When America inevitably votes itself something called universal health care, it is my belief that we’ll see more stories like this one: Tape shows woman dying on waiting room floor
A 49-year-old woman collapsed and died on the floor of a waiting room at a Brooklyn psychiatric hospital and lay there for more than an hour as employees ignored her, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which on Tuesday released surveillance camera video of the incident.
While casual readers will come away with the impression that this woman died because of a failure of private healthcare, I am not a casual reader.
The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which oversees the hospital, released a statement Tuesday saying it was “shocked and distressed by this situation. It is clear that some of our employees failed to act based on our compassionate standards of care.”
Sounds like another one of those callous private companies that only cares about profit, which we’ve all been taught is evil - only government can force people to be good and honest, right? The truth is that profitable companies are the ones that do a good job of providing health care. Government, which doesn’t have to turn a profit because it takes all its funding by force, is generally the agency that provides the most mediocre health care. I should know, I’ve received this type of mediocre care in the military. No choice, I just got whichever doctor was on duty, no matter how incompetent or bored they happened to be. Some of them were bored and incompetent. A few were pretty good. But I didn’t have a choice which ones I got. It was a crap shoot every time I needed treatment.
The key to this story is that New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation has a .gov web site - it’s a government agency. A bureaucracy. This lady died under the “care” of a government agency, the same kind of care you can expect when you vote for universal health care.
What is HHC?
The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) was created by New York State legislation in 1970 as a public benefit corporation, governed by a Board of Directors, to oversee the City’s public health care system in all five boroughs. The Corporation consists of 11 acute care hospitals, 6 Diagnostic and Treatment Centers, 4 long-term care facilities, a certified home health care agency, and more than 80 community health clinics, including Communicare Centers and Child Health Clinics. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, MetroPlus, HHC operates a Health Plan which enrolls members in Medicaid, Child Health Plus and Family Health Plus. HHC facilities treat nearly one-fifth of all general hospital discharges and more than one third of emergency room and hospital-based clinic visits in New York City.
Someone should ask Barack Obama or John McCain (who will play along with the idea of health funded by theft) why this lady who was being provided New York’s version of universal “health care” had to die on camera on the floor of a psychiatriac ward.
The inevitable clarion calls for more rules, more oversight and more bureaucrats will be heard because people are naturally horrified by such a lonely and undignified death. In ignorance, we will march one step closer to ultimate mediocrity in health care and our options will narrow just a little further. More people will go crazy as they realize that freedom of choice in America is just a pipe dream. Some of them will die while being prodded by the indifferent foot of a bureaucrat. The cold eye of a surveillance camera paid for with tax dollars stolen from that person while he or she was still sane will record the entire event, a silent witness to the involuntary downward spiral that happens in a society with too much government and not enough love to go around. We’ll find out what her name was, and we’ll vote for more cameras and more rule books and more petty authortarianism and then we’ll forget about the woman who died alone on a cold floor in a cold room in a city populated by more government employees per capita than almost any in the world. See your future if you can. Maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt it.
13 comments ↓
I am an American living in Australia in my fifties. We have medicare here for all ages so we get universal health care. We can also go private too if we want to. I use the public system right now due to immigrating. It is a great system and I am so happy we are lucky to have universal health care.
Without knowing the medical history of the woman who died it’s impossible to comment directly. But, if she had health coverage she may have been more inclined to see a doctor before her condition got to the state it was in.
People without coverage consistently wait until they have no choice.
You don’t see news reports about this thing happenning in countries where universal health care exists.
Kevin, actually you do see news reports about this happening:
Britain’s Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals, and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment. In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that “access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare.”
Undoubtedly, proponents of universal health care will respond that the government just isn’t “doing universal health care the RIGHT way”. Just as all statists respond when the inherent flaws of government control. If only they could get the “right” leaders or the “right” welfare program, then everything would function smoothly. However, there will never be a politician or government program that can make the unnatural system of defying the free-market and using force against innocent people work.
Debbie, I’m glad you are having a good experience with your universal health care. I hope you continue to have a good experience. I don’t know enough about Australian health care to comment. I do know that Canadian socialist health care was not to my liking - waiting and waiting for an appointment to get seen by a doctor didn’t suit me.
Actually, Kevin, you do.
Reference: http://www.nupge.ca/news_2000/News%20May/n12my00a.htm
I don’t think there is a perfect health care system in existence, but I want the most choice possible and I don’t want government or bureaucrats deciding which treatment I can get or when I can get it.
Some people die because they cannot afford healthcare. Some people die because they receive healthcare.I don’t think that the method of payment has anything to do with it. But I would posit that the more that receive healthcare, the more that do live. I fail to understand why some people want other people to pay $1,200 a month for health insurance when that person earns $3,000/month in their job. What is the sense in that? And why do some people want you to go without health insurance when you are between jobs? (What is COBRA except a governmental medical mandate that benefits the in-betweeners?)Should every person have access to healthcare? Some say yes. Should people be denied healthcare because they cannot afford it? Some say yes.Should people be forced to spend every last dime they have on healthcare before the government starts to pay for it? Some say yes. Only three entities pay for healthcare: you , your company, or your government. Some say you cannot afford it, some say it is not right that companies pay for it, some say that government ought not to pay for it.If we do not use the wealth of America to pay for people’s healthcare then where are our values?”Bombs not bandages” and ”a strong military but not strong medicine” simply cannot be the values of America.
