Still On Hold For Meal Breaks in UK

Geezer,

I feel you are using this case as an argument for your opinion on Public Health Care and the health care reform that is currently being discussed in the US. First, I feel you as a former fire service employee who responded to numerous misuses of the system and saw first hand how people use the EMS system as a first line, and mostly only line of treatment for any and all illnesses should want and even demand a change to our current health care philosophy. Second, the system being discussed in the US is completely different from that in the UK. What the US is discussing is more of a Canadian/Japanese model of health care. You keep what you have if you want it, or you use the “Government option” which in reality is just medicare/medicaid (which we all already pay for in out taxes) except EVERYONE can use it, not just the old/young. A common misconception is that the government is going to COMPLETELY take over the health care system (like in the UK) and run the private providers out. While there are some who would like this, a majority would just like an *OPTION* to use medicare/medicaid or even just keep what they have. This system would be more of a true free market since the competition of the government would force the private company’s to regulate their prices for everyone.

Also, here’s a great article that debunks what many claim about the Canadian system:

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12523427

Progressive Medic A.K.A. Nancy Pelosi … I’m not gonna drink your Cool Aid …

>You keep what you have if you want it, or you use
>the “Government option” which in reality is just
>medicare/medicaid (which we all already pay for
>in out taxes)

No, you’re paying for medicare/medicaid for the elderly & incapable.

If you think your current Medicare deductions will cover healthcare for all you’re sadly mistaken.

As someone affiliated with Fire/EMS you’ve got to know the problems with Medicare already and their instances at below market rate reimbursements. If you tried to apply those rates across the board you’ll crush both the healthcare providers and any private insurers out there — providers being forced to accept too low a rate due to the clout of the “public option” and private insurers trying to match the policy prices of the public option that can charge low prices on the backs of providers.

Boston Medical Center is getting clobbered since they lost the subsidy for poor patients when Massachusetts adopted their “Universal Healthcare” and re-allocated that money towards paying insurance premiums for the poor. While they have more patients with insurance now, the payments are adding up to less then they used to get subsidized. $38M loss this year, $175M next year. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/07/12/boston_medical_center_forecasts_first_loss_in_five_years/

Yes, there are problems with how we pay for health care in the U.S.

But it’s not going to be fixed just at the Federal level. It’s got to be fixed from the ground up, and that means putting more market forces into play.

– Make medical savings accounts / high deductible standard…or for goodness sake, at least give us the option so people aren’t locked into boondoogles like Social Security. Let people actually save their own money to pay their own bills and take it with them when they change jobs. If we had that model instead of conventional insurance, I’d have $50k in medical savings right now — enough to pay the premiums on a high deductible policy and the deductibles for three years.

– For the catastrophic care part, what insurance is truly about — protecting you from financial loss, not having to just pay $5 when you see the doctor instead of $100 — make sure it’s tied to regional costs so people ask why are their hospitals charging so much more then another area.

– Yes, we need some state/national program partnerships. We need programs for chronic illness/long term care…something that’s probably best handled by a national insurance pool (with some regional pricing adjustments). We need true welfare for the needy.

– Let’s stop this middle class welfare state where people “spend down” their assets so Medicare pays for their nursing home. A person’s life savings are meant to support them in old age — not to buy their kids a new car so the government will pay for their nursing home.

What we don’t need is single-payer socialized medicine. What we don’t need is “public option” (if you think they can control costs…take a look at public colleges, public schools, and the post office). What we don’t need is Congress trying to establish one “best system” for the entire nation — we live in a federal republic for a reason, so states can make numerous decisions at a more appropriate level. What we don’t need is a national database of health care information that WILL be abused by both the government and nosey healthcare workers.

What we need is a market place that works, that has insurance companies limited from becoming too big by federal anti-trust/monopoly/competetion laws, that has insurance companies regulated by the states to keep from screwing people, that has low barriers of entry for new insurers to step in to offer plans to compete. We need portability between jobs — something that a medical savings / catastrophic care package works well to provide. We need to establish that customers who pay cash get the lowest price offered to anyone. Rather then single, monolithic databases to be perused at will we need a system where people can carry their information between offices on their cellphone or a USB key and keep it private, while allowing the people who need to know it to know it just while they need to know it.

Most of all, we need people who take responsibility for themselves and we need to stop teaching people to always look towards the government for help and to call 911 if they stub their toe. Raising a nation that is told it’s OK they can’t pour water out of a boot when the directions are on the heel is no way to continue a great nation.

It’s all connected — it’s not a failure of government, it’s a failure of individual responsibility we must confront.

Progressive Medic is right, there are better ways to do healthcare. I find it ironic my foster kids have better benefits than my own children with my career fire dept. bennies. Early access and primary preventative care save over catastrophic costs if things are left to the last minute(i.e. trips to ER). The insurance companies are lobbying Congress to the tune of $1.4 million per day to keep the status quo. “Personal responsibility” is a fine mantra when you are healthy and the most expensive treatment available is/was leeches. It is a smokescreen by wealthy corporations and their shills who wish to continue the downward spiral of the American middle-class to the point we are all non-union and compliant wage slaves grateful for their crumbs. Healthcare tied to employment is one more tool to keep working people from seeking new or entrepreneurial opportunities. A public option would also eliminate the ridiculous worker’s comp system that saddles so many small businesses with needless overhead and regulatory hurdles. The UK has it’s problems (and I would love to see if our Yankee ingenuity could fix those EMS delivery problems, sounds like a fun grad student project in public health!), but the rest of the Western world can’t be wrong. And strangely enough “American” corporations (based in the Caymans, of course)somehow do business in those countries and succeed despite all of the “nanny-state socialism” the righties scream about. We will always have slackers, miscreants and mutts in our society. I already pay for all of the irresponsible people, let me and mine get at least the same level of care I subsidize for them. Well, at least I feel better…that was therapeutic. Love the site Geezer!
FF Dave RN

Well, what’s an emergency? Is every call that comes in for an ambulance an emergency? If so, yes, the medics should get hygeine breaks. The dispatchers shouldn’t hold the calls, but the breaks should be scheduled such that there’s overlapping coverage.

There’s no real reason that the line-level medics need to sacrifice their physiological needs because the EMS management didn’t plan for coverage.

That being said – when a discriminating dispatch system is in place – medics should be able to go on a break, and still be immediately available for relatively rare (Delta, Echo) calls.

When *everything* is an emergency, *nothing* is an emergency.