The British are debating ways to reform the National Health Service. But politicians have found there is one strategy that will not stand: Americanization.
Jimmy Henry Chu writes for the Los Angeles Times:
Britain is now embroiled in a healthcare argument of its own, prompted by a proposed shake-up of the NHS. And the phrase on everyone’s lips is “American-style,” which may not be as catchy as the “death panels” that Palin attributed to socialized medicine but which, over here, inspires pretty much the same kind of terror.
Ask a Briton to describe “American-style” healthcare, and you’ll hear a catalog of horrors that include grossly expensive and unnecessary medical procedures and a privatized system that favors the rich. For a people accustomed to free healthcare for all, regardless of income, the fact that millions of their cousins across the Atlantic have no insurance and can’t afford decent treatment is a farce as well as a tragedy. …
… So frightening is the Yankee example that any British politician who values his job has to explicitly disavow it as a possible outcome. Twice.
The Brits are worried that some proposals amount to back-door privatization, which would put Britain on the road to American-style serfdom. What the article doesn’t point out is that Britain spends a great deal less on health care than the U.S. does, as explained in a recent post. Total spending is $3,129 per capita in Britain and $7,538 per capita in the U.S. Or, as a percentage of GDP, Britain spends 8.7 percent and the U.S. spends 16 percent.
That privatization is somethin’ else, huh?
Ironically, government spending on health care as a percentage of GDP is nearly the same in the two countries — 7.4 percent in the U.S., 7.2 percent in the U.K. But then the U.S. is burdened by its big, sloppy, wasteful, profit-driven private health care industry that is eating our economy on top of that.
The British NHS does have a lot of problems, but it also is on the low end of what industrialized nations spend on health care. There are all kinds of factors driving up health care cost that are impacting most nations. The only country I know of getting by with lower costs figured both per capita and as a percentage of GDP is Japan. I don’t know how Japan is keeping its costs down, but it is.
BTW, there is also grumbling about Americanizing the higher education system. Public universities are raising tuition fees as high as $14,750 a year — a bargain by our standards — and the Brits are angry about this. They don’t think higher education should require such a financial burden. Just wait ’til some British genius comes up with a student loan industry.
When NHS was first enacted into law in Britain, people flocked to doctors in droves for everything from a hangnail to a lone pimple – because they could. It took a while for the novelty of free health care to wear off and when it did people quit flocking, which reduced the government outlay for health care considerably. The point was by not having to directly bear the cost of the doctor visit, people were not likely to be selective or complain about cost.
Before the health insurance consortia got into the racket in the US, the argument was made that health care not paid for directly by the patient would rise exponentially – and of course as we know it did and continues to do so.
I mention the above because the argument is made that if the government is paying the health care bills, people will abuse the system – because they can. Britain’s example tanks that argument.
Yes, two things most civilized, industrial nations don’t want that American have:
1. Our present health care system.
2. Our two party system of representative democracy.
One of the reasons (pre-nuclear disaster) the Japanese have lower costs is their diet. It’s mainly fish, vegetables, and soy products, fresh or lightly cooked. Meat tends to be very, very lean – except for Kobi beef and pork, of course; but that’s not every day food. And even then, meats are usually grilled. Even tempura is lightly fried, unlike the way we Americans deep-fry everything to death – Snickers bars included (yuck!).
There is a theory about why the Brit’s went all around the globe – it was to get away from the food there. English food is horrible, with a few notable exceptions.
As for Americans, here in “Super-size Nation,” we like our food fatty, salty, and fried. Even our vegetables. I love Southern cooking, but when you eat the cooked vegetables, you’ll almost always find fatback in there. Sure it tastes great! But, is pork fat, or butter, necessary in EVERY veggie dish?
And, American may love sushi, but they don’t know how to eat it. It’s actually my favorite food, or one of, on the planet. But I’ve been to sushi restaraunts with my friends, and seen them, or people at other tables, drown each piece in soy sauce (and wasabi, for those who like it), creating a sodium BOMB!
How do they taste the fish?
You’re supposed to, if you use it at all, dip the sushi in soy sauce/wasabi lightly, not drown it in the bathtub.
I can’t criticize too much. I’m not exactly Twiggy. More like Twiggy X 2, and then some. Maybe X 3.
WAY OT – It looks like Weiner’s about to resign.
I was thinking.
Too bad Weiner took pictures of his weiner in tightie whities instead of a diaper.
Otherwise, he might have said:
“Well, how can you tell that’s me in the diaper and not Senator Vitter?
I mean, ok, besides the size?
And the diaper’s NOT soiled.”
He might have disarmed the media right off, and also put into perspective how what he did was not illegal, whereas what Vitter did was. And also created context which the MSM would have had to keep using EVERY time it wanted to show the clip and his comment.
But, no…
Instead:
IOKIYAR…
YMRIYAD! (You Must Resign If Your Are a Democrat).
I don’t know that British food is that bad. They can’t cook chicken worth a darn, and I’m not sure about the mashed peas. And yes, the full English breakfast kind of stands out, too. But if you stick to lamb and duck dishes, it can be very good, and usually the fish and the beef are quite good, too. Just don’t order chicken.
maha,
you’re talking about the food the rich ate. Yes, they did great duck and goose well, as well as roast lamb and beef.
