Like it’s better your employer controls the health of your family or an arbitrary decision by someone at the insurance company looking to cut costs decides, rather than you live without the burden of the worry of providing that for your family regardless of circumstances. There’s all kinds of control, and then there’s delusion.
Look around you at your utopia, bought for 17% GDP, and the increasing unemployment related to lack of international competitiveness. It’s over.
Are you seriously invoking mythological caricatures to make a point?
Our teeth are fine in the UK, really. Some of us have NHS dentists, some of us pay for it, some of us have jobs that cover it. Of course, it’s up to the individual whether they want unnaturally perfect American smiles.
The response of the Spanish government is that he should, and he does, as long as the family doesn’t say he doesn’t. Both the family and the government can deny “extraordinary measures” (eg. resuscitation), the government wouldn’t pay to send the kid to another country to receive treatment, nor to ship doctors over from another country to treat him.
My 94yo grandfather undergoes colon cancer outpatient surgery every 2-4 months; my 95yo grandmother (his wife) just had surgery for melanoma. In both cases, their general health is good enough to justify it. Surgery wouldn’t have been performed if either was at high risk of not surviving it.
Sorry, out of time. Procedures get approved country/region-wide as being “non-elective” or as requiring specific procedures to be declared non-elective individually (this second case is much rarer). In general, once a procedure has been declared “non-elective” it’s covered by SS and an individual patient gets it or not based on his own health and his own choices (or, in the case of a minor, those of the parents - again generally, judges have ruled that JW parents can’t forbid transfussions to their children).
An example of a procedure which is “non-elective after paperwork” is sex reassignment. Others are non-elective in certain cases: SS will cover IVF for a couple neither of which has a previous child, but not if either one already has a child. But most procedures don’t have this level of detail, in general if it’s covered it’s covered.
Abortion is legal in Spain within the first trimester; of course, in between finding out and signing up for it, many get performed in the second one, but let’s not go there… It’s possible to obtain a late abortion under the guise of an accident or of a different medical procedure, but it’s not legal. Letting a patient die because it would cost too much to try and keep them alive is not legal unless they (or the parents) say “stop trying.” If you have the means, you apply them.
I certainly feel better about my group health being administered by my employer than by a bunch of bufoons in Washington DC. After all, if I don’t like they way my employer manages their health benefit, I can always take a job elsewhere.
As for international competitiveness and growing unemployment, seems that’s more an issue of corporations taking advantage of lower wages & less regulations in other countries rather than putting up with the BS required to remain in this country. I don’t like that they are closing down production facilities here to take advantage of being able to profit more elsewhere, but I understand. What do we do in response, keep piling on more regulations, fees and taxes - makes a lot of sense doesn’t it.
I see the answer is No.
That’s a pity. The health care debate deserves more than a jerking knee.
Regards,
Shodan
And I feel much better about decisions about my health plan being handled by ACTUAL doctors working for the provincial health plan, in conjunction with representatives from provincial medical doctors in private practice, all of whom are concerned about the best treatment options, rather than by bean-counters working for a private insurance company whose employment depends on fattening their bottom line.
I can take a job anywhere, and be covered under the same plan, with the same benefits. I never have to argue about paying a doctor or hospital or clinic. Never. Ever.
I’ll admit to not being familiar with your provincial health plan, but I would be surprised that it is administered by doctors instead of the administrators of the plan (or politicians, depending on where you live) providing direction to the medical treatment providers on how best to treat you.
why would that surprise you?
I don’t know too many doctors that want to tie up a good portion of their available time with plan/program administration instead of providing medical treament
You misunderstood, then. It’s not that every individual doctor individually decides whats best for his patient. Medical doctors are hired by the government to provide the necessary medico-administrative framework - and that’s all they do. They meet up periodically with practicing doctors to constantly tweak how medical services are provided. It’s doctors administering other doctors.
But at the end of the day, these non-practicing doctors are working within the constraints of a government mandated program, which undoubtedly is controlled by politicians (from the 50,000 foot view)
No one operates without constraints, I’m not sure what the point is.
For all your ballyhoo about the merits of the superiority of this provincial health plan, where decisions are only made by doctors…well, what you really meant was that made by doctors as long as the methods fall within guidelines drawn up by some government body.
No thanks
I’ll take my chances with an employer administered program where I have the ability to escape to an alternate plan by pursuing alternate employment where a better health care benefit may be offered or where the compensation offered makes up the difference. Leaves me free to pick and choose rather than being entirely dependent upon the whims of politicians (usually driven by how much they are being paid off)
Again, you mischaracterize. My understanding is that the guidelines are drawn up by the doctors themselves. Yes, these doctors are employed by the government. You realize that government is pretty much a technocracy, right? It is extremely rare that politicians get involved in areas that are the bailiwick of the experts to whom they have delegated this authority.
So nice of you to have your escapes though. I can only wish that everyone else had that degree of labor market power.
Tell that to the Congressional buffoonery currently going on in Washington DC
I know several, in Spain most hospitals have a “Medical Director” and an “Administrative Director.” My BFF is the Medical Director of a Geriatric (with facilities ranging from apartments with a cleaning lady to hospice); she spends about 10h/wk seeing patients and the rest is administrative work. She loves it.