When going to a birth center resembles a Russian roulette, with no guarantees that the mother and child will be healthy & cared for, you know that a health care system has failed. Unfortunately, this is the case with Romania's rotten universal health care system. A warning to all those universal-health-care-gurus in the United States. There is no glamor to a corrupt, mismanaged, state-run system. And no reliable, equitable treatment either.
According to the UNICEF data, Romania has the highest child mortality rate in the developed world: 19 deaths per every 1000 newborn children. The chart shows many former Communist countries ranking close – such as Albania (18/1000), Russia (17/1000) or Serbia (15/1000). But some formerly Communist countries like Slovenia or the Czech Republic have fewer infant deaths even than the US (7/1000). Another grim statistic where Romania holds the leading position is the one regarding mothers who die at birth.
Beyond the statistics, a recent case shocked the Romanian public: 40-year-old Natalia Ionescu died on October 11 in a prestigious birth center in Romania’s capital Bucharest, after delivering a boy in a C-section. Her husband, journalist Mihai Ionescu, claims she was not given any transfusion after 12 hours of massive blood loss.
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Dec 18th, 2007
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Thanks for this. Let’s be sure that if we do implement universal healthcare, we treat the system like the military (essential, with no significant compromises) rather than letting it go the way of Romania.
And don’t forget that there’s no glamor to a corrupt, mismanaged, state-enabled corporate system. And no reliable, equitable treatment either.
Lets avoid both the scenario that you described *and* the one I described, and let’s not let either side of the debate pretend that their healthcare examples from around the world would necessarily guarantee success or failure of a related system here.
From the Czech government website:
“The system of health care is funded from the state budget through public health insurance. It is mandatory for all citizens of the Czech Republic and foreigners with permanent residence in the Czech Republic or employees of companies with seat of business in the Czech Republic to participate in this system by regular financial contributions.”
So does universal health care mean greater or fewer infant deaths than the U.S.? Depends on who’s administering it, evidently. The Czech Republic has a state-run system that outperforms the U.S. on this benchmark.
Mike L, would you care to give an example of a state-run healthcare system that did NOT have problems like those in Romania?
Yeah Mike, please tell me a socialized medical system that does not have systemic and significant problems.
Oh, and fishbrake, I fail to see how people and private businesses paying for other people’s healthcare is an advantage. To me it sounds like theft. If I stole from someone else and bought health insurance would that be right? So why is it ok for the government to do that?
Britt, you’re turning this into an ideological argument instead of a practical one and you’ve misrepresented what the Czech system does. It’s “universal” because everyone pays and everyone gets health care. If that’s theft then so is taxation to pay for roads, police, water, military, and any other government service. Maybe you’re opposed to those things too - it’s a point of view but it doesn’t have anything to do with whether a universal health care system can be better than the poor example in Romania or what we have in this country. Under the Czech health care system less babies die than in either Romania or in the U.S. - that’s a simple fact.
Universal healthcare structured like the military? Unlikely. You can’t order voters around. The military is structured more like a communist/Spartan dictatorship under democratic civilian control.
The way I see it, universal healthcare could very well be argued by pro-business folks as a national competitiveness issue. A US universal system would need to have care provided by private industry in competition (with states electing to have state hospitals if the voters wish, but without restricting the ability of private practice to compete), a minimum standard of care decided by a BRAC-like commission of medical experts, funded thru income or payroll taxes, and with insurers either bidding for blocks of people or accepting a universal healthcare voucher.
An American system that involves private industry, competition, but with federal standards (like, say, USDA or FDA) and paid for by individuals instead of corporations (so corporate tax rates won’t get any less competitive) makes the most sense to me. But such a plan would be thwarted on all sides, so it’ll never happen.
“Letà€™s be sure that if we do implement universal healthcare, we treat the system like the military (essential, with no significant compromises)”
Problem is that is unGodly expensive. There NEVER is enough money- just read the British press for a week or two- they’ve been pouring money into their NHS and it has done little or nothing. It gets eaten up by higher salaries and unnecessary procedures.
Obviously a blood transfusion after a C-section is not an unnecessary procedure- but the blood and the $$ have to come from somewhere.
