What if Ted Kennedy lived under socialized medicine

Our good friend the Dowager Viscountess sent us a link to a great post on All American Blogger where Duane Lester explores what Ted Kennedy would have to expect from a nationalized health care system if he were an ordinary working class citizen:

Imagine for a minute that Ted Kennedy lived in an America where the government ran health care, and he was what pundits and talking heads like to call a “working class” American.

He’s sitting in his kitchen, reading the paper and eating his morning breakfast when he starts convulsing uncontrollably. His wife makes the call for an ambulance, only to be told that the ambulance would be there as soon as their government mandated break was complete. Unlike this British man, who died from a heart attack five minutes from an ambulance station while two ambulance crews took an EU-mandated break, the ambulance arrives before he expires and gets him into the back of the vehicle.

Ted rides to the nearest hospital and his ambulance parks outside the building, but he is not unloaded. Instead he sits. And sits. And sits. For nearly five hours, Kennedy waits in the ambulance, “in a holding pattern”, waiting to be allowed in the hospital. He can’t be allowed in because the hospital can’t treat him immediately, and they have a government mandate that says patients have to be treated within four hours of admission. So rather than being treated right away, Kennedy is stacked outside the hospital in an ambulance. During that time, other 911 emergencies are left unattended by his ambulance because it is being used to meet government regulations.

Finally, he is allowed into the hospital and seen by a doctor. Like 55 other people this month, his cancer is misdiagnosed. The doctor finds Kennedy’s seizure to be caused by high blood pressure. Instead of treatment for cancer, he is given medication for his blood pressure.

In the following months, he has more seizures, resulting in more visits to the hospital. Kennedy’s health suffers from these visits, as he finds himself exposed to germs and viruses from the hands of the doctors treating him. While he is one of the 300,000 people to get sick from the hospital, he is fortunate. None of the doctors, even the ones who go almost 20 patients before washing their hands, give him MRSA. Eventually, he takes to demanding doctors wash their hands before they touch him.

Finally, after more than a year, his cancer is properly diagnosed. However, Kennedy and his family are shocked when they are told that he is too old to be treated for the disease. The doctor tells him, “The health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone. And really, with your age we can’t justify free treatment if it were unlikely to do you good for long.” Later, another doctor tells him that the treatment is very expensive and because of his age, he won’t be treated.

Kennedy takes his case to the media, and the outrage that follows compels the health service to treat his cancer. But before the treatment begins, another obstacle blocks his path to a cancer free twilight. He’s too fat. The head of the local hospital tells him, “We have limited resources and it’s sensible to use money where we know treatment is going to work.”

When the Secretary of Government Health Services is asked about the policy, it isn’t rejected, but embraced.

“Hospitals are absolutely entitled to set their own treatment guidelines.”

Kennedy again appeals to the public via the media and another outrage ensues. The government is shamed into treating him despite his weight. His doctors recommend their treatment, but he knows that by adding the drug Avastin, his chances of survival are increased. He mentions this to his doctor. He is told that there is a three year waiting list for the drug. Plus, it is just too expensive.

“If millions of dollars are spent on cancer treatment then there will be less to spend on, say, heart disease and arthritis. For example, it costs $40,000 for a two-year supply of Avastin. That could buy six hip replacements.”

Kennedy says he has the money to buy the drug himself, and will if the doctor will approve it. He is told that, despite the fact that three other patients in the area are paying for the drug privately and still receiving treatment, for him to do that would result in him forfeiting free treatment in the future.

A government spokesman explains, “The government says the rules on this are clear. You can’t mix and match between private care and public care.

Patients cannot, in one episode of treatment, be treated by the public and then allowed, as part of the same episode and the same treatment, to pay money for more drugs. That way lies the end of the founding principles of the system.

You either go all public and it is free, or you go all private and you pay for everything.

If those who can afford it start ‘topping up’ their care it will create a two tier system. What about those who can’t afford Avastin?”

Eventually, Kennedy is allowed to pay for the drug himself, but by then the cancer is advanced and the drug does little to help.

Duane goes on to point out that all of the obstacles Kennedy faced in his story are based on real events which occurred under government run health care systems. Then he notes that in real life Kennedy, having all his wealth and power, would simply fly to a nation which still enjoyed a free market in medicine and receive the best care possible.

The left-wing politicians and the Lear jet liberals in Hollywood and the elite media who are calling the loudest for socialized medicine know that they will never be required to wait in line for their health care. They know that they will never be told that they are being denied a life saving drug because it is too expensive or that they will not receive treatment because they are too old or their health is too poor to make them a good risk.

No, the people who will die while on waiting lists or be turned down for treatment because they are too old or too fat or because they smoke or have some other factor which makes them a poor candidate for receiving rationed health care are all going to be faceless drones who live in flyover country.