Walking Barefoot in a Pasture: Stepping in the Cow Patties of Government-Run Health Care Horror Stories (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on August 19, 2009
Finding horror stories about socialized health care is easy. It’s a lot like walking barefoot in a cow pasture at dusk… you can’t avoid stepping in something unpleasant and messy. Democrats in Congress keep pretending the bovine poopy stuff isn’t there.
Why on earth do Congress and Pres. Obama continue to push this failed concept of government-run health care down our throats? The more I read about the nightmares for so many people, the more I want to scream. After 70 years, our government STILL hasn’t straightened out the disaster and low quality of socialized health care on our Native American reservations.
It isn’t about health care, gang. It’s about power. It’s about getting more of Americans’ money through more taxation and crony pay-backs. It’s about control. It’s about the dependency that grows from increased government entitlements. It’s about weakening the provisions of the Constitution. It’s about socialism.
From Stop The ACLU: Today’s “Isn’t Government Run Health Grrrrrrreat!” Stories
While Obama and the Donkeys are working on ways to “go it alone,” meaning, “forget those troublesome Republicans, we need to spend our time wacking our Blue Dogs,” I wonder what is going on in the Wonderful World Of Single Payer?
A young mother gave birth on a pavement outside a hospital after she was told to make her own way there.
Mother-of-three Carmen Blake called her midwife to ask for an ambulance when she went into labour unexpectedly with her fourth child.
But the 27-year-old claims she was refused an ambulance and told to walk the 100m from her house in Leicester to the city’s nearby Royal Infirmary.
From the Vancouver Sun:
Vancouver patients needing neurosurgery, treatment for vascular diseases and other medically necessary procedures can expect to wait longer for care, NDP health critic Adrian Dix said Monday.
Dix said a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million.
“This hasn’t been announced by the health authority … but these cuts are coming,” Dix said, citing figures gleaned from a leaked executive summary of “proposed VCH surgical reductions.”
From Gerald Warner, Telegraph.co.uk: President Pantywaist in retreat: Barack Obama hoists the white flag over Stalinist health care proposals:
President Pantywaist has been found out and it will get worse. The one glimmer of realism he displayed was when he recently told an audience in Montana that, with regard to health care, he was “not in favour of the British system”. Perhaps he had just seen the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics revealing that more than 30,000 people have died in England and Wales from hospital infections in just five years. Translated proportionately into American demographics, that would be 150,000 fatalities. Not the best advertisement for socialised health care.
From American Spectator:
…In a sense Pepe Le Pew gets better healthcare from the government of Quebec, Canada, than Quebec residents receive. Pepe has professionals airdropping him medicine from helicopters while human Quebeckers don’t even have access to a medical helicopter system.
Quebec’s natural resources ministry uses a helicopter fleet to drop bait containing rabies vaccine in an effort to keep its skunks, raccoons, and foxes healthy.
Government-owned Hydro Quebec (or Hydro-Québec, as it’s spelled in la belle province), Canada’s largest electric utility, uses a helicopter fleet provided by a company called Héli-inter.
After the recent tragic death of actress Natasha Richardson, who suffered a traumatic brain injury (epidural hematoma) while skiing at Mont Tremblant resort, Quebec is reportedly only now thinking about acquiring medical evacuation helicopters.
Canada’s sclerotic, dysfunctional universal healthcare system stinks.
From Fort Peck Journal, Health Care Reform: IHS “horror” stories:
Health care for Indians is part of treaty rights guaranteed to all federally recognized tribes.
According to the IHS mission, they’re sole purpose is “to raise the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to the highest level.” Their goal: “to assure that comprehensive, culturally acceptable personal and public health services are available and accessible to American Indian and Alaska Native people.” Their foundation: “to uphold the Federal Government’s obligation to promote healthy American Indian and Alaska Native people, communities, and cultures and to honor and protect the inherent sovereign rights of Tribes.”
