The Far-Right Conspiracy against the NHS

Len Colby · September 24, 2009

What I have yet to see on this forum or elsewhere is direct evidence that patients have died due to NHS policy. As direct evidence I mean a) a scientific study or complaints from next of kin that their loved ones died because they were denied care. Instead we’ve seen the opposite; John who is not one to blindly defend the government (quite the opposite in fact) has told us his terminally ill wife was given high quality care for many years. He said this before this debate popped up so there is no grounds to suspect his recollection shifted to conform to his political beliefs, especially since has made his dislike of “New Labour” and Tories (thus every government over the last 30 years) clear.
Terry scoffed at “” but it is far from unreasonable, if NICE killed anyone there would be lots of furious children, grandchildren, spouses etc who would be expected to go to the police, file civil suits of at the very least go to the press. There is no shortage of serious newspapers as well as tabloids in the UK many of which are run by Tories. Yet there don’t seem to be any such accusations. A few doctor say this but next of kin it seems. many of the doctors seem to be complaining more about excessive use of pain killers rather than insufficient medical care.

It is hardly coincidental that the members insisting the NHS is so bad don’t live in the UK and as far as can be determined from their bios never lived outside the US, let alone in the UK or any other country with a decent public health service, I’m not even sure they’ve ever been outside the US. Nor is it a coincidence they are both (to varying extents) political extremists.

As for Craig’s question about the number of foreigners coming to the UK and US for medical treatment it is irrelevant because the question at hand is the quality of treatment for the vast majority of the population not a small extremely wealthy elite.

EDIT - "emoticons" disabled

Amazing, suddenly the google button of "mr google" is broken.

It’s up to you not me to provide documentation for your claims.

(heck its often broken even when it works as witnessed recently when he screwd up on the availability of the Obama long form...but I digress...)

Digress and are wrong

Here's one for you....
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article...drug/article.do

Or this one....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12...care-limit.html

[…]

or this one...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/157...-treatment.html

and on it goes....

I’m more interested in my debate with Greg about the Darwin air raids and don’t have enough time to fight a full fledged two front war. I did however take a quick look at your links. It appears that you may be correct and that some patients may have died due economic rationing but most cases seem to be based on medical grounds, for example not trying to save a 21 ½ week old baby i.e. born before viability or not paying for an experimental cancer treatment NOT approved by the FDA. In the latter case UK patients are better of than US ones because they can pay to get it in their country. Even if is gets approved in the US health plans would be unlikely to cover it. The “article” saying how effective the treatment was is really a press release from a PR firm (gee I wonder who their client is?).

I hope to be able to go through them and make a more thorough reply in the next few days.

“Strictly speaking, most doctors define the age of viability as being about 24 weeks of gestation. In many hospitals, 24 weeks is the cutoff point for when doctors will use intensive medical intervention to attempt to save the life of a baby born prematurely.”

http://miscarriage.about.com/od/pregnancya...maturebirth.htm

Local man goes overseas for prostate cancer treatment

Posted: Sep 15, 2009 4:30 PM Tuesday, September 15, 2009 3:30 PM EST Updated: Sep 15, 2009 6:39 PM

NAPLES: A local doctor is traveling with his patients from Naples to Nassau for a procedure that is not yet available in the United States. NBC2's Nancy Alvarez found out more on a treatment that is changing the lives of men diagnosed with prostate cancer.

[…]

Ed decided to go with HIFU and had to travel from Naples to Nassau, in the Bahamas, for the treatment. That's where Dr. Spellberg performs the procedures because HIFU is still not approved by the FDA.

http://www.nbc-2.com/Global/story.asp?S=11135463

And yes, Im a "political extremist" since I agree with 56% of Americans who also oppose the Obama health care plan...sheesh...
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_con...lth_care_reform

No because even when Bush’s approval rating was down to about 16% you still supported him.

Finally 'mr google" says:
"As for Craig’s question about the number of foreigners coming to the UK and US for medical treatment it is irrelevant because the question at hand is the quality of treatment for the vast majority of the population not a small extremely wealthy elite."

Of course mr google is wrong again. The the subject in question was the overall QUALITY OF CARE. Once again Len shucks and jibes when he can't refute a point.

Exactly overall quality of care, presumably most of the foreigners coming to the US are going to high end-clinics and hospitals. That is the case at least with super rich Brazilians who go there.

And besides, are thousands of everdy Canaadians who flock to the US for treatemtn the "wealthy elite"? Sheesh!

From Wikipedia (citation but no link)

A study by Barer, et al, indicates that the majority of Canadians who seek health care the U.S. are already there for other reasons, including business travel or vacations. A smaller proportion seek care in the U.S. for reasons of confidentiality, including abortions, mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems that they may not wish to divulge to their local physician, family, or employer.

(with links)

• In a Canadian National Population Health Survey of 17,276 Canadian residents, it was reported that only 0.5% sought medical care in the U.S. in the previous year. Of these, less than a quarter had traveled to the U.S. expressly to get that care. [64]

• A 2002 study by Katz, Cardiff, et al, reported the number of Canadians using U.S. services to be "barely detectible relative to the use of care by Canadians at home" and that the results "do not support the widespread perception that Canadian residents seek care extensively in the United States." [12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_i...ive_health_care

So in a year less then 0.125% of Canadians “traveled to the U.S. expressly to get” health care and many (most?) of them had their treatment paid for by the Canadian government

http://freep.com/article/20090820/BUSINESS06/908200420/1319/

Canadian Health Care, Even With Queues, Bests U.S.

(Update1)

By Pat Wechsler

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Opponents of overhauling U.S. health care argue that Canada shows what happens when government gets involved in medicine, saying the country is plagued by inferior treatment, rationing and months-long queues.

The allegations are wrong by almost every measure, according to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and other independent studies published during the past five years. While delays do occur for non-emergency procedures, data indicate that Canada’s system of universal health coverage provides care as good as in the U.S., at a cost 47 percent less for each person.

“There is an image of Canadians flooding across the border to get care,” said Donald Berwick, a Harvard University health- policy specialist and pediatrician who heads the Boston-based nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “That’s just not the case. The public in Canada is far more satisfied with the system than they are in the U.S. and health care is at least as good, with much more contained costs.”

Canadians live two to three years longer than Americans and are as likely to survive heart attacks, childhood leukemia, and breast and cervical cancer, according to the OECD, the Paris- based coalition of 30 industrialized nations.

Deaths considered preventable through health care are less frequent in Canada than in the U.S., according to a January 2008 report in the journal Health Affairs. In the study by British researchers, Canada placed sixth among 19 countries surveyed, with 77 deaths for every 100,000 people. That compared with the last-place finish of the U.S., with 110 deaths.

Infant Mortality

The Canadian mortality rate from asthma is one quarter of the U.S.’s…

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=a_zs1Y1FspIM

So what was that about “the overall QUALITY OF CARE”? I imagine your Fetzer like tendency to insult those you disagree with and refusal to admit error will be in evidence in your next post.

Craig Lamson · September 24, 2009

At least Craig sees and understands the real issue. You seem to be stuck in the 1960's using this leftist jargon and gibberish.

It beats the hell out of your 'rightist jargon and gibberish'.

The case for the NHS has been well made here. Your arguments and those of Craig have been exposed for what they are - hollow smears designed to defend the indefensible viz. free market capitalism as applied as a means of meeting basic human needs. You are quite entitled to express these views here (we are an open forum), but it would be nice if either of you were to add something new. At present you seem still to be stuck at the stage of drawing a Hitler moustache on Obama and calling it an 'argument'.

I'm wondering if you can point me to the well made argument that supports the NHS killing granny to save a few bucks?

I've read all you and Stephen have written on the subject and the defense of euthinasia is sorely lacking.

September 24, 2009

Yes, Stephen pimped the governmental line about the Liverpool Pathway. .

Gosh, isn't that what Jack accuses you of doing, you're hunkering down with some pretty strange bedfellows here Craig, hope the irony isn't lost on you.

Your problem is that you have zero understanding of the clinical processes involved here, and so you are reduced to waiving your hands and shouting, " Obama wants to kill my Granny"

The Psych unit I work in is just part of a large teaching Hospital here in Cambridge, Addenbrookes, the medical research labs are World famous, its where Crick and Watson first proposed the double helix theory. Yesterday evening I invited some of my colleagues to come to my office and read this thread, a consultant surgeon, several Doctors, and clinical specialist Nurses took me up on the offer, and you and Terry were the subject of much mirth, the General consensis was that you are a member of the tin foil hat brigade, when I informed that usually you are anti conspiracy, prefering cock-up or coincidence, one of the Doctors said "Then its ideologically driven" And that pretty much sums it up doesn't it? As far as most Consevatives are conserned Obama now has three strikes against him, One, he's not a Republican, Two, He's not really American ( I'll leave Jimmy Carter to call racism on it) and three, he wants to reform the sacred cow of health provision, leaving insurers, drug manufacturers and senior medical staff to tell the lobbyists to let loose the dogs on him.

