula! Genius! Then no one bears any responsibility or any blame for any decision. It's the formula's fault. Sorry, you can't argue with the formula. That's an even better idea than "panels", which just spread blame around rather than completely negating it.

And speaking of health, here's another weapon for the low carb arsenal: Yesterday, Ace of Spades [ace.mu.nu] tells the story of how low carb dramatically reduced his epileptic seizures, and mentions that finding the treatment was a fluke: His doctor never told him.

I love your common sense, Amy. Also that you write well, so I'm able to locate the common sense.

Robin (formerly broxie and brobin, now trying to post everything under a single, accurate name.)

>>X-Rays? CT Scans? To diagnose gout?!?!!? What a waste. A simple blood test would do. The only reason to do a CT Scan for gout would be to bilk the insurance company.

Karen,
Actually, X-rays DO have a place in gout diagnosis (ruling out other problems, as well as spotting deeper gout symptoms).

HOWEVER, in the main, I agree with your larger point. And BECAUSE it's simple to diagnose, not expensive to treat and incredibly painful (got a friend who had it etc), the problem here seems to be the particular idiot British doctor Steyn's friend was seeing "once a month", and not the apparent socialist evil that is the NHS.

If you have an arthritic condition PLUS unusual chronic pain, gout should be an OBVIOUS possibility!

You're missing an important underlying point, Jody.

As time goes on, and the good doctors retire, all that will be left are the imbeciles who couldn't cut it elsewhere.

The defining feature of the NHS and other systems like it is hard caps on doctor pay. Why should they devote more than a decade of their lives to education only to stay in a system where they're not compensated as well as they should be?

In other words, the quality doctors are voting with their feet. And what of the ones who would have been quality doctors but decided to take up accountancy instead?

You see the problem. The NHS (like all socialized systems) controls costs by controlling pay. This causes a market distortion that makes people look elsewhere to make a living.

Which is precisely what would end up happening here under single payer.

Not just no. FUCK NO!

>>You see the problem. The NHS (like all socialized systems) controls costs by controlling pay. This causes a market distortion that makes people look elsewhere to make a living.

Except the system in the UK is mixed, brian. NHS plus private. Which is why doctors do very nicely indeed, actually.

Save your crocodile tears.

For Mark Steyn's grateful, gouty house guest, I can submit MY experience here in the US.

The overpaid prick-of-a-hand-surgeon who charged my insurance almost $2,500 pre-op costs for the "tests" and two consultations that showed possible nerve damage in my left hand following a stupid kitchen accident. This was 14 years ago.

My bed was booked, but I canceled the exploratory op because I thought he was ludicrously over hasty in his rush to open up my hand so soon after the injury.

Luckily - and it WAS luck, I understand that - my instinct was 100% correct. My hand healed perfectly, needing only the (bloody painful) original stitches!

Brian's right. A better approach to reducing costs in a market is to increase supply, and supply goes up when compensation increases. There are many things we can do to make providing health care more profitable, without interfering with quality of care. It seems counterintuitive, but if you allow doctors/hospitals/clinics/nurses etc. to (try to) get rich, more people will do those things, driving prices down.

Increasing portability like I posted about first will help to create a market for these numerous providers to compete for customers within.

Jody, my experience has been cutters like to cut, early and often, even when time may well heal the injury, and does. Hard to prove such things, though, I suppose.

But when you say this: "Except the system in the UK is mixed, brian. NHS plus private. Which is why doctors do very nicely indeed, actually."

Define nicely. What is the relative standing of doctor income to other, alternative careers for talented people capable of being a doctor? Stating that doctors are paid nicely is not really the issue. Rather, are people who can be the doctors we would like offered enough to invest in the endeavor and then continue it?

Again, I don't know about the UK, but that is something where you can attach numbers to the idea you present.

Every week I get a new barrel of laughs from those Obama Worshipping Kool-Aid Drinkers who keep insisting that any socialized healthcare plan is better than what currently exists in America.

