DJH: In case you didn’t know, I had a Total Hip Replacement Thursday night. It was at the New England Baptist Hospital, which specializes in major elective surgeries like spines, hips, knees, etc. My story is a little unusual, but it demonstrates exactly why we have the best health care system on earth and what has been put to risk with Obamacare.
I won’t bore you with the details of my ailments, but I will tell you that it took over a year to diagnose my left leg problems as hip arthritis. I live in Southeastern Massachusetts, near a typical suburban healthcare center in Dartmouth MA. At first, we thought it was a knee problem and then spine. Since spines are serious stuff, I decided it was worth the trip to Boston (to New England Baptist) to see Dr. Eric Woodard. He looked at my back MRI and said it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the source of my problem. He was the first one to suggest that I might have a hip problem. That was April 28th, about one month ago.
I immediately started researching hip replacement on the Internet and by the time I met with my first hip surgeon, I already knew that there were new techniques available that minimized muscle damage, recovery precautions, and resulted in very quick recoveries — that’s what I wanted!
On May 11th, I met Dr. Carl Talmo (also at NEBH) who specialized in all of these new techniques. I immediately told him I wanted him to replace my hip and that I would take any cancellation that opened up in his schedule. Within a few days, we were booked for May 27th — 16 days after I met Carl.
What a great decision? I was out of the hospital in 2 days and walking within 3 days (although a little shakey I admit).
What does this have to do with Obamacare?
Let’s start with New England Baptist. It’s a great private hospital that prides itself on innovative techniques. It attracts the best surgeons for the same reason that the New York Yankees attract the best baseball players; the best want to work with the best and get paid for their performance. The halls of NEBH are lined with plaques honoring the thousands of private donations that made the hospital possible. The NEBH is truly a hospital where great doctors go to seek perfection in their trade. They earn good money and they are supported in great part by grateful patients; all of this is brought to you by the private sector.
Here’s the thing, along the way, I met surgeons who haven’t learned these new techniques. Sure, they do a good surgery, but the patient takes months to recover. Their patients are stuck using a walker and all sorts of devices to hobble through life. But, bad as this sounds, these surgeons are all very busy. They have plenty of patients and a 6-8 week wait for surgery. These guys are not willing to take the time and buy the equipment needed to do the kind of work Dr. Talmo is doing at NEBH.
The beauty of our system is that we provide the kind of entrepreneurial environment that produces guys like Talmo and rewards him for discovering and perfecting the kind of medical breakthroughs that enable me to walk 4 days after getting a new titanium hip. And, under our current health care system, I can choose the surgeon I want.
Hip Replacement in Canada
A recurring claim from the left during the Obamacare debate was “it will be wonderful — just like Canada, and everyone in Canada loves their healthcare system!” While I was researching hip replacement options, I discovered this woman in Canada named Sigrid Macdonald. Sigrid had a hip replacement like mine and wrote a book about it called Getting Hip.
The idea of the book and her blog: Sigrid’s Recovery, is to provide hip replacement patients with tons of tips for preparing for hip replacement surgery and then dealing with the months of recovery that follows. Clearly, it is a book that assumes the reader gets the “Canadian Version” of hip replacement. As I contrast my own experience with her blog, the differences make your hair stand on end; here are just two:
Waiting Time: As I said, a total of 16 days elapsed between my first meeting with Dr. Talmo and my hip replacement. Here’s what Sigrid had to say about waiting times under Canada’s National Healthcare system:
“We have universal health care in Canada. When it works properly, our Medicare system is fantastic because everyone is insured. Health coverage is a right in this country, not a privilege. However our health care system is overburdened and under funded. Consequently, there are long waiting list to get in to see a specialist and even longer lists for surgery. I had to wait 18 months for my operation. This was in addition to the 18 months that it took to decide that I was going to have the joint replaced. That translated into three completely lost years for me.”
Three freaking years! I can tell you that I would not have survived waiting three years for my new hip; but wait, there’s more:
Recovery Time: Since heath care in Canada is provided by the government, they don’t tend to be on the leading edge of new techniques. In fact, if you go to the government in Canada for a new hip, you get one using the traditional technique. Keep in mind that I’m walking after 4 days when you read what Sigrid said about here recovery time in Canada:
“I had a significant degree of pain and swelling in my leg that lingered for months after my THR. Although I was only 50 years old, which is young in the world of hip replacements, I needed to use a walker for more than ten weeks. I spent an additional eight weeks on a cane. Instead of feeling well three months after the surgery, my hip did not feel anywhere near normal until five or six months postoperatively.”
This is so sad, and so unnecessary. Americans need to get past all of the Disneyland promises regarding Obamacare and look at what we really have and compare it to the “models” Barrack Obama has laid out for us. The contrast is painfully striking. Today, I just talked about Hip Replacement, but think about all of the other specialized techniques in the medical world, and think about all of the innovative doctors and surgeons of tomorrow who are now rethinking their career plans in light of the oncoming government takeover of health care.
I really think we need to keep up the good fight and vote for candidates who will repeal Obamcare. The alternative is just unthinkable!
Dave
Great post! I’m so glad you got the new hip and are recovering well–and so thankful for the current healthcare system that allowed you to do so!
Hi Dave,
First, let me say that I’m so glad that you are making a speedy recovery. I’m happy for you and thrilled that you received excellent care.
