G. Keith Smith, M.D.

Great Britain, just like the U.S., is going broke.  Entitlement spending will be their doom.  Their National Health Service costs 158 billion dollars a year to run.  ”But health care is free there!!”  These blokes have come up with an idea that might jolly well keep their system alive.  We bloody well can’t let the staff run out of the supplies necessary to euthanize the sick inpatients now can we?  Seriously.  The NHS admits that 1/3 of all patients that die in their hospitals are euthanized.  

So here’s their idea.  Public hospitals in England should set up profit-making branches in other countries!  Jill Lawless, writing for the Associated Press writes, “Officials said the country should capitalize on international respect for the British health care brand.”    Later, “Health Minister Anne Milton said that plan would create jobs and revenue, which would be channeled back into the health service.” 

Many of you are laughing right now.  Aren’t central planners fun?  Probably not when they deny you dialysis (remember it’s free) or murder a sick relative to free up a hospital bed.  I think they should give some thought to flying a “Jolly Roger” flag at each of these branch hospitals.  What a great logo for their “brand.”

Put yourself in the shoes of a patient walking in to one of these facilities.  However much you are charged, it will be too much, as the mission of this hospital will be to charge enough to cover the cost of your care and that of the folks back home.  Why would anyone patronize a facility with this mission?  Why wouldn’t someone else set up a hospital and charge a fair rate, charging only for your care?  How long would foreigners endure being overcharged to bail out the mother ship?

How will the NHS do a price calculation for their services?  I suggest that if they really want to make a profit they should contract with one of the “not for profit” hospital chains here in the states for a lesson in aggressive billing, or just sublet the facility out to them.  I suppose they will consider some “tax” like a VAT, added to the hospital bill but call it a TAB, for “thanks a bunch!”  

Will the British doctors operate in a for profit manner, or be salaried like back home, while the hospital acts in a “for profit” manner?  I’m thinking that if the doctors don’t care whether they are profitable, this hospital can call itself “for profit” all it wants….it will not make a dime!  On the other hand, if the doctors are offered a chance to work in a “for profit” fee for service manner in Dubai, there may not be any doctors left in England!  

What happens when a competitor hospital opens up, charging a fair rate, without the TAB?  If any talented British doctors go to Dubai, won’t they go to work for this facility not owned or operated by the NHS?  What sort of doctors would remain working in an NHS hospital when the competitor, charging probably half for better care, shows up, offering the doctors a fee for service setup?

Will they use the Liverpool Care Pathway to euthanize resource-intense patients who aren’t profitable in these new facilities?  Will they bring staff trained to simultaneously starve and sedate the sick?  Exporting these skills might actually be a good idea for the care of those remaining in England!

What does this arrangement say about the “free health care plan” back home in England?  What better evidence of failure could there be, that “for profit” hospitals need to be built all over the planet to support the bankrupt and failed system back on the home front?  Their socialism only works if allowed to piggyback onto a “for profit” system elsewhere.  What a message!

Or will the old British accent portray a higher IQ than justified, making this a brilliant marketing move, an unbeatable strategy?  Even so, what makes them think that the free market won’t create a better priced Harley Street in Dubai, as patients realize their scam? 

G. Keith Smith, M.D.

What will single payer health care look like?  There are so many places to look it’s a little confusing.  Here’s a partial list.

Canada

I pick on Canada a lot.  Why?  Lots of Canadians come to our facility for their health care.  Do I really need to say anything else?  These are people who have been told to wait for years before they can see a specialist (because there are budget “caps”).  When the money is gone, the doctor’s office is closed.  Surgeons are limited on the amount of operating room time they can have in a month.  When they have used up their time, they can do no more surgery.  Rather than have the market determine the allocation of resources, a Canadian bureaucrat creates a budget and that’s that.  Presto!  This is how the “right” to health care is born.  Doesn’t feel like a right to health care for those who come to the states for their care, though.  Probably doesn’t feel like that to the patients who die waiting in line for care, I’ll bet.  Imagine that the government guaranteed a “right” to blankets.  They then dictated how long the blanket makers could stay open manufacturing blankets.  Is it really that surprising that this approach would lead to lots of shivering blanket-less people waiting in line for their ration?  

Great Britain

I like to pick on the Brits because they harbor such nationalistic pride in regards to their health care system, even though it is based on the same faulty economic premise as their Canadian brethren.   I like to pick on the Brits because they not only euthanize their sick citizens to free up scarce hospital beds (duh…wonder how this shortage of beds came about?) they are proud of this and have even given this highway to the cemetery  a fancy name:  The Liverpool Care Pathway.  British patients that become extremely ill have a better chance of survival at home, surrounded by family and friends, as no one stands a chance once on the Pathway.  Recovery from severe illness can occur without the help of modern medicine, but recovery of the very sick isn’t likely when the hospital staff is actively murdering them.  