Right wingers have hated the NHS since its inception in 1948, constantly warning that it would fail, be financially ruinous, lead to a medical brain-drain, but guess what, all of these foaming Nostradami have been proven incorrect, their real worry wasn't that it would fail, quite the oposite, but that it would be a success, because what does that say about how we organise Society, and share precious resources.

Every Consevative administration since(and this present "Labour" one) have done their best to portray the NHS in a bad light, underfunding, PFI, poor pay for Junior grades, the shutting of local Hospitals, allowing Consultants to keep private patients, and work those lists whilst being payed from the public purse, the list goes on and on, but despite their best efforts the NHS continues to be the most popular institution this Country has ever known, and a full frontal attack upon it would probably lead to insurecton. So you see, we are quite used to this nonsence being leveled at the Health service, its just that it normally comes from Domestic self interest.

Wow, will I make the cocktail circuit next?

You have your own doctors questioning your euthanasia program and the outcomes and you and your buds call it tinfoil or ideologically driven? It’s not a theory Stephen, in your case it’s NEWS. If the parsing of the definitions of euthanasia lets your doctor buddies and you sleep better at night, I can understand that. If you can't be comfortable with an uncomfortable truth, I can understand that as well. None of that changes the truth however.

Governments everywhere work via incrementalism. The creep if you will. They just can't go all out from the get go, simply because it is just too radical.

Let’s take the Liverpool pathway. You make it sound like nothing but compassion, and there for sure that component. Quality end of life care. A noble cause.

Then the creep starts, in fact it already has if this is correct:

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.

"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."

So Stephen is it correct or not?

What the big deal right? Sure granny is dying. What the problem with it being a few days or a few weeks early. She was still going to die...right?

And just think of the money it saves the cash strapped NHS! Can't deny that it saves them money can you? Massive amounts of money when taken as a whole.

Ok, that’s not theory Stephen, its NEWS. The question becomes, for you first, where does it go? Willits stay at a few days or a week early? Will it become a year or two, when coupled with denial of treatments and services deemed too expensive by NICE? If so can you still justify it as "compassion" or will it in fact be nothing more than economics cloaked in the parsing of the word compassion? How did you put it....

"but that it would be a success, because what does that say about how we organise Society, and share precious resources."

I guess that makes it all ok then...the hell with granny, lets save the cash for someone younger .....

I'm not surprised the people would revolt if NHS was dismantled. It’s popular because people now know nothing else regardless of the systems good or failings. They have forgotten what FREEDOM means.

So where does that take us when it comes to the US.

Firstly Obama,

Strike one is not that he is not a Republican, it’s that he is not a conservative. Conservatives feel the same about Republicans who are not conservatives.

There is no doubt Obama is an American citizen.

Yes, health care IS sacred. And you would be hard pressed to find a conservative who would not agree that reforms are needed. Heck I'm a perfect example. I'm self employed and have been for years. I must purchase my own health insurance. I don't get to join the massive groups like a major company would when buying insurance for their workers. So I pay more...lots more. And I have to make the hard CHOICES each month to keep paying the bills. I WELCOME some reforms. Just keep the government out of it. They have a lousy track record and a good part of the reason my costs are high, besides people overusing the system are governmental regulations.

This brings us back to death panels and creep.

Obamacare is screwed because instead of just ramming it through like the stimulus package, it got stalled and people got a chance to read what they wanted to do. They also got to read the words of Obama and his team on their vision of the future. That vision is quite clear and it looks a lot like NICE and the Liverpool pathway.

Creep is real, and you can see it everyday in America. They keep trying to pass bills like the soda tax and fat tax. Heck NY state already has the transfat bill. You can see exactly how well creep works by just looking at cigarettes. First it was "let’s just stop smoking on airplanes", then it was restaurants, then bars, then bowling lanes, then all public places, then outdoors in certain cities. Creep , Creep , Creep. That’s how it gets done, just like the frog in a pan of water. Now I can hear you, "but smoking is bad, so this is a good thing". Yes it is bad and a former smoker who quit decades ago I really don't mind the smoke free places. What I mind is the governmental mandate on a LEGAL activity. FREEDOM is being denied, not only to the smokers but to the business owners who don't have a say in how they run their business. That’s how creep works and it will no different in the healthcare arena.

So is it a conspiracy theory that euthanasia and death panels like you have in the UK will become part of the US system. I guess so. Only time can answer the question of if it comes to pass.

If that makes me a tinfoil hatter instead of a very concerned citizen of the United States of America, so be it.

A long reply, lets have a look at the substance. Oh and BTW, if you're ever in England I'll happily stand you a cocktail or two, I like beer myself.

As regards Doctor Hargreaves and Proffesor Milliard, here's a bit from the Blumer article you didn't cite.

" It has been signed ( a letter to the Daily Telegraph) By paliative care experts Proffesor Millard, and Consultant Dr Peter Hargreaves,And four others.

Four others, it doesn't even say if the others are Drs or not, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt and say they are, thats six People, nearly enough to fill a London hackney cab, so Six Doctors out of more than two hundred thousand employed by the NHS are expressing concern, thats nearly as many engineers as have been have been recruited to the truther ranks. also, what these Gentlemen are saying is a mile away from your "death Pannels" They are rightly asking for more research, and are questioning metodology, as I indicated in an earlier post I'm not a huge fan of box ticking diagnosis myself, but to claim, as you do, that this is a dastardly plot to ensure early termination of finacially troublesome patients is only in your mind, and as has been said on this board before, large claims require large evidence, so Craig thats a fail.

From the same Blumer piece..........." In 2007-08, 16.5% of deaths in Britain came after continous deep sedation (seems like a mighty large percentage to me, but as I have'nt time to research it properly I'll let it go) twice as many as in Belgium or the Netherlands."

Most deep sedation would be used on patients suffering excruciating pain, mainly those with certain types of cancer, Deep bone, bowel, stomach, I then wondered why Belgium and the Netherlands had been selected ahead of say Germany and France. My bet is that Britain has a much larger incidence of these cancers than other two forementioned Countries, I'll do some further research and back that claim up, or withdraw it.

But some of the real problems faced by the NHS come from various Governments attempts to privatise parts of the service.

BBC reports on PFI.

more on PFI.

Foundation trusts and internal markets.

Professor Karol Sikora, " Other Countries spend much less on cancer treament than we do, but they have put the money into Patient care and radiotherapy, whilst we have massively increased bureaucrasy" Along with privatisation comes form filling. hospitals now spend more time on trying to stay within budget than on treating Patients, because before a penny can be spent on Medicine, beds, physio etc that Damn PFI bill has got to be payed, and it aint going away anytime soon, 30 years is standard, and by that time the Hospital will need rebuilding and hey-ho, off we go again.

Craig Lamson · September 24, 2009

What I have yet to see on this forum or elsewhere is direct evidence that patients have died due to NHS policy. As direct evidence I mean a) a scientific study or complaints from next of kin that their loved ones died because they were denied care. Instead we’ve seen the opposite; John who is not one to blindly defend the government (quite the opposite in fact) has told us his terminally ill wife was given high quality care for many years. He said this before this debate popped up so there is no grounds to suspect his recollection shifted to conform to his political beliefs, especially since has made his dislike of “New Labour” and Tories (thus every government over the last 30 years) clear.
Terry scoffed at “” but it is far from unreasonable, if NICE killed anyone there would be lots of furious children, grandchildren, spouses etc who would be expected to go to the police, file civil suits of at the very least go to the press. There is no shortage of serious newspapers as well as tabloids in the UK many of which are run by Tories. Yet there don’t seem to be any such accusations. A few doctor say this but next of kin it seems. many of the doctors seem to be complaining more about excessive use of pain killers rather than insufficient medical care.

It is hardly coincidental that the members insisting the NHS is so bad don’t live in the UK and as far as can be determined from their bios never lived outside the US, let alone in the UK or any other country with a decent public health service, I’m not even sure they’ve ever been outside the US. Nor is it a coincidence they are both (to varying extents) political extremists.

As for Craig’s question about the number of foreigners coming to the UK and US for medical treatment it is irrelevant because the question at hand is the quality of treatment for the vast majority of the population not a small extremely wealthy elite.

