Socialized Medicine Looks Inevitable
It's almost too late to stop Washington's waltz towards government health care.
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The words “socialized medicine” and “universal health care” have very different effects on one’s heart rate, depending on one’s politics.
If you call yourself a “liberal” or a “Democrat” the words create an uptick in the heart rate that feels remarkably like the first giddy surge of middle school amore. Splurp, plup! goes the heart, and the world is a beautiful place. “Every person will be insured! Every medical need will be addressed! Oh, look! Daisies and puppies! Yay!”
If you call yourself a “conservative” or a “Republican” the heart rate still ticks up, but the giddiness comes from a lack of oxygen as one contemplates the hand of Big Brother reaching into the chest cavity and giving the old pumper a good long squeeeeze. “Every person will be insured? Every medical need will be addressed if you survive the waiting list! Oh, look! The Four Horses of the Apocalypse, and politicians riding every one of ‘em! Nooooo!”
Both reactions are extreme, of course, but it is worth noting that the daisies and death-horses are only six months away from becoming permanent fixtures in our lives. It happened without any particular clamoring — yae or nae — on the part of a populace enjoying nearly two decades of essentially full employment, with majority participation in employer-sponsored health insurance programs.
Beyond a sense that health care in general is a good thing and people should have it, notoriously unwonky Americans seem not to have been paying strict attention to the issue. In October 2007, Americans told Gallup that health care reform was important, but hey, any old plan would do. Writing for the Cato Institute, Michael Tanner noted:
[The poll] showed more than half of Americans support every suggested health care reform, from the most market-oriented policies to total government control, even when those policies were mutually exclusive. More than half of voters said yes to a government-run single-payer system. But an even larger majority — more than 77 percent — favored “reducing government regulation of insurance.” [emphasis mine]
So, Americans are largely incoherent on health care. We would like a government-controlled program, unregulated by government, please. The stories from Canada and the UK sound troubling; the stories from France sound more reassuring. We’ll have what they’re having, but with extra choices on the side, because we’re Americans!
Tell the truth: when you should have been pondering government and private-sector health care proposals in anticipation of this day, you were watching Dancing with the Stars. You can admit it — everyone else was, too — but it might be time to start paying attention, because incoherence coupled with recent feelings of economic insecurity may not translate into a levelheaded vote. Then again, it may not matter. In his column, Tanner gives bare outlines of the proposals being talked up by Senators McCain and Obama and writes:
It’s anybody’s guess how [McCain's and Obama's policies will] develop. But as November approaches, voters will reach a fork in the road, and as Yogi Berra says, they’ll take it.
Some time after Labor Day, many Americans will start to focus on the November elections, and they’ll be surprised to learn that while they were at the mall, government-run health care moved from being a vague idea to an essentially “done deal.” In just eighteen weeks Americans will, with every vote, submit to the idea of the government — that master of mismanagement — having a formidable control over their health care. Logic dictates that the common realities of age and illness — which come to us all — will steadily endow the government with ever-increasing authority over life choices and inevitable intrusions into decisions that should be private.
Once the thing is put into motion, there will be no pulling back. American presidents may peacefully surrender their power, but bureaucrats never do.
It may be too late to wonder — at this eleventh hour — if the free markets, local communities, and our elected officials have really done all they could to develop creative insurance alternatives to the super-sized government “solution” that will quickly affect our economy and slowly erode our freedoms. Will we look back and ask, perhaps naively, why citizens lacking work-connected health insurance could not have simply bought into the same or similar plans that covered state employees? If low-income families found the premiums too dear, might they not then have been able to use a tax-credit or deduction to offset that cost?
After taking the intractable step of handing our choices over to lawmakers and legislators who lately get almost nothing right, will we wonder why we did not encourage professionals and organizations to pool their resources and design flexible insurance plans with affordable rates.
Perhaps we’ll look back and realize that our own hobbies or fraternal associations or cottage industries could have organized and crafted insurance policies into which the similarly situated, but under-insured, might have participated. Could NRA members have purchased health insurance through the NRA, Greenpeace members through a shared Greenpeace plan? Why did we not consider a Southern Baptist health insurance plan that members could pay into? Why couldn’t the Masons, the Elks, the Knights of Columbus, or even large “internet communities” have consulted with insurance companies to create nationwide member health insurance programs and supplementals that were affordable in their spheres?
We cannot say we were not warned. For more than 15 years politicos and media folk have asserted the need for government-managed health care, until their drone became little more than background music to our daily waltzes. But knowing the government wanted to mandate health care coverage for every citizen, perhaps Americans should have taken some time to investigate exactly who the “millions of uninsured Americans” are; many of them are young adults choosing to opt out of coverage. Perhaps we should have attempted to first demonstrate that the government could successfully serve the uninsured minority, before subjecting the entire nation — and a large chunk of the economy — to an untried program.
Instead, too late, we’re looking up from Dancing with the Stars just in time to see the Federal Jug Band introduce a new caller, and he’ll be telling us to step lively to their endless tune.
Well, after all, dancing is good for the heart.
Elizabeth Scalia runs the Anchoress blog. She is a freelance writer and a columnist Insidecatholic.com.
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74 Comments
Jeff:Taken together, MEDICAID, MEDICARE, and government employee plans are already providing a significant percentage of healthcare revenue. If they reimbursed comparable to private plans, the percentage would be even higher.
Unfortunately, and perhaps predictably, those institutions with highest percentage of government reimbursements vs. private payer also seemed to be the ones most lacking in specialty services, skilled nursing units, etc.
Judging from this standpoint, we are already well on our way to socialized medicine.
Jul 8, 2008 - 10:38 am Larry J:Having been on the receiving end of government ran health care while in the military, I want no part of it. Isn’t it interesting that instead of trying to address the crux of the problem (that some debateable number of people don’t have health insurance), the socialistic tendency is naturally to try to force everyone to participate in yet another failed government program? Want to hear some howling? Make it mandatory that all government employees including members of Congress have to live under the same system that they want to force on the rest of us.
Can we have a good, cost efficient government ran health care system? Sure, if you follow my second law: “Anything is possible if you lower your standards far enough.”
Jul 8, 2008 - 11:09 am Lisa:It is possible to have good, nationalized health care. I would recommend taking a look at Israel’s health care system. Medical care is first class. ER visits, even on Shabbat, are handled efficiently, cheaply and quickly. There are four systems to chose from so there is competition but you MUST be covered at all times.