Read about what the common people ate after they left the farms and moved to the cities due to industialization. Their food was horrible. Read about some of the R&R bands, and what they grew up on, and how America was like a national buffet to them.
I’ve heard good things about the food in the major cities now, but I think that’s the influence of Indian, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern food that recently became more available.
Pre-Revolution Russian food is great – again if you were rich. Much of it was a combination of native Russian meats and veggies, with an Italian influence at first – because of the engineers Peter the Great brought in, and then French, due to you know who.
The serfs ate swill, and begged for more. The landed gentry and church provided decent food on religious feast days – that applied in Russia, and pre-Reformation England, too.
I missed my calling. I should have gone to CIA (the food one and become either a chef or a critic.
I’m talking about what I ate when I was there, actually. I found the best way to go was to stick with local cuisine (but no chicken) and microbrews.
I’d happily volunteer to go to the U.K. and teach them how to cook chicken. It could be kind of an exchange program, me for that Jamie Oliver guy. (Ha ha, sorry Britain– you lose!)
The only other “Americanization” I can suggest for our friends across the pond is “Down With Monarchs!” And of course, I don’t mean butterflies.
What all of these countries do, and Japan even more than most, is COST CONTROL. Japan has kept what they pay for office visits exceptionally low, and only the Japanese sense of honor has kept people in the medical field. If we don’t get control of the costs of medical care, and I’ve even heard Sen. Tom Coburn talk about this, it will destroy us.
As has often been discussed here, there is a lot of waste in the way that we provide care. The opponents of affordable healthcare also appear to be against addressing any of the waste. There are many well worn examples, such as the use of very expensive emergency room services when a visit to a clinic, if available, would have served better. I have a very good friend who is a coding specialist. For a few years she did the billing for the emergency room for her hospital. She estimates that more than half of the services were not for emergent conditions. (We can all remember “Dubya” saying that poor people can get care at an emergency room.)
Electronic records may require time to work out the bugs, but many standard lab tests cost several hundred dollars, or more. If a patient arrives unconscious or simply can’t remember or help to confirm that a test has been done, it has to be redone, wasting not just a lot of money, but time that may be critical to the well being or even survival of the patient.
The Republicans are big on torte reform, but one of the reasons that law suits are so prevalent and so expensive is that there is no other resource to provide for the care of a person with a bad outcome. Obstetrics is possibly the riskiest area of practice. If a child develops a medical problem that can possibly be linked to birth trauma or any circumstance of the birth, a jury will normally award damages to cover the medical care for the child. I think the child should be provided for, but there is some risk in the birth process. Sometimes, no one is really at fault, but the only party with the deep pockets to pay for the care is the insurance company, which passes the cost along to other physicians and eventually to us. And of course, they still manage amazing profits. If the care that a person with a medical problem or disability might need over the course of their life were covered through some other, more civilized means. The legal process would not be necessary in cases where an adequate standard of care was provided.
These are pretty obvious examples, but, imagine what improvements someone with a medical background and years of experience could come up with.
If by some miracle the “Randian Army of Satan” (cundgulag, help me with an acronym, like RATS) is defeated and we actually achieve a civilized healthcare system in this country, the costs would be the highest at its inception, because a lot of our citizens would have to learn how to access the system in appropriate ways. For now, many people make questionable and expensive decisions (e.g. going to the ER for a bad cold) but they often don’t have any alternative or they don’t have the experience to make a sound decision because they have never had access to healthcare. More efficient, affordsable healthcare would require a lot education, which the right wingers would find some way to object to as some sort of ‘brainwashing”.
For now, we are the laughing stock of the developed world and we provide a cautionary tale, not a “beacon on a hill”.
The Brits should stay very afraid of anything resembling our “health care” system. If ever there was a classic doublespeak phrase applicable to U.S., “American health care” is it.
Maha, what do they do to chicken to bugger it up so bad? I was cooking excellent chicken when I was a boy scout.
As for the rest, my neighborhood has (had?) a number of Brits, they LOVE the republicans here (low taxes), but run home when they need an expensive proceedure.
It was always dry and overcooked, and I also had to wait twice as long as everyone else in my party to get my dinner. I suspect these two problems are related.
I read a report about malpractice lawsuits about 10 years ago, which is old; but, I haven’t seen much on it since then. But, the conclusion was that only the rich and the super-rich filed malpractice suits. Those of us in lower income levels seldom file lawsuits because they are very expensive. Which is just one more case of the inequities of the American people who theoretically are equal.
Japanese doctors barely hold onto ‘middle class’. Fees are ridiculously low. Try that here and we’ll all have no health care. I am not that confident the our docs are all that honorable.
Also count me as truly upset that Anthony resigned. Progressives lost our voice. Damn our definition of obscene. We are all sex addicts. I swear!!!!!
Japan spends $2,729 per capita on health care, which is 8.1 percent of its GDP. We spend $7.539 per capita, which is 16 percent of GDP. Somehow I think a happy medium could be found.
and I also had to wait twice as long as everyone else in my party to get my dinner.
Next time order the haggis..and bring your own marmite.
FYI: The author of this L.A. Times article is Henry Chu, not Jimmy Chu. Jimmy Chu makes shoes.