EDIT - "emoticons" disabled

Amazing, suddenly the google button of "mr google" is broken.

It’s up to you not me to provide documentation for your claims.

A quick google by anyone interested would show my comments were correct. I'm not intereted in the normal and usually superficial "copy and paste" games you like to pley. If that offends you, pound sand.

(heck its often broken even when it works as witnessed recently when he screwd up on the availability of the Obama long form...but I digress...)

Digress and are wrong

See, your standard superficial google fails you again. §338-18

Here's one for you....
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article...drug/article.do

Or this one....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12...care-limit.html

[…]

or this one...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/157...-treatment.html

and on it goes....

I’m more interested in my debate with Greg about the Darwin air raids and don’t have enough time to fight a full fledged two front war. I did however take a quick look at your links. It appears that you may be correct and that some patients may have died due economic rationing but most cases seem to be based on medical grounds, for example not trying to save a 21 ½ week old baby i.e. born before viability or not paying for an experimental cancer treatment NOT approved by the FDA. In the latter case UK patients are better of than US ones because they can pay to get it in their country. Even if is gets approved in the US health plans would be unlikely to cover it. The “article” saying how effective the treatment was is really a press release from a PR firm (gee I wonder who their client is?).

I hope to be able to go through them and make a more thorough reply in the next few days.

My comments were quite clear from the onset (which you failed to understand) and this selection of links from a VERY LARGE SET support my position perfectly. Flail away if you like, but I'm really not interested in your "take" on this.

“Strictly speaking, most doctors define the age of viability as being about 24 weeks of gestation. In many hospitals, 24 weeks is the cutoff point for when doctors will use intensive medical intervention to attempt to save the life of a baby born prematurely.”

http://miscarriage.about.com/od/pregnancya...maturebirth.htm

Local man goes overseas for prostate cancer treatment

Posted: Sep 15, 2009 4:30 PM Tuesday, September 15, 2009 3:30 PM EST Updated: Sep 15, 2009 6:39 PM

NAPLES: A local doctor is traveling with his patients from Naples to Nassau for a procedure that is not yet available in the United States. NBC2's Nancy Alvarez found out more on a treatment that is changing the lives of men diagnosed with prostate cancer.

[…]

Ed decided to go with HIFU and had to travel from Naples to Nassau, in the Bahamas, for the treatment. That's where Dr. Spellberg performs the procedures because HIFU is still not approved by the FDA.

http://www.nbc-2.com/Global/story.asp?S=11135463

We can find MANY examples of people leaving the US for treatment and fleeing a GOVERNMENTAL restriction. Of course that supports my original comments.

And yes, Im a "political extremist" since I agree with 56% of Americans who also oppose the Obama health care plan...sheesh...
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_con...lth_care_reform

No because even when Bush’s approval rating was down to about 16% you still supported him.

Once again you live up to your moniker as mr superfical. I was HIGHLY critical of Bush, and voiced that opinion many times on this very forum. The fact of the matter is that my support of him , in his last term at least, centered on National Defence. I despised his position on many other issues.

Finally 'mr google" says:
"As for Craig’s question about the number of foreigners coming to the UK and US for medical treatment it is irrelevant because the question at hand is the quality of treatment for the vast majority of the population not a small extremely wealthy elite."

Of course mr google is wrong again. The the subject in question was the overall QUALITY OF CARE. Once again Len shucks and jibes when he can't refute a point.

Exactly overall quality of care, presumably most of the foreigners coming to the US are going to high end-clinics and hospitals. That is the case at least with super rich Brazilians who go there.

Translated from mr google speak: I don't have a clue so I'll just 'Presume"

And besides, are thousands of everdy Canaadians who flock to the US for treatemtn the "wealthy elite"? Sheesh!

From Wikipedia (citation but no link)

A study by Barer, et al, indicates that the majority of Canadians who seek health care the U.S. are already there for other reasons, including business travel or vacations. A smaller proportion seek care in the U.S. for reasons of confidentiality, including abortions, mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems that they may not wish to divulge to their local physician, family, or employer.

(with links)

• In a Canadian National Population Health Survey of 17,276 Canadian residents, it was reported that only 0.5% sought medical care in the U.S. in the previous year. Of these, less than a quarter had traveled to the U.S. expressly to get that care. [64]

• A 2002 study by Katz, Cardiff, et al, reported the number of Canadians using U.S. services to be "barely detectible relative to the use of care by Canadians at home" and that the results "do not support the widespread perception that Canadian residents seek care extensively in the United States." [12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_i...ive_health_care

So in a year less then 0.125% of Canadians “traveled to the U.S. expressly to get” health care and many (most?) of them had their treatment paid for by the Canadian government

http://freep.com/article/20090820/BUSINESS06/908200420/1319/

Canadian Health Care, Even With Queues, Bests U.S.
(Update1)

By Pat Wechsler

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Opponents of overhauling U.S. health care argue that Canada shows what happens when government gets involved in medicine, saying the country is plagued by inferior treatment, rationing and months-long queues.

The allegations are wrong by almost every measure, according to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and other independent studies published during the past five years. While delays do occur for non-emergency procedures, data indicate that Canada’s system of universal health coverage provides care as good as in the U.S., at a cost 47 percent less for each person.

“There is an image of Canadians flooding across the border to get care,” said Donald Berwick, a Harvard University health- policy specialist and pediatrician who heads the Boston-based nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “That’s just not the case. The public in Canada is far more satisfied with the system than they are in the U.S. and health care is at least as good, with much more contained costs.”

Canadians live two to three years longer than Americans and are as likely to survive heart attacks, childhood leukemia, and breast and cervical cancer, according to the OECD, the Paris- based coalition of 30 industrialized nations.

Deaths considered preventable through health care are less frequent in Canada than in the U.S., according to a January 2008 report in the journal Health Affairs. In the study by British researchers, Canada placed sixth among 19 countries surveyed, with 77 deaths for every 100,000 people. That compared with the last-place finish of the U.S., with 110 deaths.

Infant Mortality

The Canadian mortality rate from asthma is one quarter of the U.S.’s…

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=a_zs1Y1FspIM

The Fraiser Institute estimates about 38,000 Canadians when to the US for non emergency care and state this figure is surely an underestimate.

Broker sin the US claim they set up over 150,000 trips to the US for medical care for Canadians each year.

Use whatever figure you want, but thats still a large number of people wiht FREE medical care willing to travel to the US for care.

And thank you for noting that the Canadian government pays for some care given to patients in the US. What a stunning endorsement of the wonders of single payer healhcare [/sarcasm]

So what was that about “the overall QUALITY OF CARE”? I imagine your Fetzer like tendency to insult those you disagree with and refusal to admit error will be in evidence in your next post.

Yea, in most catagories where the comparisons are apples to apples, the US system delivers the best and most advanced care available. The monied prove that point. If the care were better ANYWHERE in the world thats where they would travel. Money not an object for them, only the best care. The overwhelming venue of choice...the USA.

I've no doubt that there are places on earth wiht better outcomes on some aspect of treatment or the other. Thats not suprising. But lets take cancer survivial rates as a whole for example, the US leads the way convincingly.

Life expectancy has very little to do wiht the quality or availability of healthcare.

Infant mortality is poor indicator since personal chiocs play a more important role that the health care system.

Access to healthcare is a very poor indicator of the quality of the system.

Case in point, my mother just had surgery for stagte 3c colon cancer and I've been part of the process from the beginning. Yesterday I took her to have her chemo port implanted. Now, given the treatment she has selected she has about a 30% chance of cancer re-occuring. Not the best odds. She could have greatly reduced her odds by seeing the doctor sooner. She has medicare and a very good supplimental policy ( another strike against US government run healthcare). She had all the access to healthcare she needed and was at no financial disincentive NOT to see the doctor. Sady, she made a personal CHOICE not to seek care a year and a half ago when she says she felt 'something" might be wrong. In fact I, for the most part forced her to go when I found out about it. In this case, the results are the product of HER CHOICES, and not the healthcare system. How many times does that play out in the US?

Craig Lamson · September 24, 2009

Yes, Stephen pimped the governmental line about the Liverpool Pathway. .

Gosh, isn't that what Jack accuses you of doing, you're hunkering down with some pretty strange bedfellows here Craig, hope the irony isn't lost on you.

