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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Koligman who wrote (10769)	11/3/2009 11:17:32 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 42652

Great Moments in Socialized Medicine "Patients who do not get the treatment that they need from the NHS within 18 weeks are to be given the legal right to free private care," reports London's Times: The Cabinet agreed this week that the legislation, placing maximum waiting times on the statute book for the first time, should be rushed through Parliament before the next election. Cancer patients, in particular, will receive funding for private treatment if they have not seen an NHS specialist within two weeks of GP referral. Downing Street says that the two legal rights, which will be unveiled in next month's Queen's Speech, are designed to entrench the dramatic reduction of NHS waiting lists over recent years. Hmm, so the British medical system has waiting lists. It also has death panels, another Times story suggests: A father whose son was born with a rare neuromuscular condition will go to the High Court today to try to stop a hospital withdrawing support that keeps the child alive. Doctors treating the one-year-old boy say that his quality of life is so poor that it would not be in his best interests to keep him alive. They say that they are supported in their action by the baby's mother. The couple are separated. The child, known for legal reasons as Baby RB, was born with congenital myasthenic syndrome, a muscle condition that severely limits movement and the ability to breathe independently. He has been in hospital since birth. If the hospital doctors succeed in their application it will be the first time that a British court has gone against the wishes of a parent and ruled that life support can be discontinued or withdrawn from a child who does not have brain damage. And the Independent, a left-wing London paper, reports that "NHS whistleblowers are routinely gagged in order to cover up dangerous and even dishonest practices that could attract bad publicity and damage a hospital's reputation": Some local NHS bodies are spending millions of taxpayers' money to pay off and silence whistleblowers with "super gags" to stop them going public with patient safety incidents. Experts warn that patients' lives are being endangered by the use of intimidatory tactics to force out whistleblowers and deter other professionals from coming forward. On the other hand, according to former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, "In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false." That's a relief! online.wsj.com