Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Unfortunately – Fortunately

Unfortunately yesterday my wife and I spent four hours in the Emergency Room. Fortunately, we were able to go to the Emergency Room and receive good timely medical care. Fortunately the USA is a rockstar in the medical care arena compared to those countries that unfortunately have a single payer system, as is illustrated by the following true story.

Fortunately, while on a recent December trip, my wife and I met a wonderful couple, Ken and Pat, from Liverpool, England. Unfortunately, in mid-December Pat began having trouble with her knee. Fortunately, she was able to get an appointment with her doctor on the 27th after she returned home . . . unfortunately it was not until January 27th.
We recently received an email from Pat on 2/4/2018. It read verbatim as follows:
“Still having trouble with knee, doc says X-ray shows mild arthritis, and not much else, can’t have scan till I’ve had physio which I have to wait 4 weeks to ring and then wait for appointment, then if still bad will refer me to specialist who can scan me! But talking to people I think the world has arthritis and I’ll just have to manage pain. Its less painful today so more positive. Trying to walk longer each day, the weather here is cold but dry.”

As I am sure you are all aware, England’s National Health Service (NHS) is a single payer system with the payer being the British government. It is free at point of use, and is paid for by general taxation. For all intents and purposes, it is designed to be inefficient, and by our standards, very inefficient. The NHS came into being in 1948, and so Pat who is in her late 60s has used NHS all of her life. Reread her email, and note that she is not complaining that she has had this knee problem for over six weeks, and there is no diagnosis in sight. She is not complaining that she will not see a specialist until probably April. To me, the problem is not arthritis, but probably a medial or a lateral collateral ligament issue, and the probability of getting it repaired within six months of its onset, is close to zero, as the median wait time for elective surgery in England is close to six weeks. She is not complaining because the NHS is the only healthcare system that she knows, whereas in the USA these long delays would not pass muster.
Unfortunately, here in California all of the potential Democratic candidates in next year’s election for governor are all espousing “single payer healthcare.”
A few questions for these candidates: “How will this be paid for?”
“Would the medical care be similar to that in England?”
“To which states will the California patients with torn medial or lateral collateral ligaments go for expedited care?”

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