And since we have observed a cult mentality and most will refuse to believe it due to the source, here it is straight from the horse’s mouth:
Section 2a of the NHS Constitution states: “You have the right to drugs and treatments that have been recommended by NICE for use in the NHS, if your doctor says they are clinically appropriate for you.”
Moreover, a direction to the NHS dated 11 December 2001 made it clear that NHS bodies are required to make such treatments available not more than three months after a positive NICE guidance technology appraisal has been published. Dexamethasone intravitreal implants should therefore have been available to all NHS patients by - at the very latest - November 2011.
In February this year RNIB contacted the 125 hospital trusts in England with eye health services, asking whether they were providing dexamethasone intravitreal implants for patients with retinal vein occlusion. Of the trusts that responded, 45 were providing a full service and 37 were providing either a restricted or no service.
Quite clearly numerous trusts are acting unlawfully. They are denying patients an innovative and cost-effective treatment, recommended by NICE, that significantly improves their quality of life.
The reason, of course, is that trusts do not wish to use their resources in this manner. Although they know they are required to make NICE-approved products available, they introduce delaying tactics. Hospital trusts may claim that the additional treatment costs of the new product are not covered by the contracts with their local primary care trusts.
…do you really understand what that cite is saying? Do you know who Michael Rawlins is and what NICE does?
So did it take two weeks to find that cite did it? A website that doesn’t even have an “about me” page so we can see who is running it?
Why don’t you do us all a favour and report back to us when you find out what NICE does and what Michael Rawlins job is. Because you are citing stuff just because you think it makes the NHS look bad: but it actually makes the NHS look good. You show a complete ignorance of how UHC works and once again that ignorance comes out with each and every post that you make in this thread.
The holy book is never wrong! You just don’t understand it!
Yes, I know what NICE is. It’s the agency that decides what drugs you can have. And even when they are generous enough to give you access to a drug, it doesn’t mean the NHS trusts will pay for them.
We all know and accept health care is a limited resource. Especially when a right-wing government is trying to privatise it by stealth. But not 1 in 10 million NHS ‘customers’ would rather this rationing be done by insurance companies trying to minimise their outlays by hook or by crook.
Or by denying equal access to health care to the ‘uninsured’.
…would you stop with that “cult mentality” rubbish: if you want to prove cult mentality you need to cite evidence of cult mentality. And the posters in this thread aren’t suffering from cult mentality either: if you want to continue that line of attack you should take it to the pit. A link to an opinion piece by Michael Rawlins is not evidence of “cult mentality”: its a sign that your argument is so weak that you have to keep resorting to that strawman.
Seriously though: with all that time away from the thread is this really the best you could find? The head of NICE telling trusts to stop breaking the law? Surely this is a feature of the NHS: not a flaw?
I bet you can’t tell us what NICE does nor their role in the NHS without resorting to google. Stop pretending you know what you are talking about. The game is up.
So what? Yes, some Trusts are rationing treatment in ways they shouldn’t but what has this got to do with the merits of UHC or even the comparative merits of the UK v US healthcare systems?
Trusts are responsible for balancing services provided against local needs and quite often their decisions aren’t welcomed by everyone but there is not an unlimited pot of money so everybody can’t be satisfied. But this is not news to anyone in Britain - the papers are always screaming about the “post-code lottery” where a treatment available in one place is not available in another. In fact NICE is a prime example of openness in the nationalised system. NICE is a public body specifically set up to determine the cost effectiveness of treatments. Their methodologies and results are open and subject to public scrutiny and debate - can the same be said for the decisions made by American Health Insurers? I doubt there are many people in the UK who would claim the NHS was or is perfect but whether you like it or not most people prefer it to the alternative - if the alternative is anything remotely like the American situation.
I’m not sure by what conceivable definition the British support for the NHS could be described as a cult. Calling it a cult essentially implies there is no rational reasoning behind the support but upthread several people have given you perfectly valid reasons - the overwhelming one being that nobody in the UK fears that they or their family will either be bankrupted by unexpected illness or, even worse, unable to afford treatment. This reason alone is sufficient for most people to support it. OK, we understand this is not a position you agree with but nobody is asking you to. The British electorate support a universal health care system in the form of the NHS for what to them seem good reasons.
Perhaps you are right and it is an outmoded model. Maybe we would not set it up like this is we were starting again but but the one thing everybody would agree on would be not to set up anything like the system in the States. The outcomes are not perfect (although I note that overall they are often better than in the States) but most people accept they are “good enough” for what we - as a nation - pay.
And you are wrong about NICE. But that isn’t a surprise. When a position, like yours, isn’t evidence based, it isn’t a surprise that you don’t know all the facts. Check out their website
NICE has a much bigger role than “just deciding what drugs you can have.”
So why don’t you do some study, find out what NICE does and how the Trusts work, and then you can come back to the thread and actually participate in the discussion rather than toss wild unsubstantiated claims.
What on earth was this in response to? Nobody in this thread is arguing that the NHS in particular or UHC in general is some sort of god given perfection. It is a huge and imperfect system set up an run by human beings, the argument is whether it is better than certain alternatives.
What you don’t seem to grasp is that the NHS provides more treatment, with better results, and far less rationing than the US system. At half the cost. Rationing is far more severe under the US system, and you are much, much more likly to be denied treatment.
Treatment gets denied in the UK when it is medically inadvisable. In the US it gets denied when it is financially advisable.
I don’t, but I’ve been reading the last couple of pages as the thread happens to have jumped back to the top and was thinking that adaher should get a stamp:
“I agree, but________”
It seems to be the structure of pretty much every post of his, at least in this thread. He gets points for occasionally varying the actual phrasing.
…who are you talking to? And NICE is fundamentally different from private insurance companies. Lets take Citizen’s Councils for an example. How many insurance companiesdo this?
No its not. And if you want to be taken seriously in a debate you should “stop poking fun at things” because your already weak arguments look decidedly weaker when you do this.
No - people are not ‘denied access to treatment’. As your own cite shows (pro-tip - read your own cites). People may not get a specific treatment, particularly if it is high cost, low effectiveness. They get other treatments. They do not get turned away.
Rationing is unfortunate. Rationing based on local priorities by an organisation whose business it is to deliver the best health care within its financial constraints is one thing. Hard decisions on how to spend a budget will always have to be made. But the budget gets spent and not converted into private gain.
By hook or by crook rationing based on management bonus and shareholder dividends is not acceptable. And that’s just for those who have insurance.
And health care that isn’t free at the point of delivery to all who need it is barbaric and unchristian.
THat is wrong, on all counts. Britain is last in cancer survivability, way behind the US. The only way Britain’s system looks better is on stats that are affected by other factors more than the quality of health care.
And Britain does deny treatment based on financial considerations. It’s not profit, but it doesn’t really make a difference to the patient. Ask breast cancer patients who fought long and hard to get Herceptin approved. That was denied primarily based on cost.
That is a textbook example of a straw-man. You have fun dancing around it. In UHC people have access to treatment regardless of ability to pay. UHC is not a magic money tree. Choices on how to spend public money always have to be made.
Spend it on Health Item X, Y or Z.
As opposed to: Spend it on health or convert it to private profit.
I never tried to make the case that US health care is better. I was actually trying to point out that the multipayer systems of continental Europe are superior to the NHS model.
Good luck trying to deny that continental Europe has better health care than Britain.
…well you didn’t manage to prove that either in any of your posts in this thread.
But I asked you before: why are you singling out the NHS? The thread is about socialized medicine and single payer systems. Why is the NHS of importance to you, and why do you need to prove that it is better or worse than other socialized systems?