Despite their goals, mission, and promises, IHS has not been upholding their part of the deal.
Funding for IHS has been repeatedly cut over the years. For the Fort Peck Service Unit, which covers the entire Fort Peck Reservation and it’s residents, patients can only be treated if they are at “Level 12 – Life or Limb” status, meaning that a person will only be treated if they are in immediate danger of dying or losing a limb.
This status cuts off all preventative medicine and other treatments. So, someone who goes into the clinic for treatment of stomach pains will be given pills instead of being examined. With this, IHS doctors overlook the source of the problem, and it grows into something worse.
Case in point. Our current Tribal Chairman, A.T. “Rusty” Stafne, went into IHS because there was pain in his back. This was a few years ago, and then he was serving as a leader on the Tribal Executive Board. As a TEB member, he has to sit for long periods of time during long, drawn out council meetings.
Stafne had a hard time sitting down for long periods of time because there was always pain in his back. He went to IHS a number of times, and each time he was given pills but never examined. After this went on for awhile, Stafne resigned from the TEB because it was becoming to hard for him to sit for long periods of time. IHS kept giving him pills but never referred him out to be treated, so finally one day he went to a Veterans Affairs hospital for treatment. It was there the doctors told him that the pain he was having was because he had cancer, and if he didn’t go to those doctors and kept relying on IHS he would not be our Chairman today.
Other stories include a man who went in for stomach pains, diagnosed with the flu, and was later hospitalized with a burst appendix; a woman went to an IHS dentist for a check up and had her vocal cords slit; a tribal member who lives off the reservation underwent heart surgery and came back to be seen by a doctor and was told that he needed another surgery but IHS refuses to pay for it because he lives off the rez; a woman with a terminal disease was put on pain medication and when she became very addicted she was taken off the meds and died of withdrawals the same day she was taken off the script.
The list goes on, and on, and on…
From RedState:
Anecdotes revealing the high human cost associated with government-run health care gone wrong, United Kingdom-style, are endless. Emergency room patients have been left in ambulances outside hospitals for over 8 hours in order for administrators to technically (and perversely) comply with a government decree that patients be seen by a physician within four hours of entering the hospital. Disabled children are being made to wait up to 2 years for wheelchairs because the government can’t – or won’t – provide them in a timely manner. The average wait is five months, and which children even receive such equipment then is determined by government lottery.
Women are being prevented from giving birth by Cesarean Section because bureaucrats in charge of health care have decided the procedure is too expensive — a rationale being offered by the National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness for its rationing of care and denial of dozens of lifesaving and life-extending drugs, treatments, and procedures.
Earlier this year, a three year old girl had a heart operation delayed for the third time because of a lack of hospital beds. Earlier this month, a veteran of the British military had to pull out 13 of his own teeth with pliers because he didn’t win the national lottery held to see which National Health Service patients would get a chance to see a dentist this year.
These stories, and more like them, are commonplace events in the government-run National Health Service (which Obama adviser and former nominee for HHS secretary Tom Daschle has openly said he wants the U.S. system to emulate). The fact that polls are showing that the vast majority of Americans’ biggest concern about the health care system is cost, rather than the horrible access problems plaguing those suffering under the British system, begs the question of what in the world makes Obama and Congressional Democrats think trading America’s problem – paying a few dollars too many for health care – for Britain’s problems – inaccessible care that is low-quality at best when it can even be obtained – would bear the remotest of resemblances to a good idea.
From Right Pundits, France’s Disastrous Universal Healthcare:
…France enjoys a reputation of “excellent government-provided healthcare”. Regular readers of my blog know that reputation is not justified. For instance, last January 14 French Minister for Health Roselyne Bachelot confirmed that 10,000 people die every year of “medical accidents”, and there are an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 “serious undesirable events” i.e., errors per year.