Second, thanks for mentioning my story. My recovery was a nightmare, which is why I was careful to include several Americans in my book, to ensure that I didn’t portray just the Canadian experience.
I totally agree that wait times in Canada are insane. Now I need a knee replacement. I was referred by my GP, after suffering for several years with tolerable pain, to a joint clinic at the hospital recently. They said my knee joint is shot and that I can see the surgeon on July 15th. He will then put me on his TEN MONTH waiting list. EEEK. I swore last time that if I needed a new joint I’d go private but I can’t afford it, so I have to wait (me and my Percocet).
I don’t view Obama care as you do (I’m still a Democrat at heart), but what I think he should have done is simply insured those who couldn’t afford healthcare – sucked the low income people up into Medicaid, or expanded Medicare for those age 55 with low incomes. Then he could have left everyone else who was happy with their good healthcare alone!
There is no comparison between the two countries in terms of joint replacement or seeing specialists; Michael Moore definitely got that one wrong by interviewing a skewed population of happy campers.
Take care and stay hip! Sigrid
[…] 2, 2010 by Dave Horne DJH: My post Monday on My Hip Replacement and Obamacare seems to have struck a nerve. Although it came out on Memorial Day, I received a record level of […]
Hi Dave,
I can certainly relate to your pain as I too had to have a hip replacement. I will tell you, you are one of many who can afford healthcare, and are able to choose your doctor. I was not as fortunate. I am a waitress and have been one all of my adult life. I am a single mother who, sorry to say, but thank God for that, because I would have never been able to aford my hip replacement other wise. I had medicaid. I went through 2 othopedic sergeons that told me that my hip is “dead”, and that I need a hip replacement, but that I was too young, and all they wanted to do is give me pain pills. A whole other story, right? 6 years later, after I could barely walk, I finally found a teaching hospital who would have one of the best othopedic sergeons do my hip. All I paid for is gas money to get there because it is 2 hours away from my house. Thanks to medicaid.
If I would have known that I would have such a physical problem, I may not have took up waitressing, but then, if we all thought like that, who would serve your meal to you when you and your new hip go out to a restaurant.
Did you read that it took 6 years, I was in pain for 6 years. I live in USA. Now, I am almost perfect, and my hip is great. I am working again, waitressing… but in school to get a profession that there is an opportunity to get affordable health insurance. Like I said, if I would have thought like that before, who would serve you your breakfast. Service industry is in such high demand, people don’t realize. Your hairdresser, waitress, plumber, handyman etc. There is little to do with affordable healthcare for the majority of these service people. That is a problem that I hope to see change with.
Hi Julie,
I am glad that you are doing better and sorry you went through that. I can tell you that my research has shown that the time you spent in pain is comparable with that suffered by people in countries with national healthcare who ultimately get a joint replacement. Sadly, in many cases many never get the joint replacement they need under national healthcare.
Why did you lose Medicaid?
Understand, I am not saying that you should not receive care, I’m saying that Obamacare and Obama’s economic policies aren’t the answer. Personally, I actually have a very cheap insurance policy that a young waitress could afford (I priced it from my 25 year-old daughter 2 years ago and it was under $90/month). Thankfully my policy grandfathered from Obamacare. That said, the premiums have almost doubled since Obamacare passed, DUE TO OBAMACARE. At 59, I could not afford the “Cadillac” policy that Obama has dictated everyone buy in the future. By the way, I had to pay $7,000 out of pocket for my hip replacement — I saved up $5,000 before hand and then borrowed the remaining $2,000 and paid it off over 18 months.
Also note, one of the reasons we even have the chance to get a hip replacement is because a US private sector corporation MOTIVATED BY PROFITS took a risk, invested THERE OWN MONEY and invented hip replacements.
The government never would/could do this.
Obama is lying to the people about this problem and his solution will not work, It is an economic fact, that we cannot give ever American a Cadillac insurance plan as Obama has falsely promised. If we let him have his way, we’ll end up like England, Canada, or worse. Yes, everyone will have “access” to healthcare, but the quality will be more like the service you received, than the service I received.
I don’t have a perfect solution, but I know that it must include several things that are not part of Obamacare for political reasons:
1. It cannot include illegal aliens (Obamacare does).
2. It must tackle frivolous lawsuits (Obama promised to do this in the 2010 SOTUS, but then failed to do so).
3. It must drive down the cost of deliver like Paul Ryan’s plan. There are many great HMO’s in the US who can provide good healthcare at lower costs under a voucher program, they just need the kind of incentive a national voucher would provide.
4. Insurance companies must be allowed to compete across state lines to drive down costs through competition (Obama does not allow this).
Most importantly, we need to get the US economy growing again to create the national wealth needed to fund this critical social program. The only way to do this is get rid of Obama on Election Day.
Dave
Im from UK .several of my family have had hip or knee replacements under the national health service with no problems.If we thr US have worlds best health care why are we ranked so low in life expectancy & infant mortality rates?
[…] had my hip replaced 3 years ago and for me it was a total miracle cure. My old hip had deteriorated to the point where I could […]
[…] My Hip Replacement and Obamacare | Who Stole My Career? – May 31, 2010 · Hi Dave, I can certainly relate to your pain as I too had to have a hip replacement. I will tell you, you are one of many who can afford healthcare, and …… […]