From what I’ve read, most of the US mortality during birth (for women) is due to an over reliance on C-sections, even when there is no reason. Second child births become far more risky. As for child mortality, much it comes from poor prenatal care major problem in the south.
I was born in Romania, raised in the USA and married a Romanian trained doctor who left in disgust because of the pervasive corruption in the system.
There is a separate military system in Romania so you don’t have to leave the country to see the difference a military and civilian approach to universal health care. I once met a military surgeon and he explained why he joined the military in Romania. He explained that if the standard of care for a surgical tray was that there were 5 different types of sutures, the civilian system was so ill funded that there was only 1 of the 5. The military system was much better off. They had 2 of the 5. Military principles don’t overcome a lack of money.
Socialize medicine and you get a huge cost sink, corruption, and an eventual breakdown in care as the money runs out. Romania’s just at the end stages of the road. They’re actually trying to transition out of the government system. It’s incredibly hard and people are unnecessarily dying while waiting for the transition to finish. Progress is so slow.
Oh, and by the way, the Ionescu case? Find out who the doctor’s daddy was and at what age that doctor finished their fellowship you’ll have everything you need to judge what happened.
The old corrupt system is currently shambling on because the medical insurance groups will only reimburse work done through hospitals. Private practices can only take cash patients. Romania’s still a very poor country. Cash patients are really, really rare.
Anyone care to explain why the US, with one of the worst (government-run) education systems in the developed world, would do any better with a government-run healthcare system?
Last time I checked, Rumanian highschoolers performed much better in international comparisons than their US counterparts. A freshman college history textbook in the US is written at the same level of sophistication as a 5th-6th grade Rumanian textbook (if I can find the link, I’ll post it in another comment).
My bet is that should the US go with national healthcare, it would end up resembling the situation in the schools: the upper class (not to mention politicians) in first-rate private care, the upper-middle class living where the best public care is available, and everyone else stuck in a third-rate, failing public system, impossible to reform due to the political clout of public sector unions.
And spare me the bogus claims that it’s already that bad; I grew up here working class, spent 8 years on an extremely limited income (sometimes paying for my insurance out of pocket), and have since lived probably a total of 2-3 years in Europe, both east and west (and now another 3 years in Australia). The US system is absolutely first rate with, admittedly, inefficient funding of health care for those without insurance (i.e., emergency rooms for routine care plus lack of preventative care). I invite anyone who disagrees to visit a clinic or hospital in Greece, southern Italy, or Bulgaria (I have no experience in Rumania). Czech care is good but basic - I’d have kids there, but wouldn’t want have to have cancer treatments, for example. Australia, after encountering problems similar to those in the UK, is privatizing their health care as fast as they can - people are paid (by way of tax rebates) to go on private insurance by the age of 30; I doubt the new Rudd government will change that, it seems popular. When I underwent (fairly major) surgery in Australia, my surgeon flat refused to do it in a public hospital because of the high post-operative infection rates (among other reasons).
We’ve got such a good system now, serving over 250 million people very well, that is would be a tragedy to make the perfect the enemy of the good and wreck it for everyone, instead of making reforms to better serve that last 50 million.
If we do go with a national health system, there ought to be a law that all the politicians have to use it - in Washington DC (as should be the case with public schools).
Was it Rudy Giuliani who said, “If we go to Universal Health Service, where will the Canadians go when they are sick?”
I have lived and worked in Prague for the last seven years, my kids were born here, before that I lived and worked four years in Moscow. I have clients in Romania, and have also worked for clients in Slovakia.
The US should not use any Universal Health Care system, but it is extremely naive to hold out any Eastern European system as a guide for anything.
Like may foreigners here, I arrange my finances to pay as little local tax as possible. (Set up a company, pay yourself minimum wage, etc). And no, we are not freeloading, we do not use the medical system for anything and we do not intend to become pensioners here.
The company pays 24% corporate tax, so we help pay for the cops and the roads, and it is to our benefit since the government takes 35% of gross wages. BTW, the employer pays the government 40% on top of the gross wage. Governments here control more than half of GDP.
