Socialized Health Care, Part I
Since I posted this piece last week on the Canadian Health care and the SCHIP bill was vetoed by President Bush, the conversation over socialized medicine has heated up. I received a heated email from a flaming liberal filled with pleas for equality of medical care, how our businesses would be more competitive if they didn’t have to provide health coverage, how ‘mistake ridden’ our current medical system is, etc. I must admit the competitive business thing was a real surprise coming from a liberal. But it does seem that big business is courting the dems these days to a far greater extent than republicans. Could this be an explanation?
Just think, one day you could be sitting in your wheelchair on your eleventh month waiting for that hip replacement surgery, and you could attribute your painful sacrifice to the better competiveness of big business.
Reeling back for a moment to the present, let’s look at existing systems of socialized medicine for guidance, and confine our comparisons to Canada, UK, and Australia. Research on the subject yields a plethora of articles. For example, the Investor’s Business Daily weighs in:
So what are the Brits getting for their money besides second-rate care, soiled beds, superbug outbreaks, medical professional shortages, state-imposed rationing, central planning and long waits for surgery and doctor visits?
Maybe unrepentant anti-choice cranks pushing government health care on an ostensibly free people can tell us.
The Gates of Vienna and Captain’s Quarters report on the status of dentristry in the UK. Here’s the Captain:
The British have had a nationalized health care system for decades, and almost as long a list of examples why it doesn’t work. Three years ago, we discovered that hospitals in the UK threw out viable kidneys for lack of physicians qualified to transplant them. Now we find out that a shortage of dentists has led Britons to perform free-lance extractions to avoid an excruciating wait.
Here’s an excerpt from the report they are referring to:
People with toothache are resorting to pulling their own teeth because they cannot find a NHS dentist, a study out today says.
Almost a fifth of those questioned in the biggest patient survey of its kind said that they had missed out on dental work because of the cost.
The research, involving more than 5,000 patients in England, also found that as many as six per cent had treated themselves because they could not find a dentist.
Some said they took out their own teeth or fixed broken crowns with glue. One person in Lancashire had carried out 14 separate extractions with pliers.
Oh boy. Sign us all up for this program. And let’s all invest in some Home Depot stock, or whoever sells pliers. Sounds like it needs to become part of everyone’s medicine cabinet. Actually the Investor’s Business Daily has some statistics on where Americans stand on the issue:
I apologize for the illegibility of the diagram, click on it to bring it into focus. It reveals that almost 60% of us are not in favor of socializing our medical system. Perhaps it’s because of a story like this from the AP/Yahoo last Friday:
LONDON - Nurses who didn’t wash their hands and left patients lying in soiled beds were cited in an official report blaming mismanagement for the deaths of 90 people who contracted a bacterial infection in hospitals in southern England.
“Significant failings” at all levels contributed to infections of more than 1,000 patients at three hospitals, the Healthcare Commission said Thursday.
The patients were infected with Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, which can cause diarrhea, colitis and other intestinal problems, officials said.
“The Healthcare Commission has passed the copy of the report to us and that is being reviewed,” said a spokesman for Kent Police, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy.
The report into the spread of the highly contagious bacterium said nurses at three hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust were often too busy to wash their hands and left patients in their own excrement.
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust acknowledged that it had not been prepared for “an outbreak of that size and complexity” but had learned from the mistakes.
The trust’s Chief Executive Rose Gibb resigned last week.
Health Minister Ann Keen said the failures, which led to the deaths of patients over a 2 1/2-year period, must not be repeated.
When you are too busy to wash your hands for two and one half years, that’s more than busy.
Concluding the report, the AP summarizes:
In recent years, Britain’s superbug infection rates of bacteria like Clostridium difficile and MRSA have skyrocketed. In the 1990s, only 5 percent of in-hospital blood infections were from MRSA, the deadly bacteria resistant to nearly every available antibiotic. In past years, that figure has jumped to more than 40 percent.
What is the source of the problem?
Critics blame the rise on overstretched hospitals that do not have enough money or capacity to catch superbug infections early.”