But there is no need to go outside of the U.S. to see the wonders of socialism in medicine.  The VA hospitals and the Indian hospitals provide examples of the wonders of efficiency brought to us in medicine from government bureaucrats.  

Our local paper’s lead article today informed us that the Department of Public Safety (office administering driver’s tests) was closing their offices for the day to participate in training their employees on how to be more efficient and friendly.  Zeke Campfield of “The Oklahoman” writes that the “operator of a local Chick-fil-A restaurant will teach examiners how to be patient and courteous.”  Wow.  That can be taught?  And in one day?  

What would happen to an employee at Chick-fil-A that was not patient with and courteous to customers?  What would a patron of Chick-fil-A do if they were not treated in a timely manner and with respect?  What would happen to Chick-fil-A if this treatment of customers were widespread?  

Campfield’s article also talks about a mother getting in to line outside of the testing center at 4:15 am, only to be turned away at the end of the day because there were simply not enough examiners to get to her son.  Three mornings in a row.  The spokesman for the Department of Public Safety muttered something about budget cuts so I’m guessing we’ll see government’s usual response, that of throwing even more money at failure.  

Try to imagine the Department of Public Safety in charge of your medical care.  Rude and inefficient staff.  No competitive fears.  Hospitals working together to institutionalize mediocrity so no one stands out as better, eliminating troublesome comparisons.  Long waiting lines.  Always blaming the lack of funding or budget caps.  

The efficiencies and quality of the private sector cannot be superimposed on government agencies for one simple reason:  without competitors, government doesn’t have to care.  Ever.  Our state government wants to introduce private sector ideas into a failed government organization.  Ironic, isn’t it, that nationally, health care bureaucrats are increasingly embracing the business plan of the Department of Public Safety (DPS), even as the DPS is looking for private sector answers?  At least the DPS hasn’t started euthanizing applicants waiting in line to free up examination spots.  

G. Keith Smith, M.D.

Here’s an interesting article.  In it is a description of a man in a British hospital dying of thirst.  Actually, he died of thirst.  Not before he called the police asking for help from his hospital bed, though. 

By passing on this description of hospital complications I in no way mean to suggest that hospitals in the U.S. can’t stand improvement.  Followers of this blog know that I am no defender of the cartel system of health care we have in this country.  That said, there are those who believe that now that we have “universal care” everything will be just great!  It is for that reason that I pass articles like this one along.

I suppose this man should have been thankful that he wasn’t actively killed by the hospital with their Liverpool Care Pathway.  Which is worse?  The indifference and neglect inflicted on this poor man or premeditated murder by the same staff with their euthanasia pathway?  Not much of a choice, is it? 

Those celebrating the court’s decision should keep their eyes open to the atrocities that will become increasingly common once this system is fully implemented.  I predict that we’ll look back and realize that some of the sick and uninsured would have avoided the hospital and recovered on their own or died in the presence and under the loving care of family members, rather than entered the hospital only to be murdered to save the state money.  Ich existiere fur das Wohl des Staates (I exist for the good of the state).

G. Keith Smith, M.D. 

Many hospitals have a chaplain or priest on their staffs, either as employees or volunteers.  I think this is a great idea.  I think it is time, however, to consider bringing veterinarians into the mix.  You see, no one knows more about, or has more experience in carrying out euthanasia than these guys.  For those Uncle Sam has decreed too expensive to treat, I think the veterinarian’s method is a more humane way to murder people than the Liverpool Care Pathway, the method admittedly used by the British National Health Service, consisting of starvation with heavy sedation. 

One third of all patients who die in British hospitals are euthanized.  Don’t believe me?  Read it here for yourself.  Don’t think this is possible here?  The UCA (unaffordable care act) gives big insurance unprecedented leeway in deciding what they’ll pay for and what they won’t.  You’ll have an insurance card, but if big insurance decides that your treatment will hurt the value of their stock….well….I think you know where you stand.  Cheap wellness kind of stuff?  You’ll be O.K.  Extensive surgery, chemotherapy and radiation for your recently diagnosed cancer?  Not so sure.

This death from neglect will start slowly and then become more commonplace as the price of health premiums and care climbs.  When One’s illness hurts Another’s pocket book, Another be more open to “putting them out of their misery.”  The UCA also applies this same compassion to newborns with birth defects.  Introducing, the Complete Lives System.  Check out this 6 minute video, then try to convince yourself that rationing care and dealing death isn’t part of this new health care plan. 

G. Keith Smith, M.D.