So what causes the change? Doctors don’t make a fortune. They are well paid but not filthy rich. Of course, medical school doesn’t result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans. Also, there are almost twice as many doctors per capita in Israel (2.6/1000) than the U.S.(1.6/1000); I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that medical schools have deliberately been trying to keep the number of doctors down.
Jul 8, 2008 - 11:30 am cedarford:Unfortunately, it is a bad time for Ayn Rand acolytes who say that free markets and deregulation of industries “releases them” to future American greatness. Which has come to be defined as the savings & loan fasco, the mortgage market fiasco, chaotic unpleasant air travel, gutting America industrially while cheap workers pour across our Borders. Masive business and wall Street corruption.
Wages for median workers and below cut and 50 million of them cut out of healthcare benefits, with another 25 million having “poor value, way inadequate care benefits” private insurance policies.
Like tax cuts for the rich that were supposed to trickledown, lobbyist dereg also failed. Leading to Congress controlled by Elites that can afford to “pay to play” instead of the general public. And just as with airline dereg, free market health care has failed miserably.
Our heath care insurance and medicare costs are more than 40-80% per capita of other advanced nations, don’t cover the working poor, and Americans have among the lowest life expectancies of any advanced nation (we are 40th).
Socialized health care is coming because the public has seen the extreme conservative vision fail to do as promised. Now, as long as we get the French or German model, or the Japanese way - we will live longer and pay less, and encounter less vexation in getting access to health care as citizens overall, than in all but a few advanced nations (the dismal UK system, Canadian shortages, the Greek mismanaged clusterfuck health care system).
Said as a discouraged conservative Reagan Democrat now disengaging from nearly 30 years of Republicanism as a Party that betrays the interests of any who are not wealthy or Fundies. Same with all my once-Democrat siblings and most of our kids who started out voting Republican in 1996, 2000 but who are now almost all Democrats and Independents.
Jul 8, 2008 - 11:52 am Bridey:Your faith in the government is touching, cedarford, and I hope you’re right. Of course, the fab government health care system will be run by exactly the same career bureaucrats who’ve screwed up everything else they’ve ever touched, but I’m sure this will be different. The people would never stand for an abusive and undemocratic system on such a vast scale. (The IRS? An anomaly, I’m sure.)
Those of us who have actually been in the hands of government-provided health care have very good reason to suspect it. And you don’t even begin to address the massive invasion of privacy that is sure to follow any government intrusion into such a personal matter.
(And, I might point out gently, anyone who uses the term “Fundies” is not likely to be taken seriously by serious people.)
Jul 8, 2008 - 12:29 pm Tom:The biggest problem with socialized medicine is not the fact that care gets rationed.
The biggest problem is that innovation and medical research basically comes to an end.
The US right now produces half of all new drug patents in any given year. If you need help with an exotic healthcare issue, the US is one of the few places where you can get.
As someone with an exotic healthcare issue, Gulf War syndrome, I realize that if we go over to socialized medicine the reasearch that might one day solve my problems will never be conducted.
That alone makes me oppose government mandated health care.
Jul 8, 2008 - 1:12 pm aloysiusmiller:Cedarford
Your plaintive cry for the government to take care of you is pitiful.
Jul 8, 2008 - 1:19 pm bill-tb:I think Walmart’s prescription drug plan is far superior to the government’s. Notice how many imitators it now has.
AMNESTY was also inevitable, losing the Iraq war was inevitable, carbon taxes in the name of a hoax was inevitable — did I miss anything? Oh yeah, Democrats winning in November is inevitable, just like John Kerry will win …
Exchanging your responsibilities for your individual rights is a bad deal.
Jul 8, 2008 - 1:32 pm cedarford:(And, I might point out gently, anyone who uses the term “Fundies” is not likely to be taken seriously by serious people.)
The Christian Taliban also works, as does Fascists For Jesus.
The ongoing problem the Republicans have with a Southern Religious Right that is against or bigoted about Mormons, Catholics, blacks, moderate abortion policy compromise has tended to drive those groups away, including women scared of police state solutions to Terri Schiavo Fiascos and denying even reasonable abortion allowaces like if their 14-year old got knocked up. (They have a big gender gap problem) Anti-science, global warming deniers. Believers in reckless spending unrestrained by taxes needed to balance spending with revenue unless they can show the trillions in debt were for long-term investments.
They have a big gender gap problem with white women.
Worse, they want to impose much of their insular thinking on the National Party.
And with the corrupt corporatists, they have helped marginalize Republicans out of contention in the Northeast, California, Illinois & most other Northern industrial states.
BTW - I also refer to Dem Lefties, identity politics pimps, soldier-hating liberals, lear jet elites, personal use-exempt conservation for others Dem environmentalists, Nanny Staters, gun grabbers, criminal and terrorist rights lovers….
They have a big gender gap problem
Jul 8, 2008 - 1:34 pm WR Jonas:Socialist medicine isn’t inevitable, It’s likely. Death is inevitable.
Jul 8, 2008 - 1:38 pm Ars longa:Our health care system is failing because of the _bureaucracy_. The system with 5 parasites (and that’s a modest estimation) for every productive worker just can’t exist. Did someone bother to count the number of boards, commissions, councils and associations that advice, check, rule, govern - on the whole, doing nothing productive but inventing more and more reasons for their existence - to the number of the really working professionals - nurses, for example? We’re throat-deep in costly products of inflamed bureaucratic imagination. 7/8 of our time (I’m an RN, btw) is spent on endless paperwork and the number of papers keep multiplying because every board, commission, etc, wants to show how friggin’ important and necessary they are by regulating this and that, and then that - all in the name of better care, of course!
This system really needs a total rebuilding, not just a cosmetic makeover. But, of course, government care will only serve to bring the situation to the realm of totally absurd and FUBAR.
It might even be for the better. Sometimes you really need to erase and start over.
Jul 8, 2008 - 1:46 pm ReCon USMC:When you hear 35-40 Million don’t have Health care in America …. That is a Libearl Lie .
Jul 8, 2008 - 1:47 pm Old Line State Dad:Those on Welfare and their kids have Medicaid ….. those over 65 have Medicare .
78 % of all those employed have health Insurance . MANY 20’s to 30’s don’t want Health Insurance since they rarely ever have to see a doctor and don’t want the expense .
Many none insured Vets have VA PRIVILEGES even though they never saw a day at War much less shot at and their Health Care problems are not related too war time injuries . I see there all the time there . I was shot twice in Nam just for the record .