That’s some affirmation of our belief that socialized medicine adds an administrative layer that adds cost in terms of money, time, and well-being. Here’s one of the best assessments of the fallacy of socialist thinking:
The bottom line is that you cannot get something for nothing, not even in England. You do not make healthcare cheaper by adding layers of bureaucrats and managers to the system, all of which must be paid. That only makes the total cost greater. All you can do is shift the costs off some individuals onto other individuals and thereby make it appear that some individuals are better off, all in the hope that the public will be too stupid to realize what is being done to them.
Government produces nothing; all it can do is take from some to give to others. Thus, it cannot deliver a dollar of benefit to anyone without delivering a dollar of harm to someone else. And since, in fact, government always pays itself a salary for practicing charity with the taxpayer’s dollars, it must deliver more than a dollar’s worth of harm to someone every time it delivers a dollar’s worth of benefit to someone else. There is no escaping this reality.
Heh. Wish I’d said that…
Socialized medicine is a bad deal, as my Dad used to say, ‘taking your geese to a bad market’. In this case elimination of the ‘market’ leads to a one sized fits none approach that is a recipe for disaster.
How does that commericial go…
For liberals:
Cost of new haircut - $400
Cost of new carbon credits - $5000
Cost of health care - nothing
For conservatives:
Cost of new haircut - $30
Cost of new treadmill - $1000
Cost of being healthy - PRICELESS
UPDATE: MK has a story about a man delivering his own baby on the emergency room floor of a Sydney hospital, here.
Posted by Kathy
October 17th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Don’t so as I do, do as I say
hypocrisy thy named is liberalism.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
[…] Here is an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSince I posted this piece last week on the Canadian Health care and the SCHIP bill was vetoed by President Bush, the conversation over socialized medicine has heated up. I received a heated email from a flaming liberal filled with pleas … […]
October 17th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
The terms “socialized medicine” and “communism” are mostly associated with much older generations. Slogans associated with socialized medicine don’t carry as much weight as they did years ago for the simple reason that big business is now begging the U.S. government to get involved in providing major financial relief. They understand just as do most American workers that health care costs are rising over twice the rate of inflation.
The ten-second attention span MTV generation with their camera cell phones, Ipods, Xboxes and text messaging aren’t all that fearful of government subsidized medical costs when they discover how astronomical the cost is to get even the bare bones health plan for themselves. And, of course the cost skyrockets to provide family coverage.
It is absolutely correct when the American auto industry leaders claim that $1,500 is added in the price of almost every automobile produced just to pay for health care insurance premiums for their workers. Anything that cuts into the bottom line of corporate profits really gets the attention of the CEOs and shareholders of any business.
Reviving the hysteria over “socialized medicine” as a means to counter government-sponsored health care doesn’t have the impact that it did years ago.
Likewise for Communism screeds which I’ve read on this forum since that ideology has long been in its last throes in failed states like North Korea and Cuba. It’s only a matter of time when those two repressive regimes will join the economic free market once their megalomaniac leaders are gone. Did the fall of South Vietnam to the Communist-led North Vietnam leader, Ho Chi Minh, result in the domino effect that many predicted would cause the entire Far East to come under the Communist rule? Of course not.
Even Communist China is incorporating all the benefits of capitalism (even as they violate international copyright agreements in the high tech field) in a booming economy where the repressive leadership is eager to exploit the Western powers, knowing that their growing consumer market of over 1.3 billion people will outweigh human rights considerations. While it’s easy to come down hard on repressive regimes like Myannmar by issuing vacant, toothless warnings, the same outrage is muted when Communist China cracks down on dissent while the Western powers look the other way.
As for socialized medicine it has been around in the United States for decades. When G. W. Bush stated that people can get medical care any time they need it by checking themselves in for emergency treatment he’s right of course. What he and others don’t care to admit openly is that the rest of us who do carry and pay for our own private health plans are directly subsidizing those who don’t have any coverage at all.
There are about 47 million people without any health care coverage in our country — a sad but true statistic. But, ask anyone who is struggling to make ends meet and they will tell you they simply cannot afford to put out an extra $400 + per month for health insurance that may be cancelled at any moment if you get sick for any reason. Some, however, would rather see people end up in emergency rooms where the cost is triple what it would have been had they been covered.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
The costs have increased because big brother insists on throwing taxpayers money into the system. What the individual doesn’t pay for, someone else will be forced to. There is no “free” anything. More gubmint involvement==higher costs, worse service.
