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Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

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Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#71

Post by spywaregorilla »

sickofparadox wrote: post #39
czzr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So socialised medicine works?

If by "socialized medicine" you mean public option health insurance, then yes it does work. I'm willing to bet, though, that the poster you're replying to only received care from privately run hospitals/clinics, so calling it socialized medicine seems misleading.

US health is socialized in that the public will pay for it if you're willing to game the system like the uncle in this story, plus spin the wheel of chance to see how much you'll how privately anyway. I don't think the uncle here acted maliciously or TRIED to game the system, but that is what happened and that is what will continue to happen with this shitty half implemented system.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#72

Post by ben_w »

bananapear wrote: post #45

But what has caused the collapse of emergency healthcare in the UK? A lack of supply or an increase in demand?

Both. Demand has increased faster than expected because of covid, and supply has been hampered by covid, but even in the counterfactual world that has not faced this pandemic the UK has not funded enough nursing places to meet the previously forecast demand (the ageing population told us demand was going to go up, but the government cut funding in 2017 that reduced nursing degree applications in England and Wales by 23%), and Brexit reduced the number of nurse applications from the EU.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#73

Post by refurb »

pjc50 wrote: post #50
refurb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nahh... when people say "the vote was manipulated" what they mean is "the vote made no sense to me personally, and clearly the voters can't be blamed, so it must have been manipulated". There are plenty of examples of billions being thrown at campaigns and barely even moving the needle (e.g. Bloomberg's $1B fight for the Presidential race where he didn't even get 1% of the vote).

People aren't arguing that the vote was manipulated in the UK, rather that the voters were misled, especially by the partisan media.

I know.

What I'm saying is that what people see as manipulation of voters (nobody could ever believe that!) is actually just another valid opinion that you so happen to disagree with.

Nobody was deceived. Nobody was manipulated. The voters just don't agree with you on this issue.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#74

Post by jrochkind1 »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #19
t3rabytes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Not) Luckily the US healthcare system is already collapsing without social medicine, so it’s not a great talking point. Staffing and supply shortages paint a bleak picture over the next few years.

"the US healthcare system is already collapsing" What do you mean by this, specifically? People not having insurance? Increasing deaths inside the hospital? Large numbers of people turned away from emergency rooms? I'm questioning this because with the exception of malpractice, the U.S. healthcare system seems to be working quite well, despite the large numbers of uninsured and those who cannot pay. I just don't buy…

I think there are a variety of ways the US healthcare system is collapsing.

One way I experience, relevant to OP, is that even with "good" health insurance, I can't manage to get an appointment with most specialists faster than 3 months, and I can't even see my primary care physician faster than 3 weeks (at best) -- in case of something "urgent", maybe in 2 or 3 days.

This may be especially bad in the region I live in, I'm not sure. When I ask around, many of my friends in other regions have similar experiences. It is not in fact true that those in the US can generally see physicians without long waits for appointments, currently.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#75

Post by skeeter2020 »

bzxcvbn wrote: post #56
Overtonwindow wrote: post #15

What if the government allowed private enterprise to open emergency clinics in times of great need? There are probably a lot of people who would be willing to pay out of pocket for medical care, especially in an emergency, if it meant getting seen sooner.

The USA have tried, it doesn't work. People still wait hours and hours in the ER. They just have to pay thousands for the privilege.

This isn't exactly true, nor what the GP is suggesting. Supplementing public service with private is already happening in the UK and very common around the world in even the most socialized, public systems like Canada. Where the US shines is high-end ongoing treatment, for which you do pay big bucks.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#76

Post by spywaregorilla »

pjc50 wrote: post #54
spywaregorilla wrote: post #43

I don't have time to go in depth on this but I'm a bit skeptical of the claims here After adjusting for age, the english excess death rate is 5% above. It is the highest. But it also just came from being the lowest several months ago. How much natural variance is in this data. Is this moment noteworthy? Is it possible we're not seeing more people die sooner but rather a large chunk of people putting off death a few m…

> This does suggest the general problem is really that we don't know where to put all these incapable poor health old people. This has been the case for years: there are plenty of people who should not be discharged home to fend entirely on their own, but there's no social care in place to look after them, so they aren't discharged. This is also technically the responsibility of the local council rather than central…

But my point is that this seems to have been a gradually growing problem for some time, but the recent spike from covid is likely a temporary bump greatly exacerbating it. It'll drop down again. Then, gradually, climb back up to where it is now. If it reverts to the mean quickly, it still won't take that long to get to where it transiently is now based on a straight line trend so maybe it's just a point of pedantry.

tl;dr at a glance it looks like lingering effects of covid have pushed the english health care system into a state a single digit number of years ahead of schedule. It will likely wear off, but getting back on track isn't much of a relief.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#77

Post by brutusborn »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #66
Overtonwindow wrote: post #15

What if the government allowed private enterprise to open emergency clinics in times of great need? There are probably a lot of people who would be willing to pay out of pocket for medical care, especially in an emergency, if it meant getting seen sooner.

Tell me, if you are having a heart attack or have had a stroke, how likely are you to have the mental fortitude required to realize that not only is there a for-profit emergency service, but you can pay to get seen now? Probably not very likely. If your emergency is urgent but not actually life threatening, then you might. You might - might - think of it if you have gall bladder or appendix types of pain, if you aren…

Your strawmam is accurate, stroke survivors will need an ambulance. But you're forgetting that a lot of people get driven to emergency by friends or family. And if those bystanders pass a private hospital on the way to public emergency, they could decide their friend / family members life is worth the extra cost. Of course it wouldn't work for everyone, but it would ease the pressure on a failing system.

Also your tone isn't conducive to a constructive discussion and is not appropriate when responding to someone who is suggesting ways to make the world a better place. Just because you can't imagine someone's idea working doesn't mean it's a bad one.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#78

Post by nradov »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #58
nradov wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 10% of Americans don't have medical insurance. That number has been fairly stable for several years, so it's not great but also not a sign of collapse. https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2021-11-17-cdc-reports-uni...

Isn't that 10% stat potentially hiding issues of co-pay, deductibles, network range, and actual level of coverage?

Nothing is being hidden. High deductible health plans have been popular, especially among younger consumers. The federal government has specifically promoted those as a way to hold down healthcare expenses, and enrollees receive income tax benefits.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db317.htm

Health plans are required to meet network adequacy requirements.

https://www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/network-adequa...

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#79

Post by ben_w »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #55
M2Ys4U wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This Twitter chap" is a journalist at the Financial Times and is a senior fellow at the London School of Economics. He's not just some rando bashing government...

Logical Fallacy: Appeal to Authority I would trust a rando more than a journalist these days

Even though I frequently make note of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect, I'd still rate journalists higher than randos.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#80

Post by skeeter2020 »

nindalf wrote: post #29
vfclists wrote: post #2

Someone should ask the guy to publish on a blog and link his twitter to it.

Blogs don’t make sense for the most prolific creators. Here’s something I saw recently > I gave up blogging after decades because the ROI simply wasn’t there any more. Why spend hours on a post that will get hundreds of views when a tweet composed in minutes gets tens of thousands to millions? https://twitter.com/carnage4life/status/1559852146601799683 And it’s the same with Scott Hanselman, who’s quoted in that twee…

Scott Hanselman states he stopped because he was tired, not that he's switched mediums. The Tiktok / YT comment was a joke; he still does lots of media for his job though.
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