My buddy who is the Head Doctor at the huge VCU Mental center(HARRY F YOUNG CLINIC ) said that 72 % of all care given there is done for free at Tax payers expense and those who have Insurance that are treated there or who have very expensive surgeries …rooms are sky high since they have to be over charged to balance $$ out the differences . Our State Gov. pays the rest .
90 % of the Emergency room care there is for Drunks , Bums , Guns wounds, Knife stabbing fights , Drug overdoses . The EM IS ALWAYS LOADED WITH THOSE THAT DON’T HAVE HEALTH CARE INSURANCE EVEN THE ILEGAL HISPANICS HAVING BABIES AND THEIR MOCHO MEN HEATH CARE PROBLEMS AS WELL . WHO EVER ENTERS THOSE DOORS ARE TREATED PAYMENTS . INSURANCE OR NOT .
I lived in Canada for 8 Years MEANING SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE IS A SAD JOKE . A HIP SURGERY TAKES 6 MONTHS , A HEART SURGERY TAKES A YEAR ON THE AVERAGE . To see A SPECIALIST TAKES 6-8 WEEKS .
25-30 % of the Medication in America is not available in Canada just for the record just like VA Socialist hearth care here is now .. Three of my Meds I can’t get from the Vets Adm.and have to buy them at my local Rite Aid .
Just remember the three foundations of health care. Good, fast and cheap. You get to pick two.
Jul 8, 2008 - 1:52 pm Retep:Socialized medicine will look just like education does now. That is, those that can afford private health care will keep it and have all the privelege and access as usual. Those that can’t afford private care will opt for the government handout. And of course everyone will have a new tax, even if you have private care. So just like private schools, the affluent will pay for their exclusive health care and pay the tax for everyone else too. It will be another government created two-tier system. Want to guess which one Mr. Hopeychangey will choose for his family?
Jul 8, 2008 - 2:00 pm Kate:When looking at socialized systems that seem to work, one must be careful to compare apples to apples. The US has 350 millionish people: neither France nor Israel are even half as large. In addition, at least when I lived in France (1987-2000), I paid nearly 50 percent of my income towards health insurance. I would imagine that this was/is true for most of the population. The system works relatively well, except under stress: we forget all too quickly the many thousands of people who died during the heat wave of summer of 03 - primarily due to bureaucratic ineptitude. Additionally, the question, for France anyway, is one of how many people actually participate in the system that many in the US admire: my understanding is that there are at least 3 different types of insurance - one for the SNCF/RTP, one for anyone who works for the gov’t (fonctionnaires), and one for everyone else. Each sector is very separate, and has different rules for everything from doctor/hospital/medicine use to medical billing/reimbursements.
Jul 8, 2008 - 2:06 pm tim maguire:Larry J: your suggestion that members of Congress live like the rest of us is excellent. Too bad that it will never happen. Too easy to take a private jet to Duke and back!
I don’t reflexively oppose national health care, but I don’t have much faith in lawmakers and legislators who lately get almost nothing right.
Most first world nations have universal health care. There are many different models and most do some things well and other things poorly. If we took our time and chose carefully, we could probably come up with something that works as well as our current system but is much cheaper and removes the stress from so many people’s lives about disease and infirmity and the ruinous costs (even if you have insurance, a serious disease could still bankrupt you, plus you’re tied to your job for the insurance–portability is limited).
But if we did, most of those other national health systems would collapse because they survive in part on subsidies from us–we pay the costs of developing most new technologies so that others can get it on the cheap (see percription medication for example).
Screw them, I suppose, but it would be funny if these countries that think they are superior to us because they have national health care saw their systems collapse because we weren’t picking up part of their tab anymore.
Jul 8, 2008 - 2:17 pm tim maguire:That last paragraph doesn’t entirely make sense. It’s not really funny, it would be tragic, but also ironic and even poetic.
Jul 8, 2008 - 2:21 pm Retep:Lisa, Tim & cedarford….why would you support turning over your healthcare to the federal government? The experience with social security and public education should teach you something…..colossal expense with sub-standard results. When is the last time you heard someone praising public education? And why do you think Congress opted themselves out of SS? Socialized medicine will be more of the same: it’s just a government run program.
Jul 8, 2008 - 2:32 pm Roy M. Postel:Dear Anchoress,
I would ask you, and all your knowledgeable readers, to engage a discussion based on LOWERING THE COST of health care coverage for Americans. The big push to nationalize the coverage is because millions of folks can’t afford insurance. The present ideas only hange the agent making the payment.
Putting a bureaurcy in place for folks to access the system will do nothing to lower costs. In all likelihood, the paper pushers will be even less efficient.
If anyone thinks the HMOs don’t want to pay for procedures, wait until the faceless, heartless, souless regulators take even more of the decision-making authority away from the physicians.
There must be structural costs in medical industry that can be eliminated. (Let’s start with the insurance business…what a vicious cycle.) What would catch my attention is a serious examination at how the medical costs are influenced by malpractice and civil law suits, excessive price markups to hospitals and clinics for medical supplies and pharmasuticals, etc.
Regards,
Roy M. Postel
Jul 8, 2008 - 2:46 pm Anonymous Patriot:Chicago
As a small business owner in Los Angeles CA who has to deal with government entities at all levels (city, county, state and Federal), I can tell you from first hand experience that civil-service employees are more interested in gossip then actually helping someone. Their marking time; waiting for their tax-payer sponsored pensions to kick in. Big Government doesn’t care about YOU.
Think of your last official tax-payer visit to City Hall, or the post office, or DMV. How would you rate your experience? Would you want one of these pinheads to make health decisions for you? Not me, brother!
For instance, on average the US Postal Service loses 3% of their letters/packages annually. Loosely translated to health care this would be 12 million missing/lost/mishandled medical records.
Food for thought…
Jul 8, 2008 - 3:19 pm tim maguire:Retep, speaking only for me, I cover that in my post. To respond to your examples, whatever problems Social Security may have (and I support an overhaul, including private accounts), anyone who wishes to do away with it altogether would do well to acquaint themselves with the typical retirement prior to its creation. Same for public education. Fault it all you want, but no matter how legitimate your complaints are, it is far superior to what it replaced.