Corporate /state socialism isn’t the answer.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Kathy, that’s an excellent analysis. There are a lot of scandals in our healthy care system at the moment. Of course, the Left is blaming it on lack of funding. Actually it’s because of inept management by government officials who don’t really care too much how money gets spent because it’s not their own personal money directly at stake. MK’s story about the man having to deliver his own baby is just one in a series of exposes on certain of our hospitals. A group of nurses were fired for blowing the whistle on the system. Of course, we can use private hospitals if we choose, but our taxes are already paying for the public ones.
Anything socialized means bigger government, which in my books is always a bad thing.
Hillary is truly the Hildebeest.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/sergeman/issues/healthcare/socialized.html
This is a great website put up by someone who used to believe in socialized medicine.
I know people from Australia who have told me they go private pay insurance, which is at least legal there, than use the government stuff. They say the waiting times are the worst.
Even a Canadian MP is getting breast cancer care down here in the States….
October 17th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Great Post Kathy..
The only way to reduce the cost and increase the quality of any product or servie, doesn’t matter if it’s cars, Hotel rooms, or healthcare, is to increase competition among those who make the product or provide the service.
If there is only 1 entity that is providing healthcare that entity gets to charge whatever they want for that healthcare, they have no incentive to provide better service because they know that the patient has no choice in the matter.
The key to making healthcare more afordable is in making more choices available for the consumer. Reducing the choices that consumers have will only reduce the quality and increase the final cost.
Darrell
October 17th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Thanks for the link back Kathy, good post.
The other thing that is sometimes forgotten is the caring factor, we often hear of people who turn up at public hospitals being treated like dirt. That is also an end result of public health, because it’s not the patient who is paying your salary you don’t have to care what they think, you don’t have to be nice to them. Because it’s “free”, they don’t have to worry about losing a patient or ensuring the patient is happy, in fact they’re looking to send people elsewhere, the incentive is to have as few people turning up as possible. I’ve heard of some hospitals putting in particular chairs that are uncomfortable so people get tired of waiting and some of them go away or end up sitting on the floor.
If you want quality care and timely care, you must be prepared to pay for it, there is no other way unless people are willing to work for free, good luck with that.
October 17th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I am a big believer in self-directed health insurance. My wife and I are pushing 50 and carry our 21 year old daughter on our family medical insurance policy. We have a high deductible ($5k) and a monthly premium of just under $200 per month.
Our current plan is a much better deal than a similar high deductible policy we had for the previous three years. About once a year I shop for a better deal. This most recent shopping trip I was amazed at the options available. There are HMO’s, open plans, high and low deductible, co-pays, and sliding scale shared expenses.
With a high-deductible policy, we don’t go to the Doctor unless we’re pretty desperate. We have a vested interest in keeping costs down ’cause it’s coming out of our back pocket. The amazing thing is when arriving at the Doctor’s office and you are greeted with: “Hi, may I see your insurance card please”, and I reply that I will not be filing insurance - the bill is discounted! At our regular Doctor ususally 20%. I saw an ear Doctor (specialist at the hospital) recently for a case of swimmer’s ear and was charged $30.00! Doctor’s charge what they know they can get away with (who can blame them?). That’s why they ask for your insurance card up front. The insurance company’s maximum allowable cost tables have become the Doctors’ fee schedules.
By the way, an insurance company can’t drop you or increase your premium because of a claim (unlike other insurances such as auto or fire). The trick here is NEVER LET YOUR MEDICAL INSURANCE COVERAGE LAPSE!!!
We can fix the health care problem with the current private system. Allocation of health services is best left to the free market system. Patients need to feel and be treated like customers. This doesn’t happen unless the patient has the control of the purse. The current insurance-takes-care-of-the-bills mind-set does not promote the provider/customer relationship. Socialized medicine will leave the patient with zero leverage on the quality of service.
Premiums could be lowered and coverages improved if provider costs could be reduced simply by legislating tort reform.
Making premiums tax deductible may be another way to ease the burden for low-income or high risk patients.