Your problem is that you have zero understanding of the clinical processes involved here, and so you are reduced to waiving your hands and shouting, " Obama wants to kill my Granny"

The Psych unit I work in is just part of a large teaching Hospital here in Cambridge, Addenbrookes, the medical research labs are World famous, its where Crick and Watson first proposed the double helix theory. Yesterday evening I invited some of my colleagues to come to my office and read this thread, a consultant surgeon, several Doctors, and clinical specialist Nurses took me up on the offer, and you and Terry were the subject of much mirth, the General consensis was that you are a member of the tin foil hat brigade, when I informed that usually you are anti conspiracy, prefering cock-up or coincidence, one of the Doctors said "Then its ideologically driven" And that pretty much sums it up doesn't it? As far as most Consevatives are conserned Obama now has three strikes against him, One, he's not a Republican, Two, He's not really American ( I'll leave Jimmy Carter to call racism on it) and three, he wants to reform the sacred cow of health provision, leaving insurers, drug manufacturers and senior medical staff to tell the lobbyists to let loose the dogs on him.

Right wingers have hated the NHS since its inception in 1948, constantly warning that it would fail, be financially ruinous, lead to a medical brain-drain, but guess what, all of these foaming Nostradami have been proven incorrect, their real worry wasn't that it would fail, quite the oposite, but that it would be a success, because what does that say about how we organise Society, and share precious resources.

Every Consevative administration since(and this present "Labour" one) have done their best to portray the NHS in a bad light, underfunding, PFI, poor pay for Junior grades, the shutting of local Hospitals, allowing Consultants to keep private patients, and work those lists whilst being payed from the public purse, the list goes on and on, but despite their best efforts the NHS continues to be the most popular institution this Country has ever known, and a full frontal attack upon it would probably lead to insurecton. So you see, we are quite used to this nonsence being leveled at the Health service, its just that it normally comes from Domestic self interest.

Wow, will I make the cocktail circuit next?

You have your own doctors questioning your euthanasia program and the outcomes and you and your buds call it tinfoil or ideologically driven? It’s not a theory Stephen, in your case it’s NEWS. If the parsing of the definitions of euthanasia lets your doctor buddies and you sleep better at night, I can understand that. If you can't be comfortable with an uncomfortable truth, I can understand that as well. None of that changes the truth however.

Governments everywhere work via incrementalism. The creep if you will. They just can't go all out from the get go, simply because it is just too radical.

Let’s take the Liverpool pathway. You make it sound like nothing but compassion, and there for sure that component. Quality end of life care. A noble cause.

Then the creep starts, in fact it already has if this is correct:

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.

"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."

So Stephen is it correct or not?

What the big deal right? Sure granny is dying. What the problem with it being a few days or a few weeks early. She was still going to die...right?

And just think of the money it saves the cash strapped NHS! Can't deny that it saves them money can you? Massive amounts of money when taken as a whole.

Ok, that’s not theory Stephen, its NEWS. The question becomes, for you first, where does it go? Willits stay at a few days or a week early? Will it become a year or two, when coupled with denial of treatments and services deemed too expensive by NICE? If so can you still justify it as "compassion" or will it in fact be nothing more than economics cloaked in the parsing of the word compassion? How did you put it....

"but that it would be a success, because what does that say about how we organise Society, and share precious resources."

I guess that makes it all ok then...the hell with granny, lets save the cash for someone younger .....

I'm not surprised the people would revolt if NHS was dismantled. It’s popular because people now know nothing else regardless of the systems good or failings. They have forgotten what FREEDOM means.

So where does that take us when it comes to the US.

Firstly Obama,

Strike one is not that he is not a Republican, it’s that he is not a conservative. Conservatives feel the same about Republicans who are not conservatives.

There is no doubt Obama is an American citizen.

Yes, health care IS sacred. And you would be hard pressed to find a conservative who would not agree that reforms are needed. Heck I'm a perfect example. I'm self employed and have been for years. I must purchase my own health insurance. I don't get to join the massive groups like a major company would when buying insurance for their workers. So I pay more...lots more. And I have to make the hard CHOICES each month to keep paying the bills. I WELCOME some reforms. Just keep the government out of it. They have a lousy track record and a good part of the reason my costs are high, besides people overusing the system are governmental regulations.

This brings us back to death panels and creep.

Obamacare is screwed because instead of just ramming it through like the stimulus package, it got stalled and people got a chance to read what they wanted to do. They also got to read the words of Obama and his team on their vision of the future. That vision is quite clear and it looks a lot like NICE and the Liverpool pathway.

Creep is real, and you can see it everyday in America. They keep trying to pass bills like the soda tax and fat tax. Heck NY state already has the transfat bill. You can see exactly how well creep works by just looking at cigarettes. First it was "let’s just stop smoking on airplanes", then it was restaurants, then bars, then bowling lanes, then all public places, then outdoors in certain cities. Creep , Creep , Creep. That’s how it gets done, just like the frog in a pan of water. Now I can hear you, "but smoking is bad, so this is a good thing". Yes it is bad and a former smoker who quit decades ago I really don't mind the smoke free places. What I mind is the governmental mandate on a LEGAL activity. FREEDOM is being denied, not only to the smokers but to the business owners who don't have a say in how they run their business. That’s how creep works and it will no different in the healthcare arena.

So is it a conspiracy theory that euthanasia and death panels like you have in the UK will become part of the US system. I guess so. Only time can answer the question of if it comes to pass.

If that makes me a tinfoil hatter instead of a very concerned citizen of the United States of America, so be it.

A long reply, lets have a look at the substance. Oh and BTW, if you're ever in England I'll happily stand you a cocktail or two, I like beer myself.

As regards Doctor Hargreaves and Proffesor Milliard, here's a bit from the Blumer article you didn't cite.

" It has been signed ( a letter to the Daily Telegraph) By paliative care experts Proffesor Millard, and Consultant Dr Peter Hargreaves,And four others.

Four others, it doesn't even say if the others are Drs or not, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt and say they are, thats six People, nearly enough to fill a London hackney cab, so Six Doctors out of more than two hundred thousand employed by the NHS are expressing concern, thats nearly as many engineers as have been have been recruited to the truther ranks. also, what these Gentlemen are saying is a mile away from your "death Pannels" They are rightly asking for more research, and are questioning metodology, as I indicated in an earlier post I'm not a huge fan of box ticking diagnosis myself, but to claim, as you do, that this is a dastardly plot to ensure early termination of finacially troublesome patients is only in your mind, and as has been said on this board before, large claims require large evidence, so Craig thats a fail.

So in other words you can't DENY there is a financial incentive to free up the beds a day or too sooner nor can you deny that the cost saving of doing it on a national scale are huge. When a group of doctors and administrators get together and decide to remove treatment and just let a patient die,...sorry thats

a death panel.

I've been involved in three terminal patient deaths in the last 4 years. My grandnother, my stepfather and my brother in laws father. In none of these cases did the doctors tell us that they were going to remove treatments. PERIOD. In fact it was just the opposite. They told us all the possibile treatments, and the expected results, told us to do some study and soul searching and to let them know what WE (and the patient was included) wanted. And thats what we got.

So is it a fail? I don't think so. Can I prove it, nope. Short of a smoking gun memo or such, how could you? But it's what the numbers say and there can be no doubt that the NHS is money strapped. But then again its not my country where the death panels are operating so it not my problem.

From the same Blumer piece..........." In 2007-08, 16.5% of deaths in Britain came after continous deep sedation (seems like a mighty large percentage to me, but as I have'nt time to research it properly I'll let it go) twice as many as in Belgium or the Netherlands."

Most deep sedation would be used on patients suffering excruciating pain, mainly those with certain types of cancer, Deep bone, bowel, stomach, I then wondered why Belgium and the Netherlands had been selected ahead of say Germany and France. My bet is that Britain has a much larger incidence of these cancers than other two forementioned Countries, I'll do some further research and back that claim up, or withdraw it.

I've no idea if its true, thats why I asked.

But some of the real problems faced by the NHS come from various Governments attempts to privatise parts of the service.

BBC reports on PFI.

more on PFI.

Foundation trusts and internal markets.

Professor Karol Sikora, " Other Countries spend much less on cancer treament than we do, but they have put the money into Patient care and radiotherapy, whilst we have massively increased bureaucrasy" Along with privatisation comes form filling. hospitals now spend more time on trying to stay within budget than on treating Patients, because before a penny can be spent on Medicine, beds, physio etc that Damn PFI bill has got to be payed, and it aint going away anytime soon, 30 years is standard, and by that time the Hospital will need rebuilding and hey-ho, off we go again.

So if I understand the PFI corrrectly, instead of using taxpayer dolloers to build hospitials they are using prvate dollars and instead of just getting a lump budget dollar amount they must now "earn" thei money via patient services. Am I correct?

