What about the word NO doesn't Obama and Congress understand?

[Satan]

Yes, as long as it's a system where he government doesn't run things and everyone has to pay something into their health coverage so they have a stake in it. No freebies.

We don't want a failed system like the UK's NHS.

So you want mandated corporate insurance?

Well, if that's the case, why are you bitching, since that's what this current plan is?

Even more ironic that this is coming from you. Wouldn't you say the Veterans "socialized medicine" plan works well for the most part. And Medicare, for that matter. Not to mention the evidence of every other "civilized" nation on this planet, and even a few that you wouldn't consider "civilized".

People are literally dying from lack of health care, and an industry which serves no valid purpose is making billions from their suffering.

This country needs to step into the 21st century and take the profit motive out of health care.

[Unchainme]

More importantly why does Brian not think the US people should get healthcare reform when most of them voted for it?

Urrr..Nobody voted for Obama for that reason in particular.

It was more like a middle finger to the Bush administration and the republican party for a fucked up 8 years.

I think overall though, people are pissed off at the government at the very moment.

Also, I'm not so much against socialized health care, but I am bit tired of seeing the country go further into debt and having the chicoms finance it (This is the fault of every pres. in the past 30 years NOT just Obama, though he doesn't escape blame either), while the US economy is ultimately in the shitter.

Lets fix those problems first, get those out of the way, then we can work on trying to be like the Canucks if we want. .

[Nitro Express]

I see it as economic warfare. The insurance industry has Obama, Pelosi, and Reid bought and paid for and they want their fascist health care (buy it or go to jail) before the new Congress takes place next year. So let's spike the insurance premiums so people lose their coverage and heard them to the government plan because they will be so desperate they won't care. Good old corporate America at work.

[Nitro Express]

This is not socialized healthcare. It's healthcare where the government becomes the collection agency and if you don't pay, you go to jail and pay a fine. Nothing has changed, they will repacked the pitch and then try and get what they want behind closed doors again using every trick in the book.

[Nitro Express]

All I can say is the health insurance and pharmacutical industry must have offered some juicy perks and bribes to the politicians because these fuckers and motivated and won't give up. They pretty much know they are going to be voted out next November anyways or maybe they are so aloof they don't get it. The emporer has no cloths possibly.

[Nitro Express]

It's so obvious. The collusion. The insurance companies jack the premiums to the heavens just in time for Obama's new healthcare plan announcement. It's too obvious.

[Nickdfresh]

While most people, myself included, are for some kind of reform, most are against Obama's version of it.

"President Obama this week called for a televised bipartisan summit to get his health care reform plan back on track, but 61% of U.S. voters say Congress should scrap that plan and start all over again."

Health Care Reform - Rasmussen Reports

Most people are for a more stringent, less watered down and pussified version of Heath Reform that wasn't skull-fucked by the Insurance Lobby bleeping talking points to mindless little drones like you...

And if a lack of Health Care reform will be "Obama's downfall," so will it be the downfall of the Grand Old Party of No!...

[Nickdfresh]

So is that why Scots have pale, pasty complexions...they are dead? Or just braindead like you? :tongue0011:

You shouldn't talk about countries you can't locate on a map...

[kwame k]

You shouldn't talk about countries you can't locate on a map...

....bullshit, Nick. He knows where Africa is

[binnie]

We don't want a failed system like the UK's NHS.

Mmmmm, given that life-expectancy in the UK is longer than in the US, I think you need to re-think that statement.

[LoungeMachine]

Mmmmm, given that life-expectancy in the UK is longer than in the US, I think you need to re-think that statement.

Re-think?

He never thinks to begin with.....

He just reposts talking points he reads elsewhere...

[FORD]

Re-think?

He never thinks to begin with.....

He just reposts talking points he reads elsewhere...

Or hears from the guy who lives down the street.....