October 17th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Where do they come for serious health care? you guessed it
October 17th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
SCHIP: The Public Backs Bush
Despite attempts by the establishment media to convince us that the public is solidly behind Congress in the SCHIP debate, a new Gallup poll shows this to be nonsense. USA Today puts it as follows:Â
52% agree with Bush that most benefits should go to …
October 18th, 2007 at 2:17 am
[…] the rest of this great post here […]
October 18th, 2007 at 3:02 am
[…] Kathy wrote a fantastic post today on “Socialized Health Care, Part I”Here’s ONLY a quick extractSince I posted this piece last week on the Canadian Health care and the SCHIP bill was vetoed by President Bush, the conversation over socialized medicine has heated up. I received a heated email from a flaming liberal filled with pleas … […]
October 18th, 2007 at 3:05 am
[…] Kathy wrote a fantastic post today on “Socialized Health Care, Part I”Here’s ONLY a quick extractSince I posted this piece last week on the Canadian Health care and the SCHIP bill was vetoed by President Bush, the conversation over socialized medicine has heated up. I received a heated email from a flaming liberal filled with pleas … […]
October 18th, 2007 at 3:18 am
[…] Kathy wrote a fantastic post today on “Socialized Health Care, Part I”Here’s ONLY a quick extractSince I posted this piece last week on the Canadian Health care and the SCHIP bill was vetoed by President Bush, the conversation over socialized medicine has heated up. I received a heated email from a flaming liberal filled with pleas … […]
October 18th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Hello,
My name be Eboneesha Li Herenandez, an
AfricanHispanicAsiatic-American girl who just got an
award For being the best speler in class.? I got 67%
on the speling test and 30 points for being black, 5
points for not bringing drugs into class, 5 points
for not bringing guns into class, and 5 points for
not getting Pregnut during the cemester? It be hard
to beat a score of 120%.. The white dude who sit
next to me is McGee from theBronx . ?He got A 94% on
the test but no extra points on account of he have
the same Skin color as the opressirs of 150 years
ago.? Granny ax me to thank all Dimocrafts and
Liberals for suporting Afermative action. ?You be
showing DA way to true equality.? I be gittin in
medical skool nex an mabe I be yo doctor when
Hillory take over DA healtcare in dis cuntry
October 18th, 2007 at 8:57 am
House to Vote on Overriding SCHIP Veto
Democrats have done nothing but play political gamesmanship with this from the beginning, for other reason than to get a few soundbites to use in the 2008 elections. The administration has made it perfectly clear that they are willing to expand SCHIP …
October 18th, 2007 at 10:12 am
In response to #10, as I’ve said before on this forum, we live in a border state and there are more than a few doctors who have 50% patient case load of Canadians… Canadians come down here all the time because they get sick and tired of waiting.
October 18th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
IP,
so tell me what did your little tirade (racist tirade I might add) have to do with the subject of healthcare….what did affirmative action have to do with the subject……did you loose you white pointy cap this morning and you are in a bad mood…..
October 18th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
so tell me what did your little tirade (racist tirade I might add) have to do with the subject of healthcare ???
brucie
Read the last sentence of post 15 brucie.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
IP,
I read the whole thing and I still don’t see what it had to do with the subject of healthcare…MABE U CN HEP ME OUT MASSA IP N’ SPLIAN TO ME WUCH U MEEN….
October 18th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I read the whole thing and I still don’t see what it had to do with the subject of healthcare…MABE U CN HEP ME OUT MASSA IP N’ SPLIAN TO ME WUCH U MEEN….
Comment by Bruce
Sorry brucie, if you’re too dense to comprhend the meaning of the LAST SENTENCE of post 15 perhaps remedial brainwashing is in order.
You need to refresh your race card deck, it’s
definately 60’s era bravo sierra.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Guys, cool it. Rather not have this turn into a name-calling board, OK?
October 18th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2007/10/18/opinion/290383.txt
Another article about the problems with socialized medicine.
October 18th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
IP,
“Sorry brucie, if you’re too dense to comprhend the meaning of the LAST SENTENCE of post 15 perhaps remedial brainwashing is in order.”
O.K…..I’m dense…now could you please explain to me the relationship you were drawing with your comment and why the last sentence should make up for the rest of the comment….And please could you keep it simple…its the remedial reading thing you know……oh by the way its spelled “comprehend”……I did at least learn to run spell checker….thanks to affirmative action…
BigMo….Who’s calling names…..