They won't listen to the experience of Canadians like me. They won't even listen to top doctors in Canada: http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jbjzPEY0Y3bvRD335rGu_Z3KXoQw

Nope, none of that matters. Like Superheroes of the Left, they have special powers to prevent any facts from penetrating through their zealotry!

Question: When, in the history of the world, has reducing competition ever improved things and lowered costs?

Spartee,
I agree about the "cutters" maxim. (What gets my goat, of course, is had I agreed to the op, I'd have been in a very weak position to know whether further problems were due to the original injury - or the exploratory op. That's just an aside).

However, when you ask - reasonably: Define nicely. What is the relative standing of doctor income to other, alternative careers for talented people capable of being a doctor? ...

...I gaze so very wearily at brian's earlier open-ended question:
"And what of the ones who would have been quality doctors but decided to take up accountancy instead?"

If I say UK doctors earn "X", the response will be: "but, how many good doctors are LOST because they decided to become accountants, huh?".

Look, I've never met a doctor in the UK who wasn't coining it - relatively speaking. Sure I'll try and snaffle some figures - but, of course, you have to also weigh them against the relative cost of training in the UK...

(But Steyn could NOT have chosen a sillier example than his gout sufferer and her intensive testing in the USA!).

Oh, go coin your own fucking snaffles! Who are you talking to?

Look, I'm sick to death of the arguments about how bad the US is for not having a "universal" health coverage system like so many "civilized" nations.

Because there's a lot of other things we don't have that those "civilized" nations have as well - demographic death spirals, inadequate means of defense, restive unassimilated immigrant populations.

I could go on, but I won't. The connection, however, is simple: the thinking that allows people to accept that government is the source of all good bits is the same thinking that allows all of those bad things to happen without comment or resistance.

This article from Newsweek disagrees with you, Brian. Just sayin'.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/212152

> Look, I'm sick to death

Oh shit! Uninsured Brian is sick to death!

Gather 'round commenters, and pull out your wallets... It's time for the community to bail his pink ass. He's kind of like an illegal immigrant, even though he was born right here in the good ol' USA.

But let's not panic! Eventually , we'll 'get our money'.

Trust him.

Crid -

You wanna know what else I'm fucking sick to death of? Your sanctimonious bullshit.

You of the failed marriage who dares to speak of wanting people to marry well. Who never fails to berate those whose relationships fail for burdening the people, while you yourself have so burdened them.

On the other hand, I've never cost a taxpayer a penny for any of my medical care.

Which puts me a step above you on the moral authority totem pole.

So shove it up your ass sideways pal.

>>Oh, go coin your own fucking snaffles! Who are you talking to?

Which I translate, Crid - as "fascinating, Jody - please elaborate!"

Okay - this "mixed system" business I referred to earlier? This is relevant, because SOME people here seem to think the UK=Cuba. The following explains the "mixed" bit:

"GPs have always been self-employed practitioners who mix private practice with contracted work from the NHS. When the NHS was set up in 1948, GPs kept their independence but agreed to register all patients and provide 24-hour care."

Flynne -

First, it's Newsweek.

Second, the instant that any of those countries can best us on metrics that actually matter (like, say, 5-year survival rates after cancer treatment) I'll consider their systems valid.

But they aren't. They fall down under the most basic of investigation.

What good is access to care if that care is insufficient or worse?

Oh, and the reason we don't have more primary care docs isn't pay, it's the AMA and the med schools not wanting to turn out too many doctors for fear of causing a spike in supply that would cause lower costs.

Sorry. Socialism fails. Every time it's tried.

Brian, honey, I'm not lookin' to pick a fight with you. My head still hurts from last night's open jam (yeah, we rocked the house, baby!). I was just pointing out that there are different reasons why some things work and some don't. I don't want to see the USA become the USSA, believe me. o.O

Don't be bitter! You might stroke out or something! Even when I was married to the wrong woman, everybody had insurance. A lovely girl, she agreed with me that all decent people pay their own way through the world, especially before telling other people how to care for themselves.

> Sorry. Socialism fails. Every
> time it's tried.