[Nitro Express]

They are just going to push this healthcare hard and heavy hoping people will give in and go fuck it. I doubt this new process will be any more transparent than the last time. Things will be added and if it passes we will wish it never did. Taxes will go through the roof. You won't be able to choose your doctor. Doctors offices will be swamped with paperwork and their overhead will increase and the doctor will have less time to spend with patients.

What we really need is price caps on the insurance and pharmacutical industry. It's a price gouging problem, not a healthcare problem. But then who do you think is behind all this healthcare legislation anyways? Big pharma and big insurance that's who. Follow the money.

[BigBadBrian]

For a failed system it looks pretty shit hot compared to yours.

UK heart surgeons are among the best in the world



This is surgery on everyone from the homeless up for no charge to the patient and spending half as much per capita as the US. You could do with a failure like that...

Sentenced to death on the NHS


Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors have warned.

By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Published: 10:00PM BST 02 Sep 2009





Under the guidelines the decision to diagnose that a patient is close to death is made by the entire medical team treating them, including a senior doctor




Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.


As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.

“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.

“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."

The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.

The scheme, called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), was designed to reduce patient suffering in their final hours.

Developed by Marie Curie, the cancer charity, in a Liverpool hospice it was initially developed for cancer patients but now includes other life threatening conditions.

It was recommended as a model by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), the Government’s health scrutiny body, in 2004.

It has been gradually adopted nationwide and more than 300 hospitals, 130 hospices and 560 care homes in England currently use the system.

Under the guidelines the decision to diagnose that a patient is close to death is made by the entire medical team treating them, including a senior doctor.

They look for signs that a patient is approaching their final hours, which can include if patients have lost consciousness or whether they are having difficulty swallowing medication.

However, doctors warn that these signs can point to other medical problems.

Patients can become semi-conscious and confused as a side effect of pain-killing drugs such as morphine if they are also dehydrated, for instance.

When a decision has been made to place a patient on the pathway doctors are then recommended to consider removing medication or invasive procedures, such as intravenous drips, which are no longer of benefit.

If a patient is judged to still be able to eat or drink food and water will still be offered to them, as this is considered nursing care rather than medical intervention.

Dr Hargreaves said that this depended, however, on constant assessment of a patient’s condition.

He added that some patients were being “wrongly” put on the pathway, which created a “self-fulfilling prophecy” that they would die.

He said: “I have been practising palliative medicine for more than 20 years and I am getting more concerned about this “death pathway” that is coming in.

“It is supposed to let people die with dignity but it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Patients who are allowed to become dehydrated and then become confused can be wrongly put on this pathway.”

He added: “What they are trying to do is stop people being overtreated as they are dying.

“It is a very laudable idea. But the concern is that it is tick box medicine that stops people thinking.”

He said that he had personally taken patients off the pathway who went on to live for “significant” amounts of time and warned that many doctors were not checking the progress of patients enough to notice improvement in their condition.

Prof Millard said that it was “worrying” that patients were being “terminally” sedated, using syringe drivers, which continually empty their contents into a patient over the course of 24 hours.

In 2007-08 16.5 per cent of deaths in Britain came about after continuous deep sedation, according to researchers at the Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, twice as many as in Belgium and the Netherlands.

“If they are sedated it is much harder to see that a patient is getting better,” Prof Millard said.

Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients Association, said: “Even the tiniest things that happen towards the end of a patient’s life can have a huge and lasting affect on patients and their families feelings about their care.

“Guidelines like the LCP can be very helpful but healthcare professionals always need to keep in mind the individual needs of patients.

“There is no one size fits all approach.”

A spokesman for Marie Curie said: “The letter highlights some complex issues related to care of the dying.

“The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient was developed in response to a societal need to transfer best practice of care of the dying from the hospice to other care settings.

“The LCP is not the answer to all the complex elements of this area of health care but we believe it is a step in the right direction.”

The pathway also includes advice on the spiritual care of the patient and their family both before and after the death.

It has also been used in 800 instances outside care homes, hospices and hospitals, including for people who have died in their own homes.

