National Health Care? "Elderly left at risk by bidding to find cheapest care"

Due to a scarcity of resources, the UK's NHS has now undertaken "reverse auctions" to find the cheapest care for seniors and end-of-life patients.

Elderly left at risk by NHS bidding wars to find cheapest care with reverse auctions

An online auction system developed to buy cheap office suppiles and stationery is being used to buy end-of-life and dementia care for vulnerable elderly people.

The NHS in London has held a series of 30 “reverse e-auctions”, where bids are driven down instead of up, for £195 million worth of contracts for palliative and dementia care for patients leaving hospital.

Reverse auctions to buy care for the elderly are relatively new and The Times has found that standards and quality have deteriorated rapidly where they have been used.

www.timesonline.co.uk...


This is exactly the type of program Obama described last month in his NYT interview.

Despite Congress' pronouncements to the contrary, and in keeping with what they actually intend, Obama's health care plan will not follow the EU model of "insurance-oriented" health care coverage.

Instead, it will follow the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which have failed miserably to deliver quality care to the uninsured.

"Congresswoman Admitsa Obama's Health Care will Destroy Private Insurance"[url[www.abovetopsecret.com...[/url]


I am not a fan of insurance. Ours is a dysfunctional system.
But, I detest dishonesty in our government even more!

We are being lied to, and manipulated without any resistance, into programs we neither need nor want. The results of these 'sneak attacks' and 'stealth legislation' will be our undoing as a Republic.


"Obama's 'Crisis' Agenda"
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Deny ignorance.

jw

[edit on 2-6-2009 by jdub297]

I didn't save the article or start a thread with it, even tho' I cited it and referenced it quite a bit, but here's the gist of Obama's plan, in his own words:

... part of what I think government can do effectively is to be an honest broker in assessing and evaluating treatment options ... .

... when I talk about the importance of using comparative-effectiveness studies as a way of reining in costs ... it is an attempt to say to patients, you know what, we’ve looked at some objective studies out here, people who know about this stuff, concluding that the blue pill, which costs half as much as the red pill, is just as effective ... .

Whether ... to give aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. ... the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill.

I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. ... And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.

"After the Great Recession"
New York Times Magazine, April 28, 2009 (published in print May 3, 2009)
www.nytimes.com...

So, looks like BHO wants pretty much what's going wrong in the UK, "cost analysis" without the "benefit" counterpart!

I hope we don't get too sick after next year.

deny ignorance
jw

This is becoming a major issue throughout Europe, primarily as a result of an ageing population which is living longer and growing larger. It is difficult to imagine any funding model which can adequately cope with this situation. Having said that, it is clear from experience in the UK that once you start involving agencies driven by the need to make profits, care standards tend to suffer. There is also little evidence of 'efficiency' benefits either. The situation in the UK is confused by a split in responsibility for care of the elderly between the NHS and Local Authorities (Town and City Governments.)

It's interesting to note that charities who were increasingly providing care services paid for by the NHS or Local Authorities, are refusing to get involved with this.