It's working OK for you, isn't it?

I lol'd @ Crids comment. He's one of the reasons I enjoy coming to this blog. :p

I invite anybody interested in 5-year-survival stats to come on over to my place and read my latest post. I've just been going over some OECD medical figures quoted by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and I'm genuinely curious as to what other might think, since I'm no statistician.

It's working OK for you, isn't it?

Yeah, because giving the doctor my own cash really costs you so much.

As I told you, you're just bitter that I'm healthier than you are and I haven't tossed 20 grand into a rat hole to finance other people's irresponsibility.

Gotta be careful when quoting ol' Zeke there. He's into this thing called "Complete Life Value" or some such shit. He is also, along with Holdren (another of Obama's czars) into weeding out the weak and unworthy.

Second, as you note, it's telling what they left OUT.

Third, unlike those other countries, we define infant mortality differently here. I don't know the specifics in other countries, but if it comes out of the womb with a heartbeat, it's counted as "live birth" in the US. I do know that this is not the case in most other countries.

Of course, had I bothered to read further, I would have seen that Lynne already talks about that very thing.

You're uninsured, riding motorcycles without helmets, and entering the cancer years... And you're worried about the irresponsibility of others?

People are statistical outcomes, Brian. Your risks are not insignificant: If you don't get cancer, someone else in elevator with you will get it. If they don't, then you will. You're a burden on the system forcing your risk on everyone. And then you're childishly saying "but it wasn't me!"

> "fascinating, Jody - please
> elaborate!"

or, "Be clear, woman...!"

> Also, that sort of care is
> expensive, not free. It's just
> that other people are paying for it.

Power comment. Power. Money.

Your risks are not insignificant: If you don't get cancer, someone else in elevator with you will get it. If they don't, then you will. You're a burden on the system forcing your risk on everyone. And then you're childishly saying "but it wasn't me!"

Actually, my risks are irrelevant.

Also, your understanding of probability is stunted. If there's a one in ten chance of something happening to any random person, that does not mean that in a room with ten people in it, that the thing will happen to one of those ten people.

I'm not a burden on the system. As I've told you on times too numerous to mention, there's no way for me to do anything aside from pay or commit fraud. And I still find it highly offensive that you assume I'm going to commit fraud.

That's presuming something bad happens to me in the first place. It also assumes that I'm uninsured.

For all you know, I could have been insured for the last eight years and I'm deliberately pulling your chain.

"Be clear" is fair enough, Crid.

Anyway, I'm bored with doctors' salaries in the UK. Just trust me, they get oodles of dosh.

Anyway, brian keeps yapping about 5 year survival rates. Plus, he ALWAYS says that thing about infant mortality rates being cooked by other nations 'cos they only count "being born" when it falls during a full moon or some such.

Here is a lovely little pdf of cancer survival rates from a huge comparative study of Five Civilized Countries - including USA, UK, Australia. (It's a mostly US-funded study)

No one has time for pdfs, I know: short version - the US excels more than not across the board - though it's a close run thing in many categories. HOWEVER, given that the USA spends SHIT loads more than any other country in the study on health care - the investment is NOT showing up in survival rates which FUCKING OUGHT to be FAR BETTER. (That's the authors' conclusion.)

Here is the study:

http://tinyurl.com/oomrt5

> there's no way for me to do
> anything aside from pay or
> commit fraud

"Eventually they'll get their money" is not the phrasing of an honest customer. Fraud's one word for it. But again, start every transaction in your life with those words, and let us know how things go.

>>For all you know, I could have been insured for the last eight years and I'm deliberately pulling your chain.

Yeah, and I'm really a bloke who likes guns.

You ever use a credit card? That's the definition of "eventually get their money". All they have is your word. You and they agreed to it the moment you signed the receipt. Guess what - hospitals work the same way. But you're too perfect to accept that you might be wrong about something.

The fact that after what, three years of your continuous harping, the only thing you can grasp is a single sentence written under the influence of anger tells me that you don't even believe your own line of shit.