Jul 8, 2008 - 3:21 pm Lily:It is evidentially assumed that if you don’t have insurance, bingo, you automatically can’t get “access to health care”. That is wrong. When they say “millions of American’s don’t have access to health care” what they really should be saying is that millions of Americans aren’t paying for insurance. You can get health care whether you have insurance or not. Either the county pays if you are an indigent or the provider writes it off. A good friend of my husband took his wife to the Mayo Clinic and had $400,000 worth of surgery done on her kidneys and the clinic didn’t send a single bill because he doesn’t have insurance. My family, however, is saddled with thousands of dollars every year in insurance fees and then we also have to pay deductibles, etc. Personally, I don’t mind paying for my own family’s health care needs. I feel sad there are so many of you who think you should be getting free anything. Shame on you. And besides, it’s never free, you will be paying on way or the other and notice how health care was a lot cheaper when people were paying their own tabs and not relying on insurance companies to do it for them.
Jul 8, 2008 - 3:59 pm Joshua:Scalia: Tell the truth: when you should have been pondering government and private-sector health care proposals in anticipation of this day, you were watching Dancing with the Stars.
Old Line State Dad: Just remember the three foundations of health care. Good, fast and cheap. You get to pick two.
Ms. Scalia may have come closer to hitting the mark than she realizes as to why America is going down this path. Those of us who are embracing socialized medicine aren’t necessarily doing so because it’s better, faster or cheaper than a more libertarian approach. It seems to me the biggest thing socialized medicine (and nanny-statism in general) has going for it is convenience. Why go through all the hassle of adjusting your own lifestyle and seeing to your own health insurance coverage when you can leave it all to the professionals (read: bureaucrats) and get on with far more interesting matters, like, well, Dancing with the Stars?
Jul 8, 2008 - 5:03 pm Lisa:Retep,
I’ve experienced universal health care in Israel and it was great. The government did not run it. There are four plans to chose from and the plans compete but they required to have a certain set of benefits at a minimum. No one can be turned down for any reason. EVERYONE has to be insured (those who cannot afford it are subsidized); individuals pay membership fees and co-pays (last time we went it was about 22 bucks for an ER visit) while your employer matches your membership fee and the government kicks in some as well. But collecting the membership and employer’s matching and the government subsidy is the extent of the government’s involvement.
How much money do hospitals spend on billing insurance companies and chasing down the uninsured? We could save a fortune.
Jul 8, 2008 - 5:03 pm Lisa:Lily…
Health care was a lot cheaper when people were paying their own tabs but health care was also much more primitive. The number of drugs available has multiplied again and again since WWII. Diagnostic tests are far more accessible. Ever hear the phrase, the rabbit died? It wasn’t all that long ago that we were reliant upon injecting bunnies with a woman’s urine to determine if she was pregnant!
Health care costs are rising because of the growth in medical technology and the bureacracy.
Jul 8, 2008 - 5:10 pm Bridey:I also suspect that our HORRIBLE food supply has a lot to do with it; high fructose corn syrup should be banned.
I think whatever the Mayo Clinic does is so much the better all around, and I don’t begrudge it to anyone. But the situation for uninsured people — and I was one, involuntarily, for a dozen years — is not as simple as you make out, Lily. The cutoffs for “free” county health care are often very low indeed (as perhaps they should be; I’m no expert), and after that, you owe money just the same as anybody else.
Many doctors will not even see uninsured people without cash up front, and, frustrating as it is, I’m not sure I blame them. That’s part of what drives the poor into emergency rooms, though indeed that is also a complex phenomenon. And the provider “writing it off” is well and good, but those bills don’t just vanish into the air.
People who owe money for health care go through just the same collection system — and sometimes harassment — and have their credit destroyed just the same as people who owe money for anything else, with the same consequences to their reputation and prospects. And many people — even poor people — have moral and philosophical objections to taking services with no intention of paying for them. If it’s life and death, you do it. If not, you live with the bad back or the sore knee or the skin problem.
That I am opposed to government-run health care is not because I think what we have is good enough — far from it. But it’s better, far better, than that. There are many, many other things that should be tried to give people options for coverage if they want it. The government is the one sure and absolutely certain way to make things worse.
(But I do agree that third-party payment has played a large part in things getting as mucked up as they have.)
As an aside:
(And, I might point out gently, anyone who uses the term “Fundies” is not likely to be taken seriously by serious people.)
“The Christian Taliban also works, as does Fascists For Jesus.”
Cedarford, sweetie, you just made my point.
Jul 8, 2008 - 5:10 pm Dave Surls:“Unfortunately, it is a bad time for Ayn Rand acolytes who say that free markets and deregulation of industries “releases them” to future American greatness. Which has come to be defined as the savings & loan fasco, the mortgage market fiasco, chaotic unpleasant air travel…”
Blah, blah. 60 plus years of ever increasing socialism (beginning with the Roosevelt administration) has taken an economy that had a per capita GDP twice that of any other country in the world and totally squandered that once impressive lead. Now, America isn’t even number one anymore. America became the richest country in the world because we had practically no government, and we’ve been slipping ever since we started having lots of government. That’s what centrally planned economies do: turn prosperity into poverty, freedom into slavery.
You want government controlled health care?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male
Enjoy.
Jul 8, 2008 - 5:13 pm Ed Wallis:So much bla-bla about the French system, when after all, the GERMAN system is the best “obverse” comparison. In their socialist-democratic world, they offer both “public” and private coverage…AND ARE MOVING THE SO-CALLED “PUBLIC” MODEL MORE AND EVER MORE TOWARDS THE PRIVATE, because - get ready for the big surprise - NO ONE CAN AFFORD IT AND NO ONE WANTS TO PAY FOR IT ANYMORE!!! Public patients get poorer service and EVERYONE suffers under the strain.
Americans would well be advised to heed the GERMAN example of what NOT TO DO.
Jul 8, 2008 - 6:31 pm Azygos:“And just as with airline dereg, free market health care has failed miserably.
Our heath care insurance and medicare costs are more than 40-80% per capita of other advanced nations, don’t cover the working poor, and Americans have among the lowest life expectancies of any advanced nation (we are 40th).”
Free market health care is a disaster because of the government not passing tort reform. Kill that beast and watch the cost of health care drop. As for us having a lower life expectancy could be because those numbers come from the UN and other countries count life and death in different ways.
As someone who practices medicine I can tell you GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE ANSWER. (sorry for shouting) I’ve already had a patient die because of interferrence by a government bureaucrat. More will follow with government run health care.
