Why Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion Will Reduce Health Care Access
Medicaid notoriously underpays doctors, so Medicaid patients have trouble accessing them. When Medicaid eligibility expands, many newly eligible people drop “private” health plans to enroll. Continue reading
Sickest Canadians Face the Highest Barriers to Care
CTV of Canada reports: “Canadians with chronic conditions are frequent users of the health-care system, but a new report shows many experience considerable difficulty getting the medical treatment they need.” Continue reading
Elderly patients condemned to early death by secret use of do not resuscitate orders
“Elderly patients are being condemned to an early death by hospitals making secret use of “do not resuscitate” orders, an investigation has found” – Telegraph UK. Continue reading
Canada: the soul-destroying search for a family doctor
Journalist Gloria Galloway relates her exhausting search for a family doctor in Ottawa, Canada. Colorado also has a shortage of primary care docs. Will the woes of Canadian patients come to Colorado?
England’s NHS ‘creaking at the seams’ as waiting lists rise
The Telegraph (UK) reminds us that single-payer “universal” health care is really universal misery: “A senior doctors’ leader has warned that the NHS is “creaking at the seams” as official figures showed almost a third more patients are waiting too long to be treated in hospital.”
Stuck with Medicaid “coverage” but no health care? Can’t sue that state
“Most of the “newly covered” [Medicaid] patients won’t be able to find doctors … willing to treat them. … Those “newly covered” people will also have to abandon some of their legal rights.”
Health care: Maine moves toward freedom, Vermont toward single-payer authoritarianism
Maine adopts free-market reforms (though they conflict with federal health control bill), while Vermont goes single payer.
NHS in England fails to meet “even the most basic standards of care”
“The National Health Service is today condemned over its inhumane treatment of elderly patients in an official report that finds hospitals are failing to meet “even the most basic standards of care” for the over-65s” – Telegraph
Canada: 18-month wait for spinal surgery
Question on Canada’s Globe & Mail “Ask a Health Expert”: “My father-in-law needs cervical decompression surgery. He’s been told it will be 12 to 18 months and that the only way he will get the operation sooner is if he degrades further, potentially to the point of paralysis. …”
Massachusetts: The Canary in the Coal Mine for ObamaCare
5 years ago, Massachusetts adopted its “universal health care” plan, which served as the template for President Obama’s subsequent national health care legislation. However, MA’s problems of rising health costs & worsening access foreshadow similar problems for the rest of America — as well as how to avoid them.
“Cuts Leave Patients With Medicaid Cards, but No Specialist to See” – NYTimes
Being enrolled in Medicaid does not guarantee that you get treatment, reports the New York Times. Also, “many … patients have jobs with private insurance but switch to Medicaid when they become pregnant, avoiding premiums, deductibles and co-payments.”