So if you believe that entering into a negotiated debt agreement constitutes fraud, I hope you've never done so yourself.

Wouldn't wanna be a hypocrite, after all.

All I'm saying, Jody, is that because of Crid's hysterical insistence that I'm some monstrous burden to society, any changes in my insurance status won't be made clear to him here.

Because knowing his outsized ego, he'd try to take credit for guilting me into doing something to shut him up, which is the farthest thing from the truth that could ever be spoken.

So, for as long as it continues to piss him off, I'll remain uninsured. At least so far as anyone here knows.

> You ever use a credit card? That's
> the definition of "eventually get
> their money".

Not at all. I have a contract with the issuer of my card. You have a nebulous presumption that, in your state of medical incompetence, the wheels of justice will dutifully grind in the service of your health care provider.

Sometime, somewhere, some uninsured person is going to get cancer... Or heart disease, or a cracked skull, or something exotic. These are fundamentally random distributions. There's no reason that it shouldn't be you... Except that you want to say "It won't be me!" in blog comments, as you argue about systems you don't have the maturity and courage to participate in.

I enjoy making this clear to others.

Dosh, Jody! Dosh!

HOWEVER, given that the USA spends SHIT loads more than any other country in the study on health care - the investment is NOT showing up in survival rates....

Mostly because the greater expenditure of money by the US is helping to fund the research creating the drugs and procedures which, disseminated throughout the world, help drive up the survival rates in the countries that can afford to implement them.

This is the applied research that a nationalized medical care bureaucracy will adversely affect.

>>All I'm saying, Jody, is that because of Crid's hysterical insistence that I'm some monstrous burden to society, any changes in my insurance status won't be made clear to him here.

Truly, brian - I've always quite admired you for being frank - and creatively defensive - about your lack of insurance. I imagine others here have been in the same boat - but have kept silent.

It's your choice - d-oh! - to go coy should you finally shell out for that policy you found recently. On the other hand, it would be fascinating to get your take on whether it's worth it.

You ever use a credit card? That's the definition of "eventually get their money".

A credit card company is getting its money throught the interest rates charged. That interest rate is decided early in the transaction based upon credit scores and other indications of ability to pay.

If you've been reduced to a vegetative state due to, let's say, driving without a seatbelt, society just has to hope and trust that you'll recover enough to be able to pay it back for the care you receive.

Society does not get to charge you a higher interest rate for being a higher risk. Your credit card company does. Your credit card company can also close your account and demand full payment at any time.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

What Conan said. What Jody said too, though the defenses don't strike me as "creative" as much as infantile. Tell us more about this admiration of badly-undertaken risks. When a friend says "I was so drunk when I was driving home last night", do you applaud the candor?

Shouldn't we worship ever last doctor like a god? Really we should.

> You're comparing apples to oranges.

Word. To say 'they can sue me for it' is tacit acknowledgment that they won't get their full value. Which is OK, so long as they know that going it. But the doctor should be told that before he pinches his skull with the stethoscope.

>>Mostly because the greater expenditure of money by the US is helping to fund the research creating the drugs and procedures which, disseminated throughout the world, help drive up the survival rates in the countries that can afford to implement them.

Yeah, yeah Conan.

The rest of the world totally sucks at cancer research. There are no big European Pharma companies, no Nobel prizes awarded for cutting edge research outside the US, no foreign oncologists giving keynotes at US cancer conferences...

If you've been reduced to a vegetative state due to, let's say, driving without a seatbelt, society just has to hope and trust that you'll recover enough to be able to pay it back for the care you receive.

Show me where society has any affirmative responsibility to keep me alive in such a state.

When a friend says "I was so drunk when I was driving home last night", do you applaud the candor?

Again, conflating a real risk with an imagined one. That I am a potential burden to you should I suffer a medical calamity is entirely hypothetical. Not only that, but the probability of my actually ending up a burden on government is somewhere between nil and none.

Of course, you don't want to accept that because it ends up showing you that the moral high ground upon which you stand is made of air.

