I rarely see television programs as I gave up television at home over three years ago. However I do still catch snippets of TV shows here and there. At my gym there are many different televisions on, most turned to ESPN or one of its related stations but a couple are tuned to other things. Normally I only watch the highlight plays between sets or read the scores on the news crawl. Today as I was walking back from the water fountain, I glanced up at the TV in front of the steps back down into the equipment room and saw some chuckle head on a CBS morning news program saying how we could save billions of dollars on health care because experts estimate that 40% of elective procedures are unnecessary. If I'd had a dumbbell in my hand, I'd have heaved it at that dumbbell on the television.
There are two things that immediately pissed me off about his idiotic segment. First is that elective procedures are just that: elective. They are not done because there is an immediate need to do them to save a life. They are in that sense all 'unnecessary'. Second, what right does some numb nut on TV or the government have to tell me that I can't have an elective procedure? This is all a part of the debate on nationalized health care/socialized medicine in which proponents try to explain how health care is so expensive because we're wasting it and if the super smart government were running things, it would bring that same level of efficiency and cost-effectiveness for which it is known.
Maybe I should not be so pissed off at the stupidity of saying that 40% of elective procedures are unnecessary. It is like saying that 40% of all laughter is unnecessary. How the hell do you measure that? Every elective procedure is technically unnecessary or else it wouldn't be elective, but critical. Every laugh is similarly unnecessary as it is not essential to the physical life of the person laughing. But who's to say whether or not you have a right to get an orthoscopic procedure to reduce pain in your shoulder or to laugh at a joke? Isn't that your right? What happened to the "it's my body" argument the left likes so much? Sorry bub, just go through life in pain because the government doesn't think your elective procedure is necessary...oh and no laughing at anything but Al Franken and Wanda Sykes.
You know what? If Michael Jackson wanted to go from a black man into a white woman into some sort of freak show, so be it. He paid for it (in more ways than money) and it was his right. If some woman wants to get bigger breasts or smaller breasts because it will make her life better for her, then so be it. If some guy wants a vasectomy so he doesn't have to wear condoms all the time, so be it. If some woman wants surgery to correct TMJ so she stops having frequent migraines, so be it. What right does some bureaucrat or empty headed news spewer have to say no?
This is what it means to have socialized medicine. Some pinhead will say no to a medical procedure because he thinks you don't need it. Some of the procedures mentioned in the news segment: angioplasty, by-pass surgery, joint surgery, hysterectomy, etc. That's right. You didn't have a heart attack yet so no angioplasty or bypass for you. Here's a bran muffin. You aren't crippled to the point of legal disability? No knee surgery for you, here's a brace. Post menopausal with a family history of uterine cancer, but you don't have it yet? No hysterectomy for you. Here, have a bran muffin too.
That is the idiocy that was being passed off as news and 'evidence' for why government running medicine would be better. We could just have the government say no to 40% of elective procedures that are "unnecessary". Somehow I bet that all the elective abortions performed are considered "necessary" even though preventative angioplasty is considered "unnecessary". It is all such complete b.s. and the morons who think it is a good idea should have a "necessary elective procedure" to have their heads examined.
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Comments: 15
I totally agree with you on this one! There times when someone needs operation and some moron at the insurance company {who has NO medical experience} says it is not needed. Now we are going to give power to a government pinhead? It is time that the medical profession does medicine and the government runs {or at least tries} to run itself.
Mike,
Do you believe Obama is lying when he says that under his proposal, the private insurance industry would be left intact and everyone could keep their current plans?
Single-payer national health insurance is not supported by the White House, and therefore, it's not on the table. I'd stop worrying about it.
Just because something is not supported by the White House does not mean it will not pass and does not mean it is not a good idea.
You're right on both counts, George. But I don't believe there is even enough support among Congressional Democrats to pass such a plan. The real battle here is whether to give a national health insurance OPTION to people who are not currently insured, or who can barely afford the insurance they have now. Obama might push for single-payer if there were a chance in hell it would pass, but it won't, so he won't. He's being realistic.
..and ...
Out here in August Pres Obama has gone back and forth a couple of times but has landed firmly on the side of supporting a single payer /public option (eventually indistinguishable from each other) plan . . . I think. He has always touted that so even if he backs off from it, it's still his ultimate goal today, tomorrow, next year ...
Erik Edson Jun 10, 2009, 11:09am EDT
Mike,
Do you believe Obama is lying when he says that under his proposal, the private insurance industry would be left intact and everyone could keep their current plans?
Single-payer national health insurance is not supported by the White House, and therefore, it's not on the table. I'd stop worrying about it.
Obama will say anything. Congress writes the laws and Congress is full of socialized medicine supporters. If the Congress passed a socialized medicine bill that affected everyone, Obama would sign it. I oppose his proposal and any other government run medical program for any segment of the population or all of it. Government's role is not to be a medical provider.
If we get socalized medicand or any form of national health care elective surgury will be eliminated under the plan. No insurance covers elective surgury anyway and to include it in health care costs is padding the cost of care to make it sound a lot more expensive and to sell national health care.
"This is what it means to have socialized medicine. Some pinhead will say no to a medical procedure because he thinks you don't need it."
Actually this is what we have now except the person making the decision works at an insurance company. Except for the tiny percentage of people who can afford to pay for medical expenses out of pocket, everyone else is already in this situation.
A study came out saying that 70% of all back surgeries are performed on people where the doctor doesn't know the exact source of the pain. A full 50% of knee surgeries would be better treated with physical therapy and lifestyle changes, which are necessary after knee surgery anyway. And even a Congressional subcommittee that was heavily lobbied by the medical industrial establishment determined that 90% of hysterectomies are performed more out of myth and folklore than out of medical effectiveness. The fact is, what we have isn't working, and Obama's only been in office 6 months, so he obviously didn't create this fiasco--the responsibility falls on the shoulders of all Dems and Reps. One of the best books about the toll of too much medicine on this country is THE H WORD: The diagnostic studies to evaluate symptoms, alternatives in treatment, and coping with the aftereffects of hysterectomy. It's easy to spout off, but the facts are overwhelmingly telling us that we need less surgery and better, cheaper access to emergency care.
Doctors recommend too many elective procedures in order to protect themselves from lawsuits, unnecessarily increasing the cost of health care.
It isn't the doctors then, it is the slip and fall lawyers. If we passed tort reform, then maybe this would stop.
Mike says:
"First is that elective procedures are just that: elective. Second, what right does some numb nut on TV or the government have to tell me that I can't have an elective procedure?"
Right on Mike!
You hit the nail on the head!
Knocked it out of the park!
If a consenting adult wants to have a procedure done, who are we to say no? Like, why would tell a gay man that he can't have a monogomous relationship with another man, right? Or, why would we tell a dying grandmother that we are forcing her to live when she would rather have doctor-assisted suicide, right? And, why would we force a woman with a 6 week old embryo to carry an child to birth and then raise it or give it up for adoption, right?
I am with you Mike.
Or am I?
I'm with you on the first two, but on the last there is the issue of the rights of the human life being carried and not just the rights of the human life carrying it.