John Goodman’s tale of things going south in the UK.
I ran an HMO one time in my life–CEO and Medical Director.
In a managed single source healthcare system you can always control costs by limiting access, appointments available, phone lines–use your imagination.
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=24012&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
There’s also the small issue of “obese” being redefined to include people that don’t have a problem at all.
Good scientists don’t change measurement criteria in the middle of a study. Here’s a list of how often the official government definition has changed.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/72/5/1074/T2.expansion.html
I travel around the country and I don’t see an epidemic. The distribution of different sizes doesn’t look any different than it did when I was a child.
Gail, the fat epidemic is due to two simple issues and began long before the 80’s. It is due to a combination of overeating and sedentary lifestyle. You can follow delusional BS from quacks stealing your money or eat a reasonable amount and get a reasonable amount of exercise and forget their BS. I and many “old folks” like me are living proof that the food Nazis are full of it.
Gail | January 21, 2014 at 12:48 am | wrote:
“If people stopped listening to all of the food junk science, i.e., that animal fat and meat is bad for your health, then they would be in better health and wouldnt have to rely so heavily on a quack health industry.”
It turned out the the anti-saturated fat propaganda was less than a half truth. The two most common saturated fatty acids in the typical American diet are palmitic acid (16 carbons in the chain) and stearic acid (18 carbons). The former can be atherogenic, while the latter is as benign as the oleic acid in olive oil — as far as we know.
I have separate satiety levels for everything. If I hadn’t eaten enough fat at supper tonight, I’d still be hungry. If I subscribed to the generic anti-fat superstition, I’d continue stuffing myself on Politically Correct carbs until I was bursting at the seams. I’d end up weighing 300 pounds!
Health gurus can be every bit as stupid (or dishonest) as AGW alarmists.
Once again I’d like to point out that the UK has only 20% of the population of the USA. It is unwise to ignore so large a difference in scale when discussing the implementation of centralized policy. No one ever suggest the USA should mimic China’s healthcare system.
If people stopped listening to all of the food junk science, i.e., that animal fat and meat is bad for your health, then they would be in better health and wouldnt have to rely so heavily on a quack health industry. Funny how the obesity epidemic began in the mid 1980s when the quacks declared that animal fat is bad for your health. Fat actually makes you normal weighted because it satisfies your hunger. Low fat ‘food’ makes you fat because it doesnt satisfy and makes you hunger. Look at the junk scientists on TV hawking products for ‘female pattern baldness’. There is no such condition for women. These dopes lose their hair due to their pathetic low fat diets. Not to mention the teenage girls who can’t grow their hair due to the lack of fat. Nature DEMANDS that you eat meat and fat and put canine teeth in your mouth for that purpose. Nature is the angry, wrath filled God of the Old Testament. Disobey and you will be uglied up with ailments, ugly hair and a rumpled ugly face. No amount of quackery from a hokey medical industry will save you. Im 56 and pass off as 30. I have no ailments whatsoever, no wrinkles and my hair grows. TOO BAD THAT PEOPLE THINK THAT ‘SCIENTISTS’ ARE SO BRILLIANT THAT THEY CAN OUTFOX AND IMPROVE NATURE. Nature created you and is very rigid. Obamacare can go kiss me where the sun don’t shine. Im not buying that junk. The whole healthcare industry is garbage. Its for fools who blindly obey quacks because the quacks went to college and God didn’t.
Don’t have much UK direct testimony, but I do of Canada. To name two. A fine young man who seriously injured his foot on the snowboard slope. Terrible and delayed treatment – finally amputation to save his whole leg.
Second, a man with serious angina. Long, long wait for any treatment in Canada – able to afford treatment in US – immediate multiple bypass and warning that delay would probably been soon fatal.
Colin Fisher,
” In an organisation responsible for the treatment of a population of around 64 million people it would be amazing if some mistakes were not made and some people did not abuse the system.”
It would also be amazing if there weren’t a few people with few problems who were happy with their personal experience. Find 30 million more and I will be impressed.
If we in the USA ever do get a rational national health care system, we definitely should NOT clone Britain’s NHS. An friend from an online writers community gave a hair-raising personal experience.
She had a very painful, life-threatening medical emergency. When she went to the ER, she waited, and waited, and waited. People with trivial medical problems were getting first priority.
Fortunately, her brother made lots of noise, and that may have saved her life. She was finally able to see a physician, and get the necessary treatment.
Apparently, the NHS morons do not understand the concept of triage. Not even in her exurb of London. If this had happened in London proper — or if she did not have a brother to play the role of squeeky wheel — she may not have survived to tell the story.
Yes, well, I have suffered from the ups and downs of the NHS for nearly 70 years and amazingly have had good, timely, treatment for various serious and trivial medical conditions. In an organisation responsible for the treatment of a population of around 64 million people it would be amazing if some mistakes were not made and some people did not abuse the system
However, I am sure that access to treatment is better rationed by the ability to pay. Wealthy people are so much more deserving and generally nicer than poor people, don’t you find?