What would you say of a man who deprived himself his entire life to have an insurance policy to protect himself against every malady, regardless of likelihood, only to die penniless of old age, having never endured any of the conditions against which he'd insured himself?

You'd call him a damned fool, that's what you'd do.

And until the insurance industry wises up and starts selling insurance, then about 20 million of us out here won't be shelling out the do-re-mi.

Given that they're covering the expenses of their insured and still have enough to clear a profit, they don't need our money, do they?

The rest of the world totally sucks at cancer research. There are no big European Pharma companies, no Nobel prizes awarded for cutting edge research outside the US, no foreign oncologists giving keynotes at US cancer conferences...

You keep bringing this up, but never manage to find any statistics to show that there's a significant amount of such things happening.

I mean, have you ever wondered why all the big European pharma companies have been interested in buying American companies? Could it be that there's no financial reward for research and development over there and they can at least make a profit from their American subsidiaries to cover the operating costs of their European operations?

Not saying that's why they do it, but it's a good operational theory to start from.

> conflating a real risk with
> an imagined one.

"Imagined"? You're immune to illness!

How did you do that?

The rest of the world totally sucks at cancer research. There are no big European Pharma companies, no Nobel prizes awarded for cutting edge research outside the US, no foreign oncologists giving keynotes at US cancer conferences...

I didn't say that.

But since you did, drop some names and statistics. Who was the last European cancer researcher who got a nobel prize?

Don't confuse applied research with pure research. There are labs all over the world doing pure research and governments all over the world funding it.

Pure research is what advances scientific knowledge and opens avenues of inquiry. Applied research is what results in a drug going to market.

>>Who was the last European cancer researcher who got a nobel prize?

Do any of these count, Conan?

"Three European scientists shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine for separate discoveries of viruses that cause AIDS and cervical cancer, breakthroughs that helped doctors fight the deadly diseases.

French researchers Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier were cited for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, in 1983.

They shared the award with Germany's Harald zur Hausen, who was honored for finding human papilloma viruses that cause cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women."

OK, so they were engaged in pure research that found mechanisms of disease.

Did they do anything about it?

No. Merck (American) developed Gardasil.

See, pure research is all well and good. But it doesn't actually accomplish anything unless someone uses it.

And that's what falls on America. There's no risk associated with researching HPV. There IS risk in trying to figure out how to protect against it. Risk that won't be taken when the government is the one writing the checks.

HIV is not cancer. So, we have one.

And zur Hausen's work was pure research. It took a US drug company (granted, a subsidiary of a European drug company) to create and market an actual vaccine.

And zur Hausen's discovery was in 1983. What have you done for us lately?

Can't we just get a few more words about Brian's immunity to bad outcomes? If he can only be convinced to share his secret with us, all the rest of this will be academic.

Show me where society has any affirmative responsibility to keep me alive in such a state.

The care you get leading up to the point at which the plug is pulled still costs money. And when that plug gets pulled, whoever funded that care won't eventually get its money back.

Surprised it hasn't been brought up. Tort reform should be a major component of fixing the health care system.

Does anyone know that if the public option is chosen by someone, and there is malpractice, will the government back the doctor? Or are they on thier own?

Surprised it hasn't been brought up. Tort reform should be a major component of fixing the health care system.

Obama is a lawyer, as are most members of Congress. Tort reform won't even make it past committee.

Plan portability should also be a major portion of any health care reform effort. But that doesn't get us to the state-run option quickly enough, so it's being left out of the debate as well.

Brian/Conan,
The specific question Conan asked was: Who was the last European cancer researcher who got a nobel prize?

So that was precisely the question I answered.

NOW you're both arguing that: "[Pure research] doesn't actually accomplish anything unless someone uses it".

But the Nobel Prizes for science are awarded to up to 3 individuals for "discoveries" (although the interpretation is broad)- not to companies developing the drugs.

So ask the right frigging question next time!

Jody, you answered my question.

My only comment about your answer was that the two French guys were not engaged in cancer research, so we have one example of a European cancer researcher who won the Nobel Prize.