The letter has also been signed by Dr Anthony Cole, the chairman of the Medical Ethics Alliance, Dr David Hill, an anaesthetist, Dowager Lady Salisbury, chairman of the Choose Life campaign and Dr Elizabeth Negus a lecturer in English at Barking University.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “People coming to the end of their lives should have a right to high quality, compassionate and dignified care.

"The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) is an established and recommended tool that provides clinicians with an evidence-based framework to help delivery of high quality care for people at the end of their lives.

"Many people receive excellent care at the end of their lives. We are investing £286 million over the two years to 2011 to support implementation of the End of Life Care Strategy to help improve end of life care for all adults, regardless of where they live.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html

[BigBadBrian]

Stafford Hospital caused ‘unimaginable suffering’
(David Jones/PA)
Relatives of patients involved in the report hold pictures of their loved ones
David Rose, Health Correspondent 97 Comments
Recommend? (33) Patients were routinely neglected or left “sobbing and humiliated” by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care.

An independent inquiry found that managers at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs.

The inquiry report, published yesterday by Robert Francis, QC, included proposals for tough new regulations that could lead to managers at failing NHS trusts being struck off.

Staff shortages at Stafford Hospital meant that patients went unwashed for weeks, were left without food or drink and were even unable to get to the lavatory. Some lay in soiled sheets that relatives had to take home to wash, others developed infections or had falls, occasionally fatal. Many staff did their best but the attitude of some nurses “left a lot to be desired”.

The report, which follows reviews by the Care Quality Commission and the Department of Health, said that “unimaginable” suffering had been caused. Regulators said last year that between 400 and 1,200 more patients than expected may have died at the hospital from 2005 to 2008.

Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, said there could be “no excuses” for the failures and added that the board that presided over the scandal had been replaced. An undisclosed number of doctors and at least one nurse are being investigated by the General Medical Council and Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Mr Burnham said it was a “longstanding anomaly” that the NHS did not have a robust way of regulating managers or banning them from working, as it does with doctors or nurses. “We must end the situation where a senior NHS manager who has failed in one job can simply move to another elsewhere,” he added. “This is not acceptable to the public and not conducive to promoting accountability and high professional standards.”

A system of professional accreditation for senior managers would be considered and the Mid Staffordshire trust might lose its foundation status.

Some NHS chief executives have received six-figure redundancy packages or moved to other trusts despite poor performance. Martin Yeates, the former chief executive at Mid Staffordshire, received pay rises that took his annual salary to £180,000, while standards at the trust deteriorated.

The Liberal Democrats claimed that he had also received a payoff of more than £400,000 after stepping down last March, though Mr Burnham said he had received “no more than his contractual entitlement”.

The Care Quality Commission, the NHS regulator, said that the trust under its new management was now “safe to provide services”. But it still had concerns about staffing, patient welfare, the availability and suitability of equipment at the trust, and how it monitored and dealt with complaints. The inquiry made 18 recommendations for the trust and the wider health service, which the Government accepted in full. They include a new review of how regulators and regional health authorities monitor NHS hospitals and a report on “early-warning systems” to identify failing trusts.

But the families of those who died or suffered poor care branded the inquiry a “whitewash” and repeated calls for a full public investigation. The Conservatives accused ministers of trying to blame managers rather than taking responsibility for problems with national targets.

Julie Bailey, who founded the victims’ campaign group Cure the NHS after her mother died at Stafford Hospital, said that the handling of the scandal was disgraceful and unacceptable.

“It is time that the public were told the truth about the very large number of excess deaths in NHS care and the very large number of avoidable but deadly errors that occur every day.”

The NHS Confederation, which represents health trusts, said: “The responsibility for the way this hospital was run rests with its board, management and staff but, as the report says, the framework of targets, regulatory systems and policy priorities it worked within are also very important.”
Stafford Hospital caused ‘unimaginable suffering’ - Times Online