First, why are you borrowing the money? NHS out?

Second, if a facility can't exist on the money it produces via patient load, what good is it?

Another personal story. I live in a city of 300,000. We have 4 private hospitals, and one government (VA) 3 of the four are less than 10 years old and are state of the art. 2 of the 3 are n the process of a major renovation./addition. All must compete for customers and they do so by constantly offering more and better service, treatment. equipment, amenities etc.

Most drs. have privlidges at at least 3 of the 4 so its patient choice that is the driver.

These places could not exist and provide the best in service and equipment if they could not pay as they go.

The fact of he matter is thay do exist and the question becomes , why do haspitals in the UK have such a hard time?

Craig Lamson · September 24, 2009

From the same Blumer piece..........." In 2007-08, 16.5% of deaths in Britain came after continous deep sedation (seems like a mighty large percentage to me, but as I have'nt time to research it properly I'll let it go) twice as many as in Belgium or the Netherlands."
Most deep sedation would be used on patients suffering excruciating pain, mainly those with certain types of cancer, Deep bone, bowel, stomach, I then wondered why Belgium and the Netherlands had been selected ahead of say Germany and France. My bet is that Britain has a much larger incidence of these cancers than other two forementioned Countries, I'll do some further research and back that claim up, or withdraw it.

More on Deep Sedation n the UK, and there is a bunch more....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8184108.stm

This passage is really chiloing and should send a shudder down your spine.

Father's death

Dr Philip Harrison, a GP now based in New Zealand, set out his concerns recently in the British Medical Journal, following the death of his father in Doncaster Royal Infirmary.

He was put under continuous deep sedation without being consulted, and so had no chance to say goodbye to his family.

Dr Harrison reached the hospital two hours before his father died.

"I'm 100% certain he would have been horrified to know that he would never see us even though we were coming," he said.

"There was no reason on earth why he would have wished to have been put to sleep, unless he was obviously distressed or agitated or in pain.

"But there was no evidence he was in pain at any stage during his admission."

Dr Harrison, who has long experience in palliative care, decided not to sue the trust - but he did try to get reassurance that it couldn't happen again.

Despite an apology he is still not satisfied.

"I don't know what the legal term is but to me it was as near to a form of murder that I had come across," he said.

"I have never seen that in my medical practice before. I've seen euthanasia once, but I've never seen anybody being put to death without consent."

Dr Harrison said he is concerned about what could be going on across the NHS in the name of caring and terminal sedation. The truth is, no one knows.

Terry Mauro · September 25, 2009

From the same Blumer piece..........." In 2007-08, 16.5% of deaths in Britain came after continous deep sedation (seems like a mighty large percentage to me, but as I have'nt time to research it properly I'll let it go) twice as many as in Belgium or the Netherlands."
Most deep sedation would be used on patients suffering excruciating pain, mainly those with certain types of cancer, Deep bone, bowel, stomach, I then wondered why Belgium and the Netherlands had been selected ahead of say Germany and France. My bet is that Britain has a much larger incidence of these cancers than other two forementioned Countries, I'll do some further research and back that claim up, or withdraw it.

More on Deep Sedation n the UK, and there is a bunch more....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8184108.stm

This passage is really chiloing and should send a shudder down your spine.

Father's death

Dr Philip Harrison, a GP now based in New Zealand, set out his concerns recently in the British Medical Journal, following the death of his father in Doncaster Royal Infirmary.

He was put under continuous deep sedation without being consulted, and so had no chance to say goodbye to his family.

Dr Harrison reached the hospital two hours before his father died.

"I'm 100% certain he would have been horrified to know that he would never see us even though we were coming," he said.

"There was no reason on earth why he would have wished to have been put to sleep, unless he was obviously distressed or agitated or in pain.

"But there was no evidence he was in pain at any stage during his admission."

Dr Harrison, who has long experience in palliative care, decided not to sue the trust - but he did try to get reassurance that it couldn't happen again.

Despite an apology he is still not satisfied.

"I don't know what the legal term is but to me it was as near to a form of murder that I had come across," he said.

"I have never seen that in my medical practice before. I've seen euthanasia once, but I've never seen anybody being put to death without consent."

Dr Harrison said he is concerned about what could be going on across the NHS in the name of caring and terminal sedation. The truth is, no one knows.

It's rather interesting to watch the Brit's on this site getting knocked back on their heels. They usually like to point the finger at American Imperialism, American Empire, when in truth America was founded in opposition to the British Empire.

If you look at the title of this thread, started by John, you see him use the term "Far-Right". That's how the media always intended to portray and control any opposition to this British modeled Nazi euthanasia program in the United States.

It has since blown up in their face and they've found they cannot control "both sides" of the argument as they had planned. Their lap dog President Obama has failed them on this one.

And it's not about money alone. For years the Empire has espoused "culling the herd". From Malthus, The British East India Company, Julian Huxley , Bertrand Russell and Prince Phillip. Population reduction has always been one of their "wet dreams".

Edited September 25, 2009 by Terry Mauro

Terry Mauro · September 25, 2009

- HANG A BRIT FOR FREEDOM -

On Wednesday, an amendment introduced by Senator Cornyn

(R-Tex) to remove the provision in the Baucus bill for a T-4

Medical Commission (IMAC), was defeated, with all the Democrats

led by Jay Rockefeller, plus one Republican, Senator Olympia

Snowe (R-Maine), voting for this Hitler policy.

Lyndon LaRouche issued the following statement: Those,

including Snowe and Rockefeller, who voted for IMAC are actually

proposing Hitler's policy. They have to be confronted forcefully

with that fact. By so voting, they have put themselves in the

same category as Hitler. If Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller

stick to this, they are in the same category as Adolf Hitler.

There is no difference.

IMAC is a British idea. The British are the inventors of

this crap. They were the authors of Hitler's T-4 policy. They

then adopted that policy in the form of NICE in Britain itself,

and now they are trying to ram this Hitler policy through in the

U.S.

The only appropriate response is to Hang a Brit for Freedom.

If you support this policy, you are in the same categoy as

Adolf Hitler. IMAC is Adolf Hitler. If you support IMAC, you

support Hitler's policy and should be treated accordingly. You

are a Nuremberg Trial suspect. You should know that now. You are

worse than a Nuremberg suspect. You are probably a British

ass-kisser.

Briefed on the fact that Ezekiel Emanuel is leading an

effort by the Obama Administration called the Global Health

Initiative, which based on "disability adjusted life years lost

and saved" (DALYLS), is committed to global population reduction,

Lyndon LaRouche responded immediately: This is Hitler stuff.

Ezekiel Emanuel is the same thing as Adolf Hitler. People run

around claiming Jewish immunity, who then turn out to be Hitler

lovers. They are copies of Hitler. They should get the roughest

treatment. They should be told that they are on Hitler's side

now. You are a Hitler-loving Jew. You have the same policy as

Hitler. You are Hitler-loving.

Lyn continued that we are dealing with angry people in the

population now, many of whom may be being evicted from their

homes. You can't give sophisticated interpretations. You can't

come at it from the sides.

In respect to Obama's assertion of the imperial "unitary

executive" theory, Lyndon LaRouche said: Tell the President he is

in violation of the Constitution. The President can't bypass the

Congress. If he continues to try to do so, he should be

impeached. There should be an emergency impeachment. It is like

the case of a wreckless driver. You need to lift his license to

drive.

He has no authority to overthrow the Constitution of the

United States, neither he nor any Supreme Court Justice. Any

Supreme Court Justice who would nullify the Constitution loses

his own authority. Such decisions will be ignored by all

patriots. The unitary executive xxxx has gone too far. Any

Supreme Court Justice who supports this theory should be expelled

from the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court upholds it, the

Supreme Court has nullified its own existence by nullifying the

Constitution. That is where we are. It is not debatable. They

have proposed to eliminate the U.S. Constitution. They are

impeachable, subject to removal pending impeachment.

We are not fooling around with things now. To let this go

through would be like letting Hitler get away with the Reichstag

fire. Don't argue, this is it. Any Supreme Court Justice who

supports this must be impeached. If he prevails, he has nullified

the Constitution. We are not going to let them make a Hitler coup

against the Constitution from the Supreme Court. Any Justice must

be impeached who tries to do that. He should face a summary

impeachment. Such a justice has impeached himself. You can't

destroy the foundations of the Republic and then consider

yourself as an authority of that same Republic. You should be

treated as an invading enemy. If you do this, you are outside the

pale.

Franklin Roosevelt fought a world war, and he did not have

to do anything like this. There is no condition under which it is

required. Anyone who tries to do so is automatically impeached.

