Universal Healthcare Falls Short

At this time USA citizens are being offered various proposals to beef up healthcare, with the aim of assuring good care for as many people as possible. There is at least one cry for universal healthcare, which implies a single provider, giving the UK and Canada as good examples of this. However, a new report in the British Medical Journal Online shows that follow-up of older people in the UK with cardiac problems is far from ideal.

A group of cardiologists from Bristol and London studied the course of 1,375 consecutive patients who had been recommended to have coronary angiography, based on a diagnosis of probable stable angina pectoris. In fact, in the subsequent 5 years, only 420 of the 1,375 (30%) actually had angiography. The researchers analyzed which patients were less likely to have this exam. These were: patients over 64 (vs. those under 50), women rather than men, south Asians vs. white people, and poorer vs. more affluent people. Those subjects who didn’t have angiography when it had been recommended were more likely to have a coronary event (e.g. a fatal or non-fatal heart attack, unstable angina, or a fatal abnormal heart rhythm).

This report indicates that, within the UK National Health Service, significant numbers of patients fail to get the follow-up cardiovascular testing necessary to help prevent an early death or heart attack. Let’s hope that whatever develops with healthcare in the USA , we don’t end up in this sorry state. (However, maybe we should conduct a similar study in the USA now, to see just where we stand with regard to cardiovascular follow-up exams, before we jump to conclusions.)

Comments

[Canada life insurance]

Universal health care is not the solution without mistakes. I have some professional experience from Europe and also here in Canada. Public health care have to at least cooperate with private sector. I am selling optional health insurance in Canada and here it covers about 30% of overall health care expenses. But the usual problems of universa care - funds wasting, lack of medical staff, long waiting terms - can't be solved so easily...

Lorn

[Aaron R. Vega]

Another angle of this issue is the way our system of government treats the disabled. I am an attorney and advocate for the disabled. There is currently such a backlog in the system that people who are unable to work and require benefits must wait years in many cases to have their claims processed. The current bureaucracy is not working. Given the nature of government, universal healthcare will most likely only multiply those problems and extend them into further areas. Doesn't seem like the best approach. Feel free to visit me at www.aaronvegalaw.com.