France’s system is plagued with long-term problems. During a heat wave six years ago 15,000 elderly and frail people died, since the country’s poorly-prepared hospitals meant those patients never stood a chance. Many of them died of dehydration in the emergency rooms waiting for an IV.
A woman with cancer has been told she is not allowed a pioneering drug because it costs too much.
Sarah Perez, from Enfield, has undergone repeated courses of chemotherapy since she first developed bowel cancer six years ago.
After a year of good health the cancer has returned and spread to her liver and lungs.
Her oncologist says the only drug that could help is Cetuximab. But Enfield Primary Care Trust will not pay for it, saying it has to balance the drug’s chances of success over NHS resources.
Mrs Perez said: “I’m dying and this drug will probably help me.”
Encore viewing of video… I’ve embedded this one before, but some of you may not have seen it. It speaks volumes.
Shona Holmes: Warns Americans About Canadian-Style Health Care
Related reading on government-run Native American health care:
NewsVine: Promises, promises: Indian Health Care Victims
Hot Air: An American Government Health Care System You Should Know
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Native Americans Against Obama: ‘The Hype’
Indian Country Today: Trahant: The double standard of government-run health care: Indian Health Service
Mommy: Ta’Shon’s Story: A Look at the Government’s Record on Health Care
HoodaThunk?: The single-payer healthcare system in our own backyard.
Additional reading:
Telegraph.co.uk: Sufferers pull out teeth due to lack of dentists
Goodtimepolitics: Birth on pavement ‘after being refused ambulance’
NewsBusters: French Health Care Expert: France’s System Broken, Should Copy US; Media Yawn
Charles Krauthammer, National Review Online: Why Obamacare Is Sinking – You can’t fake health-care nirvana in legislation
Fortune, CNN Money: 5 freedoms you’d lose in health care reform
Jeffrey Jena, Big Hollywood: Stand Up Notes From Flyover Country: Sen. Sherrod Brown is Why We’re Angry, My Liberal Friends
Ace of Spades HQ: AP Bends the Curve of the Narrative, Admitting Obama Is Kinda Blowing It
Right Angles: Single-payer horror stories
Arlenearmy’s Blog: Will Doctors Bail Out?
Michelle Malkin: “Let’s keep turning people out for these!” and Flashback: Who’s funding the Obamacare Astroturf campaign? and Sheila Leavitt: Another wacky doctor for Obamacare; Updated and Inconvenient links of the week: Obama and the LaRouche poster and Video: No, you can’t just ram Obamacare through “fast” and Axelrod’s profits: Uh, who’s on the take from the drug lobby again?!?! and All aboard the Astroturf bus! and Grass-roots revolt in Austin, TX: “Just say no!” to Obamacare; Pennsylvanians boo Sebelius & Specter, “How can you manage health care when you can’t manage Cash For Clunkers?” and The more he talks about nationalizing health care and spending more money… and Obamacare: Code Blue and Barack Obama speaks the truth! Update: Mayo not okay-o with Obamacare and The Obamacare horror story you won’t hear and Obamacare bogus statistic of the day and Obamacare bogus statistic of the day, Pt. 2 and Undercover at an Obama health care meet-up
QandO: Skeptical Americans Continue To Say No To Democratic Health Care Plan
Ann Coulter, TownHall: Take Two Aspirin and Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4
Gerald Warner, Telegraph: Legal outsourced suicide for Britons would be a decline into Netherlands-style degeneracy
Vigilocanis (Watch Dog): Critical care breast cancer patients wait average of 34 days under Scotland’s government run system
American Thinker: Congress on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
The B.S. Report: Video Of The Day: Glenn Beck; AARP: Leading The Elderly To The Slaughter?