If you attack the Constitution, you eliminate yourself. You have

no authority. Your authority is no longer in good order. You are

nothing.

People had better be careful. The U.S. population is not

ready to tolerate this kind of bullxxxx. The population is no

longer disposed to put up with this. You had better start running

now. You are not needed or wanted here. And don't pollute Mars by

going there. Try colonizing Titan.

LaRouche concluded: The crisis will either give him the

authority to do his job, or there will be no authority for

anything at all--one of the two.

September 25, 2009

- HANG A BRIT FOR FREEDOM -

Thank you for this latest bulletin of nonsensical bile straight from the crypto-fascist Larouche cult. I found it amusing. I hope however it didn't offend too many people.

September 25, 2009

From the same Blumer piece..........." In 2007-08, 16.5% of deaths in Britain came after continous deep sedation (seems like a mighty large percentage to me, but as I have'nt time to research it properly I'll let it go) twice as many as in Belgium or the Netherlands."
Most deep sedation would be used on patients suffering excruciating pain, mainly those with certain types of cancer, Deep bone, bowel, stomach, I then wondered why Belgium and the Netherlands had been selected ahead of say Germany and France. My bet is that Britain has a much larger incidence of these cancers than other two forementioned Countries, I'll do some further research and back that claim up, or withdraw it.

More on Deep Sedation n the UK, and there is a bunch more....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8184108.stm

This passage is really chiloing and should send a shudder down your spine.

Father's death

Dr Philip Harrison, a GP now based in New Zealand, set out his concerns recently in the British Medical Journal, following the death of his father in Doncaster Royal Infirmary.

He was put under continuous deep sedation without being consulted, and so had no chance to say goodbye to his family.

Dr Harrison reached the hospital two hours before his father died.

"I'm 100% certain he would have been horrified to know that he would never see us even though we were coming," he said.

"There was no reason on earth why he would have wished to have been put to sleep, unless he was obviously distressed or agitated or in pain.

"But there was no evidence he was in pain at any stage during his admission."

Dr Harrison, who has long experience in palliative care, decided not to sue the trust - but he did try to get reassurance that it couldn't happen again.

Despite an apology he is still not satisfied.

"I don't know what the legal term is but to me it was as near to a form of murder that I had come across," he said.

"I have never seen that in my medical practice before. I've seen euthanasia once, but I've never seen anybody being put to death without consent."

Dr Harrison said he is concerned about what could be going on across the NHS in the name of caring and terminal sedation. The truth is, no one knows.

Well done Craig, seems like you might have Googled up a case of Medical malpractice, something with which America is only too familiar.

some of the stats here make my eyes water.

Medical system is leading cause of death and injury in US. source N I A.

"New information has been presented showing the degree to which Americans have been subjected to injury and death by medical errors. The result of seven years of research, reviewing thousands of independant studies conducted by the NIA now show that Medical errors are the number one cause of death and injury in the USA.

Carolyn Dean, MD, a Physician said, "I was completely shocked and dismayed when I first added up the statistics on Medical death and saw how much Allopathic medice has betrayed us.

Now, how about I make a claim that a percentage of those two hundered and twenty five thousand deaths are not malpractice, or neglegence, but Physician aided? I'm sure I could find a few hundred that might fit the bill. And thats how easy it is to get this s*** up and running. Another thought occurs to me, If the Doctor in this case was sure his Father had been murdered, why were the Police not called, if it had been my Dad I'd have had them their in a flash, unless, of course, their part of the conspiracy..

So, Criag, is it your contention that the British Government have secretly decided to murder thousands of Men Women and Children to save a few quid on the NHS bill, and further, that Thousands of Doctors and Nurses are secretly colluding with them, and that the legal system, Police and relatives are mostly turning a blind eye to this cull. See you Monday, I'm off to a week-end convention on the ethics of detention under the Mental Health act.

Edited September 25, 2009 by Stephen Turner

Craig Lamson · September 25, 2009

From the same Blumer piece..........." In 2007-08, 16.5% of deaths in Britain came after continous deep sedation (seems like a mighty large percentage to me, but as I have'nt time to research it properly I'll let it go) twice as many as in Belgium or the Netherlands."
Most deep sedation would be used on patients suffering excruciating pain, mainly those with certain types of cancer, Deep bone, bowel, stomach, I then wondered why Belgium and the Netherlands had been selected ahead of say Germany and France. My bet is that Britain has a much larger incidence of these cancers than other two forementioned Countries, I'll do some further research and back that claim up, or withdraw it.

More on Deep Sedation n the UK, and there is a bunch more....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8184108.stm

This passage is really chiloing and should send a shudder down your spine.

Father's death

Dr Philip Harrison, a GP now based in New Zealand, set out his concerns recently in the British Medical Journal, following the death of his father in Doncaster Royal Infirmary.

He was put under continuous deep sedation without being consulted, and so had no chance to say goodbye to his family.

Dr Harrison reached the hospital two hours before his father died.

"I'm 100% certain he would have been horrified to know that he would never see us even though we were coming," he said.

"There was no reason on earth why he would have wished to have been put to sleep, unless he was obviously distressed or agitated or in pain.

"But there was no evidence he was in pain at any stage during his admission."

Dr Harrison, who has long experience in palliative care, decided not to sue the trust - but he did try to get reassurance that it couldn't happen again.

Despite an apology he is still not satisfied.

"I don't know what the legal term is but to me it was as near to a form of murder that I had come across," he said.

"I have never seen that in my medical practice before. I've seen euthanasia once, but I've never seen anybody being put to death without consent."

Dr Harrison said he is concerned about what could be going on across the NHS in the name of caring and terminal sedation. The truth is, no one knows.

Well done Craig, seems like you might have Googled up a case of Medical malpractice, something with which America is only too familiar.

some of the stats here make my eyes water.

Medical system is leading cause of death and injury in US. source N I A.

"New information has been presented showing the degree to which Americans have been subjected to injury and death by medical errors. The result of seven years of research, reviewing thousands of independant studies conducted by the NIA now show that Medical errors are the number one cause of death and injury in the USA.

Carolyn Dean, MD, a Physician said, "I was completely shocked and dismayed when I first added up the statistics on Medical death and saw how much Allopathic medice has betrayed us.

Now, how about I make a claim that a percentage of those two hundered and twenty five thousand deaths are not malpractice, or neglegence, but Physician aided? I'm sure I could find a few hundred that might fit the bill. And thats how easy it is to get this s*** up and running. Another thought occurs to me, If the Doctor in this case was sure his Father had been murdered, why were the Police not called, if it had been my Dad I'd have had them their in a flash, unless, of course, their part of the conspiracy..

So, Criag, is it your contention that the British Government have secretly decided to murder thousands of Men Women and Children to save a few quid on the NHS bill, and further, that Thousands of Doctors and Nurses are secretly colluding with them, and that the legal system, Police and relatives are mostly turning a blind eye to this cull. See you Monday, I'm off to a week-end convention on the ethics of detention under the Mental Health act.

16.5 percent of all deaths in the UK are deep sedation. Medical malpractivre all? Clearly you choose to find this practive and the euthanasia of people in the UK just fine. Thats ok, its your system, not mine.

Stephen its no secret. You have codifed it into policy as the Liverpool pathway. The doc and nurses are just doing their jobs now guided by the pathway. Just providing the compassionate care as directed by the system.

Now are you naive enough to think that somewhere in the bowels of the NHS there is not a study that equates the length of a terminal patients hospital stay and the cost involved? And that someone has not considered the financial impact of shortening that stay?

Few will complain, after all the paitents are mostly dead anyway. Whats a day or two, except for the folks needing to find a way to pay the PFI bills. However if we look I'm sure we can find some complaints....

Edited September 25, 2009 by Craig Lamson

Terry Mauro · September 25, 2009

- HANG A BRIT FOR FREEDOM -

Thank you for this latest bulletin of nonsensical bile straight from the crypto-fascist Larouche cult. I found it amusing. I hope however it didn't offend too many people.

Crypto-fascist cult

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism

Prince Harry

http://extremecatholic.blogspot.com/images...ry-the-nazi.jpg

September 25, 2009

Crypto-fascist cult

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism

Crypto-fascist cult

http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/nclc1.html

Craig Lamson · September 26, 2009

I don't "scare" you? You are a piece of work...
Willing is imaginary? Amazing!

I guess those folks who spend their lives living on welfare, sucking deeply from the governmetal teat are exempt? Sheesh.