I simply pointed out afterward that it took applied research (a US specialty) to make a vaccine from this and other discoveries in the field.

"Does anyone know that if the public option is chosen by someone, and there is malpractice, will the government back the doctor? Or are they on thier own?"

I'm not an attorney, (where is Gail?) but when you sue the US Federal Government for tort actions I believe there is a something called Sovereign Immunity (which excludes quite a few causes of action) that needs to be taken into consideration before proceeding with the tort action. You basically need permission from them to file suit. There have been amendments to this immunity, but it still can get sticky and problematic.

If the government, prior to national healthcare, has not been a position to act as a Health Care moderator, facilitator, provider (whatever the hell it is they are planning on doing) then malpractice may not have been a tort/liability exposure they’ve held or considered under the previous legislation that addresses Sovereign Immunity. But with medical/Medicaid maybe they have. I haven’t done any research on it but this is an interesting question for sure.

Typically, when companies enter into a contract with the govt to provide services they are required to indemnify the government for liability/tort claims arising from those services.

Yet, if the government owns these companies, it may not make much difference.

But rule of thumb, the government will not make it easy for you to sue them, which is why Sovereign Immunity is still on the books.

Conan,
I take your point BUT you did write: "And zur Hausen's work was pure research." (My ital).

I read that conjunction argumentatively. (Sort of as if you were writing "And he was a useless egghead"!).

I also don't remotely know enough about the structure of international pharma companies - and there are some biggies that appear Euro-based but with major US arms - to know where the crucial development happens. Brian has assumed before that ALL r & d of the Euro conglomerates takes place on US soil. Maybe he is right!

Merck in the US is not a subsidiary of Merck in Germany.

Crid, you're getting tedious here. You were trying to compare drunk driving to living without insurance. You're comparing apples to 2x4s again.

For Guardisil (sp?), the major research was done by two US institutions and one Australian institute.

The US arm of Merck is the company manufacturing, marketing, and distributiing the drug.

My argument on bearing the cost is that many European companies with socialized medical care only allow a drug company to charge cost plus a small profit for drugs. That keeps costs down, but leaves very little additional money for the research to take new discoveries like zur Hausen's forward to becoming a new drug on the market.

The US allows drug companies admittedly exhorbitant profits that are then funneled into research on new drugs (before the patent on the old one expires). But US drug customers pay an outsized price for that research since these new drugs are then made available to the world ... where they can only be sold at cost plus a small profit.

And, in that way, the US is bearing an outsized burden for the cost of new drug research. And if we socialize our medical care, who's going to pay for new applied research?

That applied research doesn't always get the Nobel Prizes, but it does keep grandma around for a few more years.

Merck in the US is not a subsidiary of Merck in Germany.

Hmmph. I read the first line under the Merck and Company profile and should have read further.

They are separate companies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_%26_Co.

PS. If the doctor is working for the government as an employee, then they are also protected under Sovereign Immunity (in most cases).

I forgot to mention that.

Oops.

My argument on bearing the cost is that many European companies with socialized medical care only allow a drug company to charge cost plus a small profit for drugs. That keeps costs down, but leaves very little additional money for the research to take new discoveries like zur Hausen's forward to becoming a new drug on the market.

That's "European countries" not companies.

Not so fast with the "outsized burden for the cost of new drug research" falling on the USA alone, Conan!

"Who Invented the VLP Cervical Cancer Vaccines?

If you ask public relations departments, the answer is simple. Press releases from the University of Rochester in New York, Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and Queensland University in Brisbane, Australia, have claimed responsibility for original work leading to the Merck or GlaxoSmithKline vaccine...."

(Article abstract goes on to explain the patent claim from Australia...)
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/98/7/433

At what point did I say "US alone?"

Also, I credited the Australians with a role in the research in an earlier post.

And I never said the US did all the drug research. I said the drug company profits that are used to fund this type of research are provided in a large part from the higher prices borne by US drug customers - an outsized burden when compared with drug customers in countries whose governments impose a cap on drug prices.

>>Also, I credited the Australians with a role in the research in an earlier post.