VotingFemale Speaks!: Obama-Pelosi Declare WAR; Demonizing Health Industry; Warning, Socialist Demons At Work
Lighthouse Patriot Journal: Govt Watch: “Change” For the Worse and No Marked Change in Politics as Usual
American Spectator: Imagine You Are a Doctor
Sister Toldjah: Canadian Med Assoc. prez: Let’s fix universal healthcare with … more universal healthcare
Clinging to G & G: A few simple facts
John C. Phillips, Big Hollywood: ObamaCare: From the People Who Brought You the Post Office
Nice Deb: OUT: Public Option IN: Health Care Co-ops (With Updates)
Liberty’s Army: Betsy McCaughey: Government-Run Health Care’s Assault on Seniors
New York Times: For Public, Obama Didn’t Fill in Health Blanks
Hot Air Green Room: Obamacare would already be law, if not for you stupid Americans
Senate GOP Doctors: Have a Better Plan for Health Care, Not Socialized
Frugal Café Blog Zone: “War on Senior Citizens”: Mark Levin Interviews Dr. Betsy McCaughey on ObamaCare Details and Billions, Trillions, and More: CBO Releases Appalling Dollar Amount for Crappy ObamaCare and Dems’ Sheep-herding Health Welfare Program Like Eastern Bloc: Reckless Disregard for Economic & Fiscal Reality and Audience Cracks Up When MO Rep. Carnahan Claims ObamaCare Will Save Money: “If It’s So Good, Why Doesn’t Congress Have to Be on It?” (video) and Rush Limbaugh: Obama on Edge as Magic Fades; DeMint Hits Nerve with “Waterloo”
About the author
Excited to come across this website. I sure would like to see in the next two
elections an operation clean sweep of the congress. Also, why don’t the American’s demand what ever healthcare bill congress passes that it must also apply to them.
Conservatives need to be thinking about buying out a liberal news station, such as
ABC, NBC,CBS, to name just a few. I would donate money towards this goal.
Great idea, Nancy! Personally, I’d go for CBS because I think they have a cool logo. That big black eye has always fascinated me. And because I’m still seething about the hatchet job Katie Couric did when she interviewed Sarah Palin. If we buy CBS, Katie would be the first one kicked to the curb.
I know I’ve heard or read a number of folks demand (and I’ve brought it up in posts) that Congress should test drive the government-run health plan for a few years. Of course, they’d have to pay for it themselves, unlike the current “super deluxe” health care plan we help them participate in now. If Ted Kennedy was on ObamaCare, well, darn, he’d be a goner long before now.
There are some in Congress I’d keep: Boehner, Jindal, DeMint, Kyl, Bachmann, Coburn, and a few others. The rest? Hmmm… I hear that “green jobs” are the latest fad. Barney Frank would be excellent doing cartoon voices.
Thanks for your input, and I hope to see more of you, dear friend.
YES! I agree, love to buy out CBS and Katie sure got under my skin when she
interviewed Ross Parole with such hostility
in 1990. That’s when I started disliking her.
I believe there is a movement in this country with regular folks who
never took a stand, are now are coming out and expressing their
concerns and ready to stand up for their Liberities and Freedom. I am for
one, one of these folks. I feel encouraged with all that I am reading and
seeing on FOX news. People need to be educated on parties and I would like
to see people having to take a test on whether they understand the principles of
each party, and our Constitution when they register to vote.
I totally agree with you, Nancy. If I watch any news (and I avoid TV news as much as possible, preferring to read Internet sources) the only one that makes an attempt to be fair and balanced is FOX.
Couric is a terrible anchor… and her ratings are so dismal, it’s obvious I’m not the only one who thinks so.
You’ve gotten yourself a big job, Vicki!
Keep up the great work. Great examples you posted in this article!
Market-driven healthcare is the answer!
Vicki McClure Davidson
I’m a conservative frugalist. My priorities: Watchdogging the government, making sure our tax dollars are spent wisely, living within our budgets (at home and in Washington, DC), and adhering to our Constitution and the conservative principles upon which it was developed by our founding fathers. Also, loving God, my family, and my country. Be wise, be frugal. God bless America!