We use private UK insurance and pay USD 10000 per year for a family of four. If we paid for Czech insurance based on my income we would pay more than USD 25000 a year. And note, there is no cap on this.
As in other countries that suffer from Universal Health, the best doctors are in private practice and take cash or private insurance only.
The CR is probably the best in Eastern Europe but as another commenter said, you don’t want to be really sick here.
In a country like Romania, if it is anything like Russia, and I would be surprised if it was one iota better, you bring the doctor a nice gift to be sure to have her full attention, you bribe the ambulance driver taking your father in law to the hospital, so they don’t stop somewhere and get drunk on the way, you pay the doctor USD 500 cash so you ‘will be sure to have clean angioplasty equipment’, etc etc.
Please don’t think I am making any of this up. Come live here for yourself and then thank God you live in the United States.
And if you think the Western Europeans have it any better, look at this blog:
http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/
Clostridium Difficile, ring a bell?
If only Hungary had it as bad as Romania does.
They’re imploding, too.
Think a month’s delay for hernia surgery, unless you can pay a very hefty bribe to the hospital to bump it up.
(real case going on with family, right now)
Be careful comparing infant mortality statistics across countries. Very few countries even attempt to keep
hi,
New hopeful Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton says that if elected, she will deliver on a new universal healthcare system. The problem is, she doesn’t have a plan.
I don’t think is fair to make the Romanian health care system an example of the failure of socialized medicine. Some of you maybe don’t know, but Romania is still recovering from the most destructive dictatorship in Europe, one disturbingly similar with North Korea. After the 1989 revolution, the communist economy collapsed and about 35% of the GDP melted away (keep in mind, that Romania was already the poorest country in Europe except Albania). Until recently, Romania was spending about 2%-3% out of a budget of around 20 billions of euros on health care. Take into account that the economic collapse was so destructive, Romania was the first country to have more pensioners than employed. This year, for the first time, the budget (around 40 billions euros now) sets aside 6% for health care. For the last approximately 40 years, the infrastructure was extremely neglected (no hospitals built, no new ambulances, etc), and only recently the system had enough money to start repairing the hospitals or invest in new equipment. But Romania is still unable to pay its doctors and nurses at levels comparable with other Central European nations so a lot of them (usually the best trained and most talented) choose to leave. If any of you think is possible to set up an efficient health care system with a budget of several billion euros, for a country of 21 million with 25% of its people living below poverty line, with 35% of the population surviving on subsistence farming, you must be nuts.
For the government to provide healthvare would be an aweful idea. People dont realize that if that is the plan then we would have to pay for it anyway through taxes. And if that wasn’t so then they would cut funding in other important areas like welfare or school funding. Also for the government to provide healthcare nothing would be done well. Think about how many government services that the government has right now that dont run nearly as smoothly as we had ever hoped. Such as the U.S. income tax system when they first provided It collected just one percent from the highest income citizens. A few years back the government made a tax siplification guide which was over 1000 pages long. Every trip to the doctors office would become a political battle the government would not look into every case wich they shpud although its nearly impossible to do so. For example if someone wanted a breast reduction surgery for the reason of looks, the person who needs the same surgery for back prblems would be denied. What about a hysterectomy for fibroid problems? What about a nose job to fix a septum problem caused in an accident? All would be denied for the reason of it being an “Elective Surgery” People wont decide not to go to the doctor for little things such a a cold or a sprained finger. They will figure, “Hey I’m already paying for it why not.” Doctors would have to spend time on more patients with minor problems and people with critical problems would have to wait. Doctors will have poor flexibility and patients will recieve poor care. Also wages would probobally be lowered and may prevnt those who would evntually become a doctor. Noone is going to go to school for 8 years and want to reciev mediocre pay. Healthy people who hardly ever have to go into the docor will have to pay for people who abuse their bodies. Smokers, overeaters,people who dont excercise, and even drug users will be people who you will potentially be supporting. The entire health care industry would be worthless countless people would be tossed aside. There would be a long and arduous task of patient record creation and new database construction wich would aslo cost large sums of time and money.