You did indeed, Conan.
I just got interested in the patent claims - and the competition (especially over marketing)with the rival product from GlaxoSmithKline.

> You were trying to compare drunk
> driving to living without insurance

Yes. And succeeding at it!

When people get away with it, are you cool?

PS- I'm enjoying the JT/CG bitchfight tremendously. I hope one of you strikes a decisive, match-winning blow, and don't care who it is.

Just last week some econoblogger, maybeMcArdle/maybeNot, had a piece about what happens to the rest of the world's medicare if the USA goes Obama-socialist. Conclusion: It Would Be Bad. There are 'costs' besides public and private investment that make improved medical treatment happen.

For all we hear about the United States training the world's geniuses and then forbidding them to practice here, apparently the United States remains the best place for new + difficult medical innovations to be funded, grown and harvested.

Yes? No?

(Anybody remember Lena? She'd probably have an opinion about this.)

Listen, "medicare" above should have been "medical care". Truth be told, I'm not even sure what medicare is, though apparently it means a lot to people just a few years older than me.

A knee replacement for an fully insured, elderly woman in the USA is not always easy. My 83 year-old step mother needed a knee replacement over two years ago -- she was hobbling around, using a cane, and in pain in August, 2007. She was fully insured in a popular California HMO. She had no heart disease orhigh blood pressure, took no medications, and rarely saw a doctor, except for a past hysterectomy. For over two years, her HMO has postponed and delayed her knee replacement. After over two years in pain, they finally have agreed to do it, and she awaits the nurse to schedule it. Meantime, an 82 year old friend in England developed knee trouble last year, had a knee replacement, and has completely healed.... HEALTH CARE FOR THE INSURED IN THE USA CAN BE HINDERED BY DELAYS AND BARRIERS -- and for those without insurance, health care is even more tenous. We need health care reform and more options!!

Lady, these ain't care parts

Car. Car parts. Two anecdotes don't ad up to a datum

Funny, all these horror stories keep coming from the People's Republic of Kalifornia.

My Grandfather had both knees replaced. I don't recall any delays. Also had his gall bladder out. But the doctor wasn't in love with his heartbeat, so scheduled him for a pacemaker before the gallbladder surgery.

Oh, and he had no delays getting cataract surgery in both eyes, but they do those one at a time for obvious reasons.

Oh, and he's competing in the Senior Olympics.

So much for your contention that we need more choices and broad-based reform.

Maybe we just need to cut California off and let it drift out to sea.

Buy insurance!

"HEALTH CARE FOR THE INSURED IN THE USA CAN BE HINDERED BY DELAYS AND BARRIERS"...

...Caused by the government, lawyers and ridiculous legislation which impacts healthcare costs and services.

Why are we asking the people who broke the system to fix it? It makes no sense.

Margaret, take a moment - clink this link and then click on a picture (any picture). The treatment your 82 year old friend received is not typical of the NHS system in the UK.

Buy insurance!

I'd call and cancel my policy tomorrow just to piss you off.

I used to work in Singapore and managed to accummulate a small amount of savings due to their enforced (pay deduction scheme) savings policies(that don't cover unemployment emergencies and it seems only their residents/citizens are allowed to gain immediate access to their savings for various purposes, while noncitizen/nonresident like myself have to wait an eternity for my savings funds to be returned to me) at that time for citizens and non-citizens like myself who worked there during that period. Having an allotted medisave account and not being able to use it for outpatient medical/dental treatment just does not make sense. Anyhow, was told that I can and will be able to take out the tiny amount accummulated in the medisave account plus my enforced saving funds(together with the interest) accummulated, in the near future,(again have to be according to their rules and regulations). So far, I am quite lucky as I only suffered minor toothache and don't need any medical treatment, as the cost would be too costly anyway for a nonresident like myself to afford any treatment with my limited medisave account. Perhaps, it is better to have a good reliable insurance policy. Anyway, it will be a hugh sigh of relief for me, if I managed to die without the need for any medical treatment.