I don't see anyone forcing people to exchange their labor for compensation at the point of a gun, howver I DO see people being forced to give the fruits of their labor to the government at the point of a gun. It appears that slavery IS alive and well in the US and YOU support it in a whole hearted manner... imagine that.

I think that the poor soul falling into contradiction is you Daniel. Be afraid...very afraid...LOL!

BTW, IF you ever find a 'real publisher" for your book, will the the WILLING exchange of your book for compensation ( how did you put it..."some kind of money") be imaginary? At the point of a gun? Good god, evil capitalism!

My,my, the contradictions continue to mount...roflmao!

See?? Just as I said -- the "roflmao! argument" could just as well come from Healy The fact that you can't understand Andy's earlier point -- that "free choice" is subject to whether or not one has money -- only means it's as nonsensical to try to seriously discuss the issue with you as it would be to try to seriously discuss many things with Ms. Mauro. If you think prostitutes "choose" to be prostitutes, when they really could eke out a "respectable" living at or below minimum wage, then you really don't understand economics and its social dimension at all. (In other words, to make it simpler for you, a woman can make a lot more money by serving as a kind of bucket than she could by using a bucket to clean out bathrooms.)

There's so little substance and content to what you have to say that it seems really pointless to pretend to argue with you. (In other words, you expend very little effort.) With all your SHOUTING, you think that stands as an argument and your only other option is to make things personal. So I'll try to avoid that except to say that in regard to my book, I've always been much more interested in having someone read it and tell me what they think of it than I am in "selling" it, and I'm grateful that a member of this forum has been doing that the past few months.

But let me know what you think of this, the main points of the issue in this "health care" discussion as I see it:

1) Conservative interests make the argument that a "public option" or "government-run" health care system "will put government between you and your doctor"; but very few people seem to have the good sense to point out that the current system has private insurance companies standing "between you and your doctor", and that this is almost entirely only facilitated through health care options provided by one's employers ...... So instead of a government plan (which would have laws and regulations and procedures for redress of grievances built in to the system), we should prefer that private companies (all but entirely unregulated and accountable only to themselves) should be in charge of our health care??? And another set of private companies acting as the middleman for this??? And that this costs those employers an enormous amount of money in expenses that could be spent in expanding their plant and retooling their equipment??? Amazing!!!!

2) A distrust of government is healthy and wise, for the most part; but it is too often merely used as a propaganda ploy on the part of vested interests to create and shore up opposition to anything the vested interests don't want to see happen. So anything government did to regulate business or to protect workers became a case of "creeping socialism." And the same went for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And anything government did to end segregation and to try to protect the civil rights of minorities became a war against "State's Rights" and the assumption of "dictatorial" power on the part of the Federal government. This case is no different, and the bottom line argument often made by conservatives -- that government-run things are "evil as such" -- is not only erroneous and disingenuous (since it implies that everything "privately-run" is great and wonderful), but it's also fundamentally insulting to anyone who works for or has ever worked for any form of government "organization" -- policemen, firemen, and members of the military, to name only the most obvious ones ........

Wow, that alternative reality you live in must be a doosie! And such an easy mark as well! ROFLMAO! ( I suppose that will zoom right over your head as well.)

Don't see how anything you say could "zoom over my head" when it's always only the stale, cliche'-riddled sloganeering of an ideological zealot .... You start off by echoing a cliched response similar to one made by Pamela McElwain-Brown in her "debates" with Josiah Thompson, Barb Junkkarinen and Jerry Logan ("the color of the sky in your world"/"that alternative reality you live in"), and then proceed with some kind of insult about my being incapable of understanding what your privately-ingenious but publicly-inscrutable message supposedly means? And topped off with the "ROFLMAO!" response that you and David Healy have virtually patented as some kind of killing stroke in battles of the witless??? Neither of you are really ever "Rolling On [the] Floor Laughing [Your] Ass Off" because you're both so distempered you wouldn't know humor if it crawled inside your anal sphincter and planted a tree there.

It ZOOMED over your head because it was sarcasm. ROFLMAO!!

Lets see...
A hooker who makes a personal CHOICE to become a hooker and not a maid is not really making a personal CHOICE because one job PAYS more than another...fricking amazing.

MONEY is the only factor in PERSONAL CHOICE...

You are mostly limited to getting health care from your employer...except that there is a CHOICE afforded by a robust individual policy marketplace...

"a robust individual policy marketplace"???? Are you a photo expert or selling insurance?

Yes ROBUST! I purchase my insurance directly from this marketplace and I have for over 10 years, so I have a very good idea of what is availalbe. You? Or are you just another blowhard liberal totally without a clue? I'll vote for you being totally clueless.

Having ONLY the government standing between you and your healthcare is better than having the option to CHOOSE from different private companies...
The health insurance industry is unregulated. My how astute you are..LOL!

Then you're not denying that the health insurance industry does whatever it wants, however it wants to do it, and there is no recourse and no alternative to its power. There's no choice in that; the vast majority of Americans are simply at the mercy of private companies ...... thank you for being honest and admitting that simple fact.

No, it ZOOMED right over your head....AGAIN! Sarcasm seems beyond your limited understanding. Thank god that the vast majority of Americans don't have to rely on the GOVERNMENT for their health care insurance. In case you have not noticed Medicare and Medicade SUCK!

You are a hypocrite when you state that willingness to trade labor for compensation is imaginary when in fact you state you will gladly do that very thing. When caught you say it not really the money but rather people reading that matters yet I don't see your free PDF published anywhere on the web,...and then there is still your claim to want to "MAKE SOME MONEY".....

What you know about "labor" -- farm work, factory work, or any other manual labor -- wouldn't make a pimple on my butt. (This is typical of conservative Republicans -- the same goes for their gung ho attitude about going to war without ever having served as one of "the troops." All that stuff is for the lesser folks, those in the lower socioeconomic level who have so much "choice" and "freedom" in what they can do with their "opportunities.") But you're right in saying I'd gladly take some money for the book I wrote. Why shouldn't I? After all, the world is full of dishonest b*s*ards who make lots and lots of money by writing books that are as dishonest and socially useless as their authors. And no, I have no intention of giving it away, unless of course someone asks me for it.

What do I know about labor? Well lets see, I've been a factory worker, a union member, a bartender, a landscaper, and a very hard working advertising photographer among other things. I've made money and I've lost money and everything I have ever had is the result of my hard work and willingness to take risk, win or lose.. Instead of WAITING for someone to GIVE me something I EARNED it the HARD way...by working my azz off for it. I come from a broken home of lower middle class parents, my dad was a union mechanic and my mom worked as a bookkeeper. We did not have money nor station and my Mom worked two and sometimes three jobs after Dad left. She taught me the value of hard work and self reliance, something leftists like you can't seem to understand.

In other words you don't have a clue...once again.

You're wrong, however, in thinking that writing is much in the way of labor. (Hint: it's like what you're doing right now, sitting on your butt.) And you're wrong in thinking I'm "caught" (what are you, twelve f*c*ing years old?); the main reason for my writing had far less to do with monetary compensation than with analyzing a subject and coming up with hopefully valuable information pertaining to that subject. That can't occur without readers, of course, but I'm fully aware that books, like works of art, are not necessarily appreciated until well after the author or artist has passed on. Therefore, making money from my writing was and continues to be far down on the list of my priorities; and therefore, you've obviously misrepresented things in order to be able to call me a hypocrite, tough guy.

No , you got caught for being a hypocrite, as you have once again in this thread. However, given your track record it is unlikely you will understand why.

It's too bad that a thread about the Far Right versus the NHS has mostly degenerated into a farce because of the odd input from you and Terry Mauro. But in that spirit, I'll say you're wrong about Death Panels. I met with my Death Panel a few weeks back, and they were nothing as you two have made them out to be. We had cookies and chatted about youth in Asia. And when they were unable to persuade me that life isn't worth living, they politely stood up and said goodbye, pulled their hoods over their skulls, gathered up their scythes and drove off in a long hearse ............

WHy? Because we have shown that the NHS is practicing euthanasia much to the chagrin of you and the rest of the give it to me leftists?

Let's all get up

and dance to a tune

that was a hit before

your Mother was done in by death panels,

Though she was done in a

long, long time ago,

your Mother should know,

(Chorus: Yourrr Mother should....)

your Mother should...

(All: know-oh)

Sing it again.......

Edited September 26, 2009 by Craig Lamson

Craig Lamson · September 26, 2009

I don't "scare" you? You are a piece of work...
Willing is imaginary? Amazing!

I guess those folks who spend their lives living on welfare, sucking deeply from the governmetal teat are exempt? Sheesh.

