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Ill in England? Your Location Can Determine If You Live or Die

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Re: Ill in England? Your Location Can Determine If You Live or Die

#41
post #22
post #7

I think it’s amazing that a solid system can be defunded like that until it just sorta crumbles under it’s own weight. There’s no immediate solution either. If you build more hospitals, you need more staff, if you need more staff, you need to make it more attractive, but even if you do you need several years before the first doctors/nurses from the wave with renewed interest in the position finishes university. And t…

>I think it’s amazing that a solid system can be defunded like that until it just sorta crumbles under it’s own weight "defunded"? Maybe if you're comparing post pandemic budgets to pandemic budgets, but spending is still way up compared to pre-pandemic levels. [1] https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/12020081/embed?auto=1

I want to add some extra data for other people. The UK has an aging population. Old people need more healthcare spending.

If we adjust the data for age and demographic changes, then we can see spending was reduced between 2010 and 2021.

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-...

Re: Ill in England? Your Location Can Determine If You Live or Die

#43
post #22
post #7

I think it’s amazing that a solid system can be defunded like that until it just sorta crumbles under it’s own weight. There’s no immediate solution either. If you build more hospitals, you need more staff, if you need more staff, you need to make it more attractive, but even if you do you need several years before the first doctors/nurses from the wave with renewed interest in the position finishes university. And t…

>I think it’s amazing that a solid system can be defunded like that until it just sorta crumbles under it’s own weight "defunded"? Maybe if you're comparing post pandemic budgets to pandemic budgets, but spending is still way up compared to pre-pandemic levels. [1] https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/12020081/embed?auto=1

The NHS has been underfunded for about 40 years, but especially under Conservative government.

Blair’s Labour—for all their faults—at least stopped the bleeding, but there wasn’t enough political & popular support for significantly increased spending.

Then Cameron & his bs “austerity measures” cropped it

Re: Ill in England? Your Location Can Determine If You Live or Die

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm only pointing this out) There's also the issue where people believe that everyone, regardless of age, should be treated to the maximum level possible (or what they can afford in the case of the US). If you publicity suggested that someone who is 99 years old and in poor health shouldn't receive some treatment that costs a massive amount of money/resources you would be looked at in disgust. No politican would eve…

Yep. It's political suicide to bring up fairly obvious age/prognosis limits, but ultimately we all die of something. Assuming most disease based hospital stays (heart attacks strokes, cancers) are biased towards older folk it makes sense that resources to younger folk be prioritised. It makes -sense-, but asking a decent human to turf an "old person" out of bed because a "young person" has arrived (with a survivable,…

There is no need to kick anyone out of bed. You can adjust policy.

For example no lockdowns, that sacrificed young people over old. I still have bad health from that. My daughter has developmental issues.

And overweight people should not have publicly founded insurance. We should respect their wish to die!

And no publicly founded health insurance for non-citizens. That even has strong political support!

Re: Ill in England? Your Location Can Determine If You Live or Die

#45
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare across the entire west is crumbling, and not through defunding. It's driven by demographic shifts that nobody has a real plan to fix.

Explain how Japan has the #2 best healthcare system in the world then. (It’s universal with 70% of costs paid by the government)

I don’t like “exceptionalism” arguments in general, and I think “muh homogeneity” is bunk as well, but Japan has a very strong and unique culture that results in outcomes that the rest of the world would not see in the same conditions.

See for example Japan having very few public trash cans but also very low amounts of litter, or even very low wage workers taking pride in their jobs, or Japan having both extremely low unemployment and also low/no wage inflation for very long periods of time. Japanese business culture is one of seeing a duty to the public/consumer in a way that most other capitalist countries do not. They have a cultural aversion to screwing people over and ripping them off, and in working very many extra unbilled hours because it’s expected of them - they’d never have the same healthcare failure modes as in other countries

Re: Ill in England? Your Location Can Determine If You Live or Die

#46
post #9

Isn't this true just about everywhere? Someone who lives in a major urban area is going to have more prompt access to advanced emergency healthcare than someone who lives in a remote rural area, simply due to factors such as travel time, and the clinical need to physically concentrate specialist medical resources (specialist clinical teams need a certain minimum case volume to properly maintain their skills, and if y…

I live in a mid sized urban area, a few blocks from a large hospital. My location was certainly beneficial when I needed emergency treatment. But for anything non-emergency, the waiting lists and "pre approval" battle are appalling. My spouse, who lives in the same house, but has a different employer, gets much quicker treatment from the same clinics.

How is this? All other things equal, certain companies simply get to jump the line over others?

Re: Ill in England? Your Location Can Determine If You Live or Die

#47
post #7

I think it’s amazing that a solid system can be defunded like that until it just sorta crumbles under it’s own weight. There’s no immediate solution either. If you build more hospitals, you need more staff, if you need more staff, you need to make it more attractive, but even if you do you need several years before the first doctors/nurses from the wave with renewed interest in the position finishes university. And t…

The main problem is that senior retirees are beginning to out number working adults who fund the system. Only skilled legal immigration can stem the tide, but that is not politically popular even amongst liberals. The end result is an entitlement system that is no longer sustainable.

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Anal...

> And that’s only if there is any political will to do so.

More taxes can only do so much if that was what you were implying. Middle class families can barely support themselves now let alone subsidize the little income they have left. Case in point, in the US for a family to have the same economic power as families in the past; they must make $240,000 - $300,000 depending on the metro

Re: Ill in England? Your Location Can Determine If You Live or Die

#48

>We have to invest more in identifying and tackling disease earlier if we want to “stop the hospitals from falling over and the GPs from being overwhelmed,” he said. Demographics and shrinking labor forces alone will bring the system to its knees regardless of money. It's absolutely baffling in the face of this trend that preventative, systemic policies are practically never discussed and everything centers around in…

> It's absolutely baffling in the face of this trend that preventative, systemic policies are practically never discussed and everything centers around individual care.

I’m surprised that countries with socialized health care doesn’t already enforce preventive care. Yes, it’s draconian but otherwise the entire system will fall apart faster. Maybe they will with the advent of CBDCs?

Re: Ill in England? Your Location Can Determine If You Live or Die

#49
It's intriguing that medical care is always the worst kind of service, by far, in every country in the developed world, compared to every other kind of product or service we depend on. Compare it to food, electricity, gasoline, clothing, water, cell service, haircuts, transportation, movies. If you're not in a rural location, you can buy food or a restaurant meal 24-hours a day in less than an hour. There's complex infrastructure and supply chains around food production, but it works, and works fast. But you can't start most medical treatment without waiting days, weeks, or even months. In lots of places you can't even see a family physician or primary care doctor without waiting days.

Why is it? It is because medical care is more "personalized" and less of a commodity? Because it's heavily controlled by government? Is it the liability (medical people can get sued for a lot more than a bad haircut)? Due to much higher expectations of what is acceptable medical care compared to, say, food?

It doesn't seem obvious to me why the economics of medical care should be so different than everything else we use and depend on.

Re: Ill in England? Your Location Can Determine If You Live or Die

#50
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a mid sized urban area, a few blocks from a large hospital. My location was certainly beneficial when I needed emergency treatment. But for anything non-emergency, the waiting lists and "pre approval" battle are appalling. My spouse, who lives in the same house, but has a different employer, gets much quicker treatment from the same clinics.

How is this? All other things equal, certain companies simply get to jump the line over others?

I’ve personally experienced insurers having different “levels” of plans, and some employers pay for a higher level of cover than others. Once, I switched employers, my new employer perchance used the same health insurer as my old employer-but at a lower level of coverage.
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