PS. If the doctor is working for the government as an employee, then they are also protected under Sovereign Immunity (in most cases).

It would follow, to my mind, that for those doctors following the government plan, they wouldn't need to carry malpractice insurance. While that would, hopefully, lower costs, the inability to hold those doctors responsible for any mistakes they make, would lead to those doctors becoming complacent, and not following up on any advanced training.

If that doesn't make your blood run cold, I don't know what will.

It would follow, to my mind, that for those doctors following the government plan, they wouldn't need to carry malpractice insurance. While that would, hopefully, lower costs, the inability to hold those doctors responsible for any mistakes they make, would lead to those doctors becoming complacent, and not following up on any advanced training.

No, the doctors and hospitals (and all the rest) would still be subject to lawsuits. When you walk into a hospital/clinic/... you have to fill out forms that say you are responsible for the bill, regardless of the insurer even on Medicaid/Medicare.

The only way that they the Sovereign Immunity would apply is if they nationalized all doctors (medical facilities) and made them a government service employee (i.e. their paychecks said US Treasury).

There was a case several years ago that a Military/VA cardiac surgeon was killing people via malpractice. The families couldn't sue him -- or it was extremely hard to get to the malpractice part from the immunity clause.

On Medical Malpractice, I can't say for certain how this would work but if we look to one of the govt run healthcare systems currently in place (that hires doctors and medical staff) as a guide - it doesn't look too promising.

Let's take the VA for instance. There is a different and more strict statute of limitations applied to medical malpractice claims for VA veterans.

The two year SOL given for a veteran is not upon discovery of the ailment/injury, rather, from the date he/she went in for medical treatment.

Also, I found this. See page 5.

Sovereign Immunity was birthed out of the British Law Doctrine of "The King Can Do No Wrong".

And yes, for the record, it does make my blood run cold.

That is what worries me. The AMA is a huge supporter of this bill. How long before we see them screaming that if they are going to have to treat people under that plan, then they want some form of protection from the repercussions? Writing an amendment into the bill to make all doctors who treat people from the plan, defacto employees of the state would be a good way to do it.

And also the only way they can get their wage controls in place without a legal battle.

1. The technical name for the low carb diet used for epilepsy was the ketogenic diet, and by memory I think it was developed back in the 20's. It was a very hard diet, because every bite had to be weighed and calculated. Recent research shows that the Atkins Diet, early phase, works as well overall, partly because the diet is much easier to implement and stick to.

One study showed that Phase 1 Atkins diet makes a significant difference in cancer patients of many types. It was known, also in the 20's, that many cancers feed on glucose, and a ketogenic/low carb diet involves much less glucose. That study was not allowed to be used on cancer patients until they were declared terminal, and they were so bad they started dying within a few days of starting the diet. Yet, out of the 25 patients, with several more being too much pig to go without their sweets even to save their lives, 5 did not die. 100% were considered terminal when they were put on the diet.

I would be very surprised if Amy ever gets common types of cancer.

Note that while it may or may not coincidental, cancer rose during the 20th Century and so did sugar consumption. I believe there is a connection; feel free to doubt it, I don't care.

2. As far as shortage of doctors, it has been well established that if everyone ate well, which mostly means emulate Amy's low carb diet, and also exercised, use of medical services would drop at least by 50%. We would have a surplus of doctors.

3. Talk about the med schools adding students is a waste of time. Due to PC, more than half of med students are women. While I forget the exact figures, by memory I think it's around half of female doctors are already not in full-time practice within 5 years after receiving their license to practice. The more women you send to med school, in vain hope of increasing the number of women in practice to make the insane lesbians happy, the greater the shortage of doctors.

That by the way is also at the root of Canada's problems. I don't know about UK but have no reason to suspect it is different there. But, to even talk about is considered in our stupid society to be evil sexism.

Stupid societies deserve what happens to them. And, putting a woman's "right" to be a doctor ahead of the rights of a society to doctors who actually doctor is extremely stupid.

Oh, did I rain on the feminist parade? Well, I sure hope so.