Thursday, August 02, 2012

Hey, Massachusetts is ahead of the curve!

9 comments:

Mr roT said...

A good, even-handed piece. Uncharacteristically for a right-winger, Mead accounts for the success of socialized medicine in smaller, more homogeneous countries, echoing my own ideas on the subject. Of course, my FCP compadres were with me on this about like when I fail to fall into lockstep with deep thinkers Rush Limbaugh and Peggy de Tocqueville Noonan, that is, not at all.

Tecumseh said...

Of course, having socialized medicine in a country like Denmark is a different ballgame. Besides, they don't invent new medical techniques, or new drugs there -- or, if they do, it's not really significant in the big scheme of things, is it?

On top of all that's bad about the state takeover of the health industry, I am concerned about the future of medical research: how vibrant will that remain once commissars will be in charge?

Mr roT said...

The commissars at CERN don't seem to have broken things too bad, but running an already understood instrument is different than designing a new one or making up the mathematical model that constitutes the physicsy stuff.
Could be that that stuff is different. I don't have the data, but I doubt it would be any good for administrators to be able to stick noses in. That seems to be true for any kind of admin time-wasters, as you know.

Arelcao Akleos said...

In the smaller "homogenous" countries exactly the same problems, economic and in terms of quality of medical care of "the masses" have cropped up with socialized medicine. In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, all of 'em, the number of decisions to terminate life rather than extend care [under pressure of costs] have risen sharply. In all of these hitting your 50's is it a danger sign for whether or not to dedicate treatment for serious illnesses. In all of these there is a serious rationing of care, and a "social status" triage system where the "elite" are set on very different tracks than the stinking peasants. Mayo clinic for the Versailleans, "compassionate euthanasia" for the proles. In all of these the advancement of medical science has fallen relative to what was done before the maturation of their current government run health care.
The one advantage some of these have over the version we're succumbing to is freedom to pursue private care, and for doctors to offer it, as an alternative to the state system.

I predict that private clinics in Mexico and some Caribbean or Central American nations are gonna start to become pretty damn fine, as they look forward to those medical refugees that will be seeking alternatives.
Just like many of our medical centers profited from all those Canadians and Continentals, of means, who came here to escape the perfection of their "homogeneous" systems.

Tecumseh said...

What you say about those Western European countries is very true, AA. I've seen in happen up close. Very close. I'd rather not talk about it, but the experience made me even more leery of the Pepean utopia.

Arelcao Akleos said...

In the end, there are things that make us instead talk about "pastrami"

Tecumseh said...

You mean, pastrama. Yep, AA, I'd rather argue about that.

Mr roT said...

I don't want to bring up again a painful subject for Tecs. I do want to say that I was put first in line here at the hospital because of my Ph.D. in math. I feel very guilty when I think of the possibility that I got top doctors and expensive treatments and medicines that the vast unwashed have no access to.
That would be a sin and I hope that's not what happened. But I have my doubts. All the doctors and nurses would address me with a snappy "Herr Doktor" instead of plain "Herr" like the rest. Some, by accident went so far as "Herr Doktor Professor" which I corrected immediately. Most, I would give a couple days and ask that they call me by my first name. They wouldn't, ever.
It's hard to believe that I wasn't being treated, subconsciously at least, as if I were some Habsburg prince.

Arelcao Akleos said...

If they were going to treat some as a Hapsburg Prince then much much better by far Herr Rott than some ted kennedyesque offspring of a Hapsburg Prince.