October 19th, 2007 at 2:17 am
Anyone who thinks that we should put our lives in the hands of a government bureaucracy should experience that fate themselves. Lets send them to Canada when they get sick. Hey that’s not a bad idea for my movie!
http://www.SickAndSickerMovie.com
October 19th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
IP,
Two of the biggest misconceptions about affirmative action are 1) It was put into place to “help” Blacks get jobs and get into college. 2) The largest beneficiaries of affirmative action have been Blacks and other minorities……Well I beg to differ..not that I am a big fan of affirmative action..but it is all in perspective…and let me give it to you in black and white…. 1) Affirmative action was put into place really to “help” white establishments (companies and schools) with their hiring and admittance practices…. And as you know most of your biggest Black success stories in the repub party were beneficiaries of AA. To name a couple Clarence Thomas and Colin Powell…… Clarence makes some statement about how ashamed he is of his degree from Yale because of AA and how he hides in his basement…. But funny he didn’t remove it from his resume…..2) The biggest beneficiaries of AA are not Blacks and other minorities…No its the “white american male”…..You see the largest minority group under the current laws are White women…..they are approximately 30% of the population. Before AA was put into law back in the 60’s most women stayed at home and were housewives…in the years since they have entered the workforce and college in such numbers that most women (wives) now work…and they bring their check home to their white american husband so that he can afford “the boat”…..Yes IP I grew up in the 60’s so I saw the hiring practices and school admittance practices that turned away intelligent and hard working people because of the color of their skin and had it not been for AA then Clarence, Colin and probably Condeleza would have been turned away ……..AA as most government programs does present unfairness…but let’s not twist the real reason that it was put into place. Now can you please answer the question… WHAT DID YOUR COMMENTS HAVE TO DO WITH HEALTHCARE….
October 19th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
WHAT DID YOUR COMMENTS HAVE TO DO WITH HEALTHCARE….
Comment by Bruce — October 19, 2007 @ 9:02 pm
1)Racial quota systems in medical school.
2)Medical school is about health care.
3)AA/quotas==marginal doctors on the market.
Germain and to the subject.
(obsessive compulsive behavior is treatable. Get help ASAP)
October 20th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
IP,
So what about quotas for the largest minority out there “white womem” is that putting marginal people in med school and marginal doctors on the market…and what about the success stories…such as Colin, Clarence and others…..
(obsessive compulsive behavior is treatable. Get help ASAP)
Do you know any good “non quota doctors” to recommend…If so please do….
October 20th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
So what about quotas for the largest minority out there “white womem†is that putting marginal people in med school and marginal doctors on the market…and what about the success stories…such as Colin, Clarence and others…..brucie
Yes it is, and that should be scrapped along with the entire race preference bravo sierra.
So long as we have race preferences, the so called “success stories” will rightfully be called into question.
Google “non quota doctors”
October 20th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
IP,
“So long as we have race preferences, the so called “success stories†will rightfully be called into question.”
Then I guess according to you the only doctors that we all should go to are white male doctors….because surely their credentials can’t be called into question…and all of the rest should be considered “marginal”…
Google “non quota doctorsâ€
Thank you very much for the tip….
October 21st, 2007 at 10:44 am
all of the rest should be considered “marginalâ€â€¦
Bruce
If they were admitted not on academic standards, but racial/gender ones, they should be called into question. Do you want to be operated on by a quota system surgeon????
As long as their are “preferences”in admissions, their abilities will always be under a cloud, no matter how competent they may be.
Under socialized medicine we will have little choice as to which doctor will see us, just like in britain. Welcome to the brave new world of medicore med care.
October 21st, 2007 at 3:21 pm
If they were admitted not on academic standards, but racial/gender ones, they should be called into question. Do you want to be operated on by a quota system surgeon????
Comment by IP727 — October 21, 2007 @ 10:44 am
I want to be operated on by a qualified surgeon just like Clarence Thomas is a qualified supreme court justice and just like Colin Powell was a qualified Genereral and Secretary of State…I would want a surgeon just as qualified as they were for thier positions….
October 21st, 2007 at 5:43 pm
I would want a surgeon just as qualified as they were for thier positions….
Comment by Bruce — October 21, 2007 @ 3:21 pm
You will never be sure of how “qualified” they really are with quota admissions and guaranteed graduations. Reverse racism is still racism.