............ermmm no it doesn't!!?? It mean that taxes are raised centrally and given to Heath Trusts to allocate to their regional hospitals, accident and emergency centers and community medical centers etc......
M'kay....one other thing Andy, no health system is perfect as you will recall.....
.............
That wasn't the fault of the health system. The system, is the set of situational rules the govern how an industry operates. In which system do you think a screwed up doctor would never have made a mistake like that?
In fact, a socialized system, generally is more likely to make mistakes. For example a few years back, a VA hospital hired on a doctor that proceeded to kill 25% of the patients he operated on. One in four were killed.
Now the VA Hospitals in the US are completely run by the government. Like in most socialized care systems, the government has tried to hold down costs by reducing pay. In April of 2008, the Medical Center Director gave a
statement about the VA hospitals in San Francisco. One of the interesting points was that for a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists, the going free market labor rate was $171K, whereas the VA hospitals only paid $139K.
The result is, getting good quality people to work there is difficult. When the cost of schooling to become a CRNA can be nearly $100K, why would you take a 20% cut in pay?
The result is people who likely would not get a job in the open market, can at a government run facility desperate for help.
The result is people like Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez. Dr. Jose had worked at another hospital in another state, and had killed a few patients. An investigation was opened on him, and he quit, moved to Marion, Illinois, where he got a position at a VA hospital. There he killed 10 people, and botched a large number of other surgeries.
VA Probes Doctor's Role in Patient Deaths
Now, in a privately run Hospital where patients are valued customers, and upholding the reputation of the Hospital as being safe, making sure that you have good qualified worthy staff is very important. There are several national data bases that store information on doctors that are under investigation. A private hospital will carefully check the qualifications, and reputation of the doctor before hiring.
In a socialized VA hospital, no such concerns are present. After all, the hospitals single customer is government. The ability to please the government is limited to making sure they stay within budget. The patient is merely a number, a problem that needs dealt with. So when a doctor shows up offering to do that job, at a greatly understaffed VA Hospital that can't compete wage wise with the private sector, he is hired instantly... and the results... well you see what they are.
Another example, actually comes from the democrats who support socialized care. Yet it shows conclusively how it doesn't work. Of course they won't admit it.
Please read "
Healthcare: A Tale of Two ERs" from the Momocrats web site.
I'll give you a quick run down. A DNC activist, got sick during the democratic national convention. Worried she might have gotten pneumonia, she decided to go to a care center. The first place she went, was a socialized publicly funded center. She was treated like crap. She waited for hours with no service. The people were rude. No one cared a wit. She complained to the staff, and they just shrugged at her. Why? Cause she's not the customer. Government is. As long as the customer, government, is happy, they get paid regardless of what the patients think.
Then in disgust, she left and went to a private, pay-for-service (read evil greedy capitalist) care center. Shockingly she was treated like a customer. The people were friendly. She was given quick, prompt service. Within the hour, she was checked, and given medicine for her illness, and was sent on her way, like a valued customer.
Again, the point is, socialized systems are no good. Ironically, after so clearly being shown the difference between the two, this DNC staffer amazingly blamed republicans for the bad experience she had at the socialized care center. Proving once again, idiots can not be taught anything.