There is literally no possible way that universal health care could be worse than what we have now. You must have insurance. I do to however my mom who raised 3 kids cleaning houses to survive never has. She has lived in pain for a long time with bad knees however doesn’t have the $30,000 cash for knee replacements. No insurance company will insure her with her existing health conditions. She would HAPPILY get on a 1 year waiting list to be able to walk without pain again. With our current system she has already been waiting 3 anyways! LIterally the only way that private health industry can work is for them to take in more money than they pay out. Why don’t we just pool our money together like the amish, as a whole country and be done with insurance companies, lol. Obviously the fact that hospitals like this one exist prove that our current privately run hospitals fail to care for those who are truly in need. Imagine how bad the privately run hospitals in the area must be that a governemt agency had to step in and open this rat hole! The author references their personal experience in universal healthcare system comparing it to the military. Has the author ever read about how universal healthcare works in most civilized countries? It’s not like your block has one doctor and he is the only one you can use, lol. Yes for the rich people who can afford the best healthcare in America, universal healthcare would be a step down. To the millions of Americans who literally can’t even afford to see a doctor, it will be a pretty huge step up. For people like me who are average middle class americans with health insurance, it may be a slight inconvenience. A small price to pay to make sure we take care of ALL of our fellow Americans.
Actually, the author has experienced universal health care personally - the author is a Canadian. Rich people will always have access to better health care than poor people. I’m somewhere in the middle and I don’t want government making my health care choices for me. I’m sorry your mom has bad knees but I fail to see how that should be a financial burden on me. We’ve been sold so many social programs in the decades since the “New Deal” came along. I feel the burden on me is now completely unfair.
The “small” price I have to pay to take care of everyone else continues to grow, and it is now at a point I find completely unacceptable. I am not responsible for the lifetime choices of everyone else in this country - if I wanted socialized healthcare, I would just move back to Canada, or emigrate to Australia.
This may sound harsh and uncaring, but as someone who has already tried the “pooling” system, I’m not a fan of how it actually works. I don’t want to be forced to pay for the bad choices of all my fellow Americans. I don’t want bureaucrats putting me on an enforced diet, telling me I can’t smoke or making new rules about what risky behaviors I can engage in.
How long will it be before I have to wear a helmet to go outside, or have a government monitor come check whether I’m following the prescribed health regimen the government has assigned? No thank you.
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Trevor, Is it only about the money that comes from your pocket? If so, that problem can be solved by a business-to-business tax or it could be solved by a fee on all imports to pay for the America’s healthcare. Let the darn Euro/Japanese-buying public pay for healthcare in America.Better yet, let’s take the money away from farm subsidies and let it pay for healthcare.One day you will be old and out-of -work. You will need continuous medical care to live your final years mobile, without pain, and not bedridden. On that day someone else will be paying for your medical care. Will you then refuse it? If we cannot use the wealth of America to take care of the old, the infirm, the mentally deficient, the very young, and the person born with health problems then what has Man wrought with the abilities that God gave him?I don’t know that I support any specific plan as the answer but I do support a plan to provide healthcare for those who need it. It is indeed sad in America that free healthcare can only occur when your family savings are drained and your house is sold to pay your medical bills.There are people who once owned their homes and had good jobs until their health went bad. They lost their jobs first, then their homes, and then their life savings.
No, it is not only about money coming out of my pocket. It is that the money is taken out of my pocket forcibly. If you do not believe that our taxation system is one of coercion, stop paying your taxes and wait for the men with guns to come threaten you. They will come. For a medical system to be efficient it must be voluntary. Yes, one day I may be old and out of work. In fact, I am planning for that day. I have savings, a 401K and other assets that I am building. I do not count on Social Security, although I have been paying into the system my entire working life.
I am saddened by people who lose their life savings because of medical problems. I also think they should have prepared better. I donate some money to charitable organizations to help such people. The donations would be much higher if it were not for the theft that is occurring out of my pocket. This theft occurs by people who did not ask me if I wanted to pay for such and such a project and who will send people with guns to punish me if I decide that their projects are not worth of my money.
I support social networks for people who have bad circumstances, but not at the point of a gun. I support better education too, but it will never happen when a coercive bureaucracy is in charge.
There is no such thing as free health care. Someone must pay for it. If you take away a percentage of my income to pay for the health care of a stranger, without my voluntary consent that is the definition of theft. This may sound harsh but it is also true. Theft is morally wrong, no matter what your intentions are.
When you hide theft behind words like fairness and tell me that one day someone else will inevitably be paying for my health care, you are being slightly insulting. I am not angry at you for that, but I believe you have not thought the issue through properly.
Why is a person who I’ve never met entitled to the fruits of my labor, against my wishes? Explain this one point satisfactorily and I will never again rail against socialism in any form.
Until you can explain why helping people works better at the point of a gun than it does when I choose who to help with the resources I have gathered, I will keep writing these blog entries, hoping that a few others will understand that our entire federal government is corrupted - predicated on the idea that theft is OK if you do it for good intentions.
I may die alone and penniless. I hope it will not be in a government psychiatric hospital where well meaning people forced me to go against my wishes after having robbed me of portions of my income for my entire life while telling me what they were doing was morally upright because everyone should be forced to pay a middleman with a gun and a rule book who will help us all help everyone else.
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