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During the opening ceremonies of the London Olympics we watched
an absurd, choreographed paean to the greatness of the Britain’s National Health
Service.
Undoubtedly, Paul Krugman thrilled to the spectacle.
Hadn’t the famed monomaniac told us that all is well with
the NHS?
In Krugman’s now-famous words:
In
Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors.
We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories
are false.
Democrats want the upcoming election to hinge on the cost of
Sandra Fluke’s birth control pills. In Britain the government-run NHS has just
issued guidelines for childbirth designed to lower the cost of childbirth.
The Daily Mail reports today:
Family
doctors are being told to try to talk women out of having Caesareans and very
strong painkillers during birth to save the NHS money.
New
guidelines drawn up for GPs urge them to encourage women to have natural
labours with as little medical help as possible.
But for
many women the prospect of giving birth without the painkillers is unthinkable.
And
critics have said the move has been made without any thought for the women
themselves.
The
guidelines also remind doctors to tell women to consider having their babies
outside hospital in midwife-run units or in their own homes.
Caesareans
cost the NHS around £1,200 a time while epidurals – anaesthetic injections into
the spine – are around £200.
The
guidelines state that, as well as being expensive, they both slow down a
mother’s recovery after labour and impede breastfeeding.
The
advice does not suggest women should not be given any painkillers, such as gas
and air which are commonly used.
However,
it specifically tells doctors to try to reduce the numbers given epidurals and
other anaesthetic injections into the spine.
The
advice – drawn up by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the
Royal College of Midwives and the National Childbirth Trust – has enraged
campaigners and some senior doctors.
NHS decisions are made by an
advisory board, not by women themselves.
If the term “war on women” means anything, we see it in action in the new NHS policies on childbirth.
3 comments:
" The advice – drawn up by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Midwives and the National Childbirth Trust – has enraged campaigners and some senior doctors.
NHS decisions are made by an advisory board, not by women themselves.
If the term “war on women” means anything, we see it in action in the new NHS policies on childbirth."
A-Yup.
The problem is not the advice - it's good advice. I've had 5 children born in the NHS and the risks were skewed towards over-medicalization, including epidurals and caesarians. The problem is not that the government takes decisions on how to spend tax-payers money. One problem is that my money is confiscated to be re-distributed in the medical industry according to the priorities of those who didn't earn it. Another problem is the perverse incentives created by the ocean of other peoples' money; instead of a direct commercial/medical/human relationship between me and my doctor, there's weird bureaucratic relationship with risks and rewards distributed according to absurdist rules. The ultimate problem is that citizens outsource responsibility for their own health - they are infantilized.
Who uses the healthcare system the most? Women and those who are starting to mature. If one is going to cut costs it almost certainly will come from these two groups. There will be nice sounding justifications, but it will be these two groups who will suffer the most because some government board 2000 miles away will determine the medicare that one has a right to receive.
How do I know such things one might ask? Well my son in law spent twenty years in the military as a Ranger, Pathfinder and jumping out of perfectly good airplanes and helicopters defending this country and as happens ruining his knees. The battle with Tricare to at the least give him a few hours without pain was not what one thinks that a grateful country would expect. I won't even get into how the government healthcare system is treating his wife, my daughter, who of course helped to make his service to this country possible.
If this was a singular occurrence one might forgive what appears to be a SNAFU, but it is not.The closer it gets to the end of the fiscal year the worse it gets.
If a country treats its military veterans and their families this way one can imagine that others might fare far worse.
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