Jul 8, 2008 - 6:53 pm Don:Socialized medicine is great for minor illness, health maintenance and palliative care. God help you if you are deathly ill, then it comes down to percentages (as in “SURVIVAL”) if the percentages are too low you get nice massive amounts of painkillers and get asked to quietly die. Cancer? Wait umpteen months to see an oncologist, knee problems, wait . . . to see an orthopedist . . . anything outside of basic medicine (which IS good to have) and emergency medicine is outside of the competencies of the socialized system. Now here, what are the two biggest contributers to the rising costs of medical care? Medical and LEGAL mercenaries, with the “Trial Lawyers” “owning” both parties do you seriously think they will burn their cash cow? Medical mercenaries? I think we’ll see a bunch take their shingles down and find another line of work.
End state, less care, more expense (most in Europe who can afford it buy private medical insurance, the reason, they know what you get for nothing, and they want competent, consistent care).
Jul 8, 2008 - 7:17 pm J:As one who works for a large corporation because I cannot buy health insurance, AT ANY PRICE, as an individual or small company, I am not impressed with most free market solutions.
The free marketeers don’t understand the flaws of the private insurance market - as is shown by their failure to address the issue of the unavailability of insurance for those with pre-existing conditions. Note that I (through my employer or myself) have been paying for health insurance all my life, but if I go without a job, I don’t get insurance. It is a complicated problem, but there are reasons the private system fails (I worked in the industry - check out the term “adverse selection” in regard to health insurance).
As a good capitalist, I have worked and saved, never had a corporate or government pension plan, and now have my entire retirement at risk if I lose my job.
As a good conservative, I heartily distrust the government and know that a single payer system would be a catastrophe. But that is what we may get, because people fear losing their insurance, and the small government people have not offered adequate alternatives.
Jul 8, 2008 - 8:26 pm Eric:Somehow “tyranny of the minority” comes to mind. If the GOP can’t defeat this socialist nonsense in the halls of Congress or in the minds of the ignorant and uninformed American citizen can they not take this to the SCOTUS? After all, by WHAT authority can the Federal government implement national health care? I am sick and tired of the socialists taking advantage of the mind numbing ignorance and enviousness of the public to ram socialism down our throats. I’m ready to march on the capital fully armed. The US was born under far less oppressive taxes. If the Liberals want to pay more taxes for their GD pet projects then let them dig into their wallets and fund them. Do NOT force the rest of us through the coercive power of the government to pay for this stuff. The same can be said of countless Liberal/socialist schemes. This is simply unfair.
Jul 8, 2008 - 8:38 pm Eric:The Federal government cannot solve any single problem. Not one. It is the biggest single source of problems this country faces through an absurd tax code and stifling regulations. Energy, health care, business fleeing to China, India et al, etc. As Reagan said Government IS the problem. It can NEVER be the solution.
Jul 8, 2008 - 8:45 pm ab:The self-important blow hards in DC believe they, lawyers mostly, are smarter than the American people and therefore should have the power to regulate our lives. It’s is absurd that we have to listen to 535 kings and queens. I pay enough in taxes already to subsidize poverty, why do I need to pay more? The Constitution of the US does NOT grant the federal government the power to impose socialism on us.
Lisa,
Lily’s comment about health care being a lot cheaper when we paid our own tabs is a lot more insightful than you might think. A big part of the problem with our current system is that it doesn’t truly follow a free market system. Ideally the consumer has direct input into the value of a service and the provider adjusts his charges accordingly. As consumers we are shielded from the true cost of a service by the payments made by the insurance company. We only see our copay share of maybe $20 for a $100 doctor visit. If everyone had to pay the entire cost of the visit, most would either think more carefully about the necessity of the visit or shop for a cheaper physician. Physicians would then need to adjust their charges to keep from losing their patients. Insurance companies are charged with the difficult task of trying to keep costs down by denying services they deem unnecessary and dickering with providers over excessive charges. If health insurance was reserved for truly dire medical issues (catastrophic/chronic illnesses..the kind that would bankrupt you)I believe that we would see more reasonable costs with smarter and more prudent consumers.
Jul 8, 2008 - 9:08 pm LibertyVini:Two observations;
In 2005, I had to take a sick co-worker to the local hospital in Long Island NY. The Nassau University Medical Center had an emergency room about like any other hospital; however, when she was admitted and brought upstairs to the wards,we were treated to a horror show, facilities inferior even to some third world countries. This is what socialized medicine looks like. I was afraid to leave her there.
Two - keep in mind that along with the fact that a government insurance scheme will neither be what you or I want, nor will it work, as the late Harry Browne so presciently said; any plan that either of these two tools comes up with will be pyramided atop the following; a system of medical licensing that severely restricts the supply of doctors and insulates bad ones from consequences; a medical education system that does likewise; a retarded medical malpractice system that passes on the horrific costs created by bad doctors and hospitals onto the good ones; a horribly fascist health-insurance system that uses government to restrict competition and skate out on its obligations to patients; a pharmaceutical - regulatory complex that insulates the companies from competition and lawsuits by FDA regulation and patent monopolies…the list goes on. The system is ALREADY completely socialized on the cost side and fascist on the profit side. It is completely and thoroughly rotten, there is not a stitch of free-market medicine anywhere within it, and anyone, on the left ot right who believes there is is a fool.
It needs to be pulled out, root and branch, and be allowed to re-organize itself in complete freedom. No licensing, no med school control by the AMA, no insurance mandates, no regulatory protection for insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, vaccine makers, no patents or FDA regulation, none. An utterly free market is the only way we will get the best care at the lowest cost. Bad doctors will be quickly put out of business by lawsuits or insurance costs. Doctors, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies could only charge what the market would bear without government restricting their competitors.
Would there be mistakes? There are thousands now. Would there be deaths? We have a system that is currently estimated to kill 100,000 patients per year through mistakes. Will there be toxic drugs? Look at Vioxx, and Phen-Fen.
Government Doesn’t Work. The free market does.
Jul 8, 2008 - 9:34 pm Sheila:Here in Ireland we have universal health care, with the option of taking out private health care. Everyone must pay PRSI (national insurance). Therefore, I pay PRSI, plus have health insurance (through my employer). Yet I still have to fork out €60 a pop every-time I want to see a doctor. Generally I’m a pretty healthy person, but there was one occasion where I really, really needed a doctor. I rang that morning and could not get an appointment that day. I settled for the next afternoon. I dragged myself to the doctors office and was left waiting 45 minutes after my appointed time until I was finally seen. I guarantee I was the only person in that waiting room who was either paying taxes, paying for insurance, or, indeed, handing out a wad of cash.