I don't see anyone forcing people to exchange their labor for compensation at the point of a gun, howver I DO see people being forced to give the fruits of their labor to the government at the point of a gun. It appears that slavery IS alive and well in the US and YOU support it in a whole hearted manner... imagine that.

I think that the poor soul falling into contradiction is you Daniel. Be afraid...very afraid...LOL!

BTW, IF you ever find a 'real publisher" for your book, will the the WILLING exchange of your book for compensation ( how did you put it..."some kind of money") be imaginary? At the point of a gun? Good god, evil capitalism!

My,my, the contradictions continue to mount...roflmao!

See?? Just as I said -- the "roflmao! argument" could just as well come from Healy The fact that you can't understand Andy's earlier point -- that "free choice" is subject to whether or not one has money -- only means it's as nonsensical to try to seriously discuss the issue with you as it would be to try to seriously discuss many things with Ms. Mauro. If you think prostitutes "choose" to be prostitutes, when they really could eke out a "respectable" living at or below minimum wage, then you really don't understand economics and its social dimension at all. (In other words, to make it simpler for you, a woman can make a lot more money by serving as a kind of bucket than she could by using a bucket to clean out bathrooms.)

There's so little substance and content to what you have to say that it seems really pointless to pretend to argue with you. (In other words, you expend very little effort.) With all your SHOUTING, you think that stands as an argument and your only other option is to make things personal. So I'll try to avoid that except to say that in regard to my book, I've always been much more interested in having someone read it and tell me what they think of it than I am in "selling" it, and I'm grateful that a member of this forum has been doing that the past few months.

But let me know what you think of this, the main points of the issue in this "health care" discussion as I see it:

1) Conservative interests make the argument that a "public option" or "government-run" health care system "will put government between you and your doctor"; but very few people seem to have the good sense to point out that the current system has private insurance companies standing "between you and your doctor", and that this is almost entirely only facilitated through health care options provided by one's employers ...... So instead of a government plan (which would have laws and regulations and procedures for redress of grievances built in to the system), we should prefer that private companies (all but entirely unregulated and accountable only to themselves) should be in charge of our health care??? And another set of private companies acting as the middleman for this??? And that this costs those employers an enormous amount of money in expenses that could be spent in expanding their plant and retooling their equipment??? Amazing!!!!

2) A distrust of government is healthy and wise, for the most part; but it is too often merely used as a propaganda ploy on the part of vested interests to create and shore up opposition to anything the vested interests don't want to see happen. So anything government did to regulate business or to protect workers became a case of "creeping socialism." And the same went for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And anything government did to end segregation and to try to protect the civil rights of minorities became a war against "State's Rights" and the assumption of "dictatorial" power on the part of the Federal government. This case is no different, and the bottom line argument often made by conservatives -- that government-run things are "evil as such" -- is not only erroneous and disingenuous (since it implies that everything "privately-run" is great and wonderful), but it's also fundamentally insulting to anyone who works for or has ever worked for any form of government "organization" -- policemen, firemen, and members of the military, to name only the most obvious ones ........

Wow, that alternative reality you live in must be a doosie! And such an easy mark as well! ROFLMAO! ( I suppose that will zoom right over your head as well.)

Don't see how anything you say could "zoom over my head" when it's always only the stale, cliche'-riddled sloganeering of an ideological zealot .... You start off by echoing a cliched response similar to one made by Pamela McElwain-Brown in her "debates" with Josiah Thompson, Barb Junkkarinen and Jerry Logan ("the color of the sky in your world"/"that alternative reality you live in"), and then proceed with some kind of insult about my being incapable of understanding what your privately-ingenious but publicly-inscrutable message supposedly means? And topped off with the "ROFLMAO!" response that you and David Healy have virtually patented as some kind of killing stroke in battles of the witless??? Neither of you are really ever "Rolling On [the] Floor Laughing [Your] Ass Off" because you're both so distempered you wouldn't know humor if it crawled inside your anal sphincter and planted a tree there.

It ZOOMED over your head because it was sarcasm. ROFLMAO!!

Lets see...
A hooker who makes a personal CHOICE to become a hooker and not a maid is not really making a personal CHOICE because one job PAYS more than another...fricking amazing.

MONEY is the only factor in PERSONAL CHOICE...

You are mostly limited to getting health care from your employer...except that there is a CHOICE afforded by a robust individual policy marketplace...

"a robust individual policy marketplace"???? Are you a photo expert or selling insurance?

Yes ROBUST! I purchase my insurance directly from this marketplace and I have for over 10 years, so I have a very good idea of what is availalbe. You? Or are you just another blowhard liberal totally without a clue? I'll vote for you being totally clueless.

Having ONLY the government standing between you and your healthcare is better than having the option to CHOOSE from different private companies...
The health insurance industry is unregulated. My how astute you are..LOL!

Then you're not denying that the health insurance industry does whatever it wants, however it wants to do it, and there is no recourse and no alternative to its power. There's no choice in that; the vast majority of Americans are simply at the mercy of private companies ...... thank you for being honest and admitting that simple fact.

No, it ZOOMED right over your head....AGAIN! Sarcasm seems beyond your limited understanding. Thank god that the vast majority of Americans don't have to rely on the GOVERNMENT for their health care insurance. In case you have not noticed Medicare and Medicade SUCK!

You are a hypocrite when you state that willingness to trade labor for compensation is imaginary when in fact you state you will gladly do that very thing. When caught you say it not really the money but rather people reading that matters yet I don't see your free PDF published anywhere on the web,...and then there is still your claim to want to "MAKE SOME MONEY".....

What you know about "labor" -- farm work, factory work, or any other manual labor -- wouldn't make a pimple on my butt. (This is typical of conservative Republicans -- the same goes for their gung ho attitude about going to war without ever having served as one of "the troops." All that stuff is for the lesser folks, those in the lower socioeconomic level who have so much "choice" and "freedom" in what they can do with their "opportunities.") But you're right in saying I'd gladly take some money for the book I wrote. Why shouldn't I? After all, the world is full of dishonest b*s*ards who make lots and lots of money by writing books that are as dishonest and socially useless as their authors. And no, I have no intention of giving it away, unless of course someone asks me for it.

What do I know about labor? Well lets see, I've been a factory worker, a union member, a bartender, a landscaper, and a very hard working advertising photographer among other things. I've made money and I've lost money and everything I have ever had is the result of my hard work and willingness to take risk, win or lose.. Instead of WAITING for someone to GIVE me something I EARNED it the HARD way...by working my azz off for it. I come from a broken home of lower middle class parents, my dad was a union mechanic and my mom worked as a bookkeeper. We did not have money nor station and my Mom worked two and sometimes three jobs after Dad left. She taught me the value of hard work and self reliance, something leftists like you can't seem to understand.

In other words you don't have a clue...once again.

You're wrong, however, in thinking that writing is much in the way of labor. (Hint: it's like what you're doing right now, sitting on your butt.) And you're wrong in thinking I'm "caught" (what are you, twelve f*c*ing years old?); the main reason for my writing had far less to do with monetary compensation than with analyzing a subject and coming up with hopefully valuable information pertaining to that subject. That can't occur without readers, of course, but I'm fully aware that books, like works of art, are not necessarily appreciated until well after the author or artist has passed on. Therefore, making money from my writing was and continues to be far down on the list of my priorities; and therefore, you've obviously misrepresented things in order to be able to call me a hypocrite, tough guy.

No , you got caught for being a hypocrite, as you have once again in this thread. However, given your track record it is unlikely you will understand why.

It's too bad that a thread about the Far Right versus the NHS has mostly degenerated into a farce because of the odd input from you and Terry Mauro. But in that spirit, I'll say you're wrong about Death Panels. I met with my Death Panel a few weeks back, and they were nothing as you two have made them out to be. We had cookies and chatted about youth in Asia. And when they were unable to persuade me that life isn't worth living, they politely stood up and said goodbye, pulled their hoods over their skulls, gathered up their scythes and drove off in a long hearse ............

WHy? Because we have shown that the NHS is practicing euthanasia much to the chagrin of you and the rest of the give it to me leftists?

Let's all get up

and dance to a tune

that was a hit before

your Mother was done in by death panels,

Though she was done in a

long, long time ago,

your Mother should know,

(Chorus: Yourrr Mother should....)

your Mother should...

(All: know-oh)

Sing it again.......

Dude, you're a lunatic or at best a pathetic intemperate little git.

** Edited for offensive statement-K. Beckett**

Whats the matter, you afraid of little old me? LMAO!

Edited September 26, 2009 by Kathy Beckett

The Far-Right Conspiracy against the NHS

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