Thankfully I have never needed to go to the emergency room. In the Dublin hospitals, the likelihood is that you will be left lying on a trolley in some corridor for 30 hours - insurance or no insurance. At least that’s better than the country hospitals where you will most likely be killed.
Universal healthcare is not good.
Jul 9, 2008 - 2:12 am Dave Surls:“Government Doesn’t Work.”
It works fine if you use it to kill people and break things.
Otherwise, forget it.
Jul 9, 2008 - 3:25 am Green Mtn Punter:Recently I saw a piece about Wal-Mart being the most capable entity of managing our health care system- perhaps it was posted on Pajamas Media? Wal-Mart Care would, of course, be the market based alternative to socialized health care. Wal-Mart would certainly be my choice based on their track record, provided that everybody must pay into the system and therefore has a stake in lowering costs.
Jul 9, 2008 - 5:05 am Gary:There are three essentials to “universal” medical care: availability, affordability, and quality. You can have two of the three but not all three. Ask the supporters of “universal health care” which of the three the are willing to give up.
Jul 9, 2008 - 5:58 am class factotum:“Doctors don’t make a fortune. They are well paid but not filthy rich.”
Perhaps, then, we should socialize acting. And sports. And other professions where the participants are “well paid but not filthy rich.” Imagine how much better off Americans would be if we weren’t having to support those wealthy actors, actresses and pro athletes.
“Americans have among the lowest life expectancies of any advanced nation (we are 40th)”
Look at how the numbers are calculated. For infant mortality, we are #37 or something like that. It isn’t that our babies are all dropping dead and the rest are living. It’s that the data are not consistent. From Wikipedia:
“A 2006 article in U.S. News & World Report claims that “First, it’s shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other countries report as stillbirths. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless. And some countries don’t reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality rates. For this very reason, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which collects the European numbers, warns of head-to-head comparisons by country.” [2] However, all of the countries named adopted the WHO definition in the late 1980s or early 1990s.[2]”
Remember also that other countries send their sick people (and complicated pregnancies) to us and that we can’t save everyone.
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:06 am SamJK:Folks, if you want to see how government screwed up health insurance, look at NY State. In 1994, a single 25 year old could get a comprehensive health policy for $70 a month. NY State government then passed these “reforms”.
(1) Community rating. This means that all people in the same class get charged the same premium. Thus all single men pay the same rate, all singel women pay the same rate… Thus a healthy 28 year old now pays the same rate as a chain smoking, overweight 59 year old. This system has removed the premises of risk underwriting. Thus its no longer insurance. In 1994, 750,000 individuals in NY State had a private individual policy, now only 57,000 do. That’s a drop of 94%.
(2) NY State mandates that all insurers must cover pre-existing conditions from day 1, while most states make them wait 12 months. This has cuased premiums to skyrocket to cover the expenses and thus caused people to drop their coverage.
(3) NY State imposes onerous mandates such as fertility drugs, viagra, chiropractic care. These are NOT medically ncessary medical procedures. These mandates have forced up premiums by 30%.
(4) NY State bans Health Savings Accounts on individual policies. Thus low premium, high deductible policies prevent affordable health insurance.
(5) NY State does not allow temporary insurance policies for the unemployed.
(6) NY State does not allow child only health insurance.
Go to the NY State Insurance Department website and you will see that the lowest cost comprehensive health policy for an individual in downstate New York is $602 per month!!! A family will payd $1200 a month. Translation-> The cost to risk ratio is not worth paying $7200 a year.
Government policies have screwed up affordable health insurance in New York state. Be forewarned before we have “National Health Insurance”
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:29 am Julia:Before you embark on a trip to an exotic location, do you do a little research? Read up on it, so you know what to expect? Look at a map? Talk to people who have taken the trip before you? Yes, you do. You put in some effort before you embark on a vacation.
Wouldn’t it be wise to do the same before embarking on universal health care? I live in Canada. I can tell you exactly what you will find upon arrival. It can take up to 2 years to find a GP. A referral from a GP to a specialist, on average, takes 18 weeks. That is weeks, not days. Are you willing to wait that long before your cancer treatment begins? We do. (Except for the wealthy, or Members of Parliment. They go to your country and buy their treatment.) How about mental health issues, or hip replacements? Two year wait time. Even a simple MRI can take 6 months to 2 years depending on where you live.
How about the “free” part? Our income taxes are far higher than yours. Our sales tax is 13%. Then there are the “hidden” taxes. On average, and taking into account the exchange rate, the same new car you buy in the US will cost $4,000.00 more in Canada. Hidden taxes are incorporated into the price of virtually everything, and that is before the 13%.
There is no free. You pay in lack of care. You pay in crushing taxes. This is in a country of 32 million. Imagine 300 million.
Now you have one map. Do some research on health care in the UK for another. It will make you shudder. After that, you may well decide that home looks pretty good after all.
Jul 9, 2008 - 7:10 am UpstateNY:Most people consider me to be very conservative, except on healthcare.
In a form life, I conducted employee attitude surveys for a multi-national corporation. The surveys covered many topics inclusing healthcare. US employees had the lowest satisfaction of all countries surveyed including places like Hong Kong and Brazil. The numbers were shocking compared to France, Germany and Sweden.
We conducted focus group interviews in several countries as follow up to the survey. The main reason for high satisfaction scores were — confidence in care for life, high level of trust for provider and social equity. The negative issues in the US were the insurance paperwork and difficulty in getting referrals.
Bottom line — no one would choose our system of healthcare if they had a choice. In these other countries, with governement managed care, there is some degree of responsibility of for the quality and cost healthcare.
There is also an ethical issue. If you brought in a “World Class” healthcare system, you could cover every citizen for life and save about 40%. In my opinion the reason for our very poor healthcare statistics is our system is designed and run for the benefit of specialist, hospitals and insurance companies. World Class systems focus on primary and preventive care which is les expensive and seems to prolong life.
Jul 9, 2008 - 7:11 am Sarah Rolph:Well done, Anchoress! Clearly, you have done a great job of waking up at least a segment of the population–great discussion here in comments! Clearly that’s a testament to smart readers, but I think it also underlines what a great writer you are–as a longtime reader of your blog, I have noticed time and time again that you have a deft touch for putting things in a way that motivates people to think. That’s so valuable! Thank you for sharing your mind with us. It makes a difference.
Jul 9, 2008 - 7:28 am harry:It’s becoming increasingly clear that socialized medicine will be a fact. Am I geting older or are we becoming “pin cushions” to pad the doctor’s bill? Test after expensive test, whatever happened to old fashioned diagnosis? And even after all these tests you go for a second opinion (yeah and you’re ugly too!) because either you’re not satisfied with the doctor’s diagnosis or the doctor just doesn’t know. And then the doctor prescribes you with a dozen different pills which causes more side-effect problems than your original problem. Blood pressure pills, cholesterol pills, anxiety pills, pain pills, mood pills, the whole gamut that treats the symptoms not the cause most of which are more mental than physical. The funny thing is the amount of people going broke because they can’t afford treatment. AND THESE PEOPLE HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE! Insurance carriers are declining more and more coverage while bumping their rates. Does one really need to pay 750 a month for a yearly checkup? Health insurance subscribers are also paying for those who need medical attention yet cannot or do not pay the bill. They’re paying for the numerous everincreasingly expensive drugs which may also be unnecessary to take. Nationalized healthcare would eliminate costly problems for the vast majority of the public. It would create a more even playing (paying) field. Rich people would seek the medical specialists and pay extra for it in order to receive prompt service. Most of us would have to wait in line for the more serious problems as they do in Canada or in Europe. This is a very small percentage of the population. We want the best care money can buy but it takes more money to buy it or we cannot afford it anyway. Compromises must be made but really there isn’t much to argue anymore because healthcare costs are becoming too prohibitive. Let us solve 90% or more of the current problem now. We are buying time here because nationalized healthcare will eventually become more and more expensive but that is a problem for the future. We must correct the current state of the healthcare industry because it will only worsen in the future.
Jul 9, 2008 - 7:37 am MaxedOutMama:Anchoress, the Bush Admin strongly pushed for a proposal to allow the individual associations to set up bare-bones health plans that were immune from state regulation. In other words, the Southern Baptist Association could have outlined a plan for what benefits it would pay and marketed that plan across multiple states, JUST LIKE BIG CORPORATIONS DO!
That proposal was always blocked in Congress, in large part by Democrats. The previous commenter, Sam JK is right - the high cost of health insurance relates mostly to everything it covers. Health insurance was affordable when I was young because it covered much less.
Socialized healthcare in the US will be a disaster. We should open up the market to multiple insurance companies which are freed from state regulation. An 80% payment for major medical is a lot of coverage, and most hospitals would settle for that. When I was a kid, that was the type of coverage people had. The cost of insurance now and the massive paperwork involved for providers has added large adminstration costs and really hurt patient care.
Jul 9, 2008 - 7:41 am Marc:I have to agree that lowering the costs is the first step towards revitalizing healthcare. Perhaps we can start by not advertising pharmaceutical products every five minutes. I know I would avoid using those products out of spite at this point. Marketing budgets for these meds are astronomical, cut those out, and you might have a good start.
Let’s stop medicalizing normal human phenomena too. If you can’t get an erection, maybe you should get off you a$$, eat better, and work out. I know you and you’re partner would appreciate it. Obesity is the number 1 drain on our healthcare system.
Also, take Medicare for example. They do not pay for PREVENTIVE CARE. This is one of the major hurdles to this argument. Preventive care would help alleviate some of the burgeoning costs of healthcare. Instead of treating problems as they come, we can PREVENT them. Holy crap, what an idea.
Marc - RN, Chicago
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:15 am tanstaafl:Gee, everything under many years’ duration “socialized health care” has been going so well in Britain and Canada.
So well, in fact, that people from Britain’s overburdened and monstrously expensive system are recommending patients seek treatment in some large number of EU countries. You might also be inclined to come on down from Canada to the United States if you want timely care or don’t want to wait a year or more for your surgery.
For the record, the complete involvement of insurance and managed health care and so forth has spun costs related to any medical care at all in the US completely off the charts of rational sense. Unnecessary medical tests that insurance will “cover” are legion, and that’s just the tip of the “care” iceberg. As for government intrusion, so much medical time and energy these days is spent squeezing “gubbmint” for any extra dimes, the patient can feel almost irrelevant to the process.
As the inimitable P.J. O’Rourke has said…
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:15 am Roark:The only way to stop socialized healthcare is to vote for candidates at all levels of government who support the best system ever devised; free-market healthcare. I fear that the USA may eventually slip into the quagmire of socialized medicine. But it can be stopped if individuals make a return to idea’s that expound liberty and reason. http://www.afcm.org/
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:42 am Aunt Pity Pat:Sorry, I have lived in Detroit, MI for over 60 years. Across the river is Canada. Most of my family work in the medical profession. And I can tell you that at least half of health care goes to Canadian citizens that come here for treatment. Canada’s government run health care is horrible and sad. I just cringe when I see our country moving towards communism. I never thought I would see the day when a communist would run for president and people would swoon over him. It is scary! I feel sad for my grandchildren.
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:45 am MikeT:cedarford,
Spend a few years working for the government or working for a government contractor and tell me that you seriously trust the federal government to manage a socialized healthcare system.
Jul 9, 2008 - 9:42 am Roderick Reilly:Here’s what’s eventually going to happen as a result of socilazed medicine:
Euthanasia of the elderly and severely ill toddlers. It’s already happening in Europe, particularly the Netherlands.
Other countries simply ration higher-end care for older patients so that they will die sooner rather than later (a slow, agonizing substitute for euthanasia). Older patients who could live many additional years with proper aggressive care are instead allowed to die. If you’re older than 65 in the U.K., you can be denied dialysis, for instance.
I find it sickening that the most enthusiastic proponents of all these measures are the same bunch that find the execution of savage murderers barbaric.
Jul 9, 2008 - 2:13 pm milan:Canada.
Jul 9, 2008 - 5:56 pm ab:I had TIA [Temporary Ischemic Accident]MRI result:
bypass surgery of jugular artery ASAP.Hesitation:death,blindness,stroke.
For surgery I was waiting 12 month.
Mike T is right. Anyone who has worked for the government or a government contractor is familiar with the kind of mismanagement inherent in the running of most federal agencies/installations. If private companies were run the same way with the same inefficiencies and WASTE, they’d put themselves out of business. The idea of putting a government agency in charge of our health care is downright scary!!
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:29 pm Maureen:For many years, I’ve been on an amateur musician email list. Every time the UK musicians post about some health problem they’ve had or their parents have had, I feel like I’m trapped inside some kind of horror movie. Parents die before they can get to see a doctor. Simple problems get worse while they wait years to deal with them. Yet many of these folks feel guilty about being so antisocial as to go anywhere else except the National Health Service, even as it’s killing them and their families.
Jul 9, 2008 - 7:02 pm Gozer the Carpathian:I imported my wife from Australia and our first baby is due on December 17th. (YAY!) She’s a bit confused by how our insurance system works (who isn’t?) but she’s already happily surprised by the care she’s been getting. I have a PPO from my job (a NASA job BTW) so it’s nice to just go get the tests we want done, see the specialists (we’re going to Loma Linda for a Level 2 Sonogram this month) no waiting or problem.
It’s funny talking to her about it. For on the one hand she’s not political yet she can always complain about a government program. When I mention other ways the government is trying to mess with our life she says “there’s probably a good reason.” O.O?!
Seriously, folks have some major issues realizing just how wrong things are with the government systems. Of course no system is perfect but when I think of something as far from perfect as possible I think of the government.
Name a government run system that you like or think does well.
NASA? DMV? IRS? FBI? CIA? NSA? FAA? INS? (Or whatver they’re called now.) FEMA? FCC? FDA?
The list goes on and on, which should scare most sane people in and of itself!
Jul 9, 2008 - 9:17 pm Charlie on PA Tpk:If I have to work 3 jobs to afford my private care, I will in order to avoid any government system.
To date our nation has done a poor job with Medicare and VA care (and both have been shams throughout their history, and not just a specific Administration). If cannot run these sub-sets of care properly, how can anyone expect an all-encompassing system to work any better?
Jul 10, 2008 - 6:38 am Pavel:To Lisa:
Jul 10, 2008 - 11:13 am J.G.:Medical services in Israel are good only comparing with Arab countries but are terrible comparing with the USA. I had to witness my father dying in one of Haifa’s hospitals from undiagnosed colon cancer - they do not provide colonoscopy for old people, old folks are not worthy of the expensive procedure. Rationing in one way or another is inevitable
Ms. Scalia: Here you go again. Government intrusion into private lives such as monitoring your phone calls is OK as long as it conforms to your ultra-conservative political philosophy, but heaven forbid when our government conforms to the words in the Constitution “to provide for the general welfare” you are all up in arms. I thought Catholicism teaches that “we are all one in the body of Christ?” That sounds to me that we should take care of each other for the “common good.” I don’t think Christ had corporations and insurance companies in mind. A final thought the government is “us” as in “we.” If the government isn’t working, it is because we elect the wrong people. And recent history has shown clearly that when the Republicans are in control and occupy the White House, government doesn’t work very well. And they appoint unqualified people to high offices, including the Supreme Court.
Jul 10, 2008 - 2:50 pm Jbl:“And recent history has shown clearly that when the Republicans are in control and occupy the White House, government doesn’t work very well. And they appoint unqualified people to high offices, including the Supreme Court.”
Really, is that true?
Jul 10, 2008 - 3:50 pm dpw:single payer will bankrupt the country. period.
Jul 10, 2008 - 6:29 pm Sharonsj:You call it socialized medicine. I call it finally getting treatment. I have no insurance and, despite what you’ve heard, poor people do not get free health care. While the well-off are whining about ideology, the rest of us are dying.
Jul 11, 2008 - 9:35 am BMoon:As an ex-pat for 21 years, we are currently visiting family in the U.S. Being snookered into paying outrageous prices at a water park yesterday, I noticed, apart from the appallingly large number of smokers inhaling carcinogens from $6.50 a pack cigarettes, there were a large percentage of people who were height-weight ratio challenged, to put it delicately. To put it rather unkindly, I was reminded of a Discovery documentary about an Oregon beach during the mating season of sea lions.
I also observed numerous tatoos of skulls and crossbones, apparently quite in vogue, engraved upon large swaths of said jiggly flesh. It all spoke ironically and prophetically as well of the future health of these denizens of this northern East Coast blue state, where the shrill clamor for socialized medicine is part of the constant political background noise. It seems the bottomless appetite in America for having your cake and eating it too, in vast quantities besides, is what is driving the call for welfare for all.
Jul 11, 2008 - 12:08 pm Roger Coke:Most participants in the healthcare debate have NEVER SEEN AND EXPERIENCED socialist healthcare in action even though some aspects of this cancer have been metastasizing within the U.S. system for decades.
Two countries stand out for having single-payer healthcare systems as sought by Obama and Hillary: Japan and the UK.
Go to Japan, experience the overcrowded, unionized public hospitals, with patients waiting for hours to see the great doctor for 3 minutes, then wait for another hour to make the co-payment in cash.
Japanese doctors frankly acknowledge that Japan is years behind on sophisticated treatment techniques because the socialist health culture prizes mediocrity and blind centralization and discourages innovation.
Note that when billionaires or movie stars in Asia get sick, they NEVER get treatment in Japan.
Or go to England, visit one of the filthy, run-down National Health Service hospitals, be maltreated by surly, untrained staff, join a two year waiting list for replacement of an excruciatingly painful hip joint. If you have cancer and choose to pay for a “non-approved” cancer drug to save your life, ALL treatment will be paid for.
To be sure, the UK still has a small but lucrative private sector treating billionaires, Arab oil sheiks and families of Labour politicians, similar to the systems for providing WESTERN standards of care for party oligarchs in the old communist countries.
Count on Obama and Hillary quietly setting up an elite care system for themselves and their Beltway buddies when the rest of us have been herded into union-hell DMV-care.
Jul 11, 2008 - 1:02 pm Roger Coke:P.S.: Sorry - please correct previous post, should have read (third para from end, last sentence):
ALL treatment will be charged to the patient.
Jul 11, 2008 - 1:09 pm Dave Surls:Only an insane person would support government controlled healthcare. Unfortunately, over half the people in this country regularly vote Democrat…so we’re pretty much screwed.
Jul 11, 2008 - 3:56 pm Larry Anderson:JG,
Like so many, you actually DON’T know what the Preamble to the Constitution says or means. It DOES NOT say “to provide for the general welfare.” It was:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
This means defend the nation, and set up a just and orderly system of government, and get the hell out of the way. NOWHERE does it say the governments role is to take care of the citizenry from cradle to grave. Indeed the shape and scope of modern U.S. regulation of the lives of ordinary Americans would shock the founders to their very core.
Jul 14, 2008 - 7:25 am