What do you think about the Universal Health Care Plan?

The "truth" about universal health care?

• I know the state of our health care here in America is a mess. We have 40 million people uninsured—more or less. The cost of health care is skyrocketing. I have read heartbreaking stories of people going bankrupt trying to pay enormous medical bills. I keep saying that there must be a better way. To me universal health care is the answer but conservatives always scream that universal health care is "socialism" and that socialized medicine never works. I have heard right-wing talk show hosts denounce universal health care as a recipe for disaster and they always have someone call in who states that they once lived in Britain/Norway/Canada— (take your pick)—and that the socialized health care there is "horrible". They talk about how it takes "years" to have surgery done and that the people in those countries "hate" their health care system and come to America to get treatment. So what is the real story? Are the people the people in places like Britain miserable because they can't get the surgery they need due to the long waits or is it all BS? I'd really like to know what the truth is. Thanks

• Answer:

  Our current system IS a mess undeniably. However, it's NOT a free market system. The government has interfered tremendously AND we have only a handful of health insurers who dominate the market AND get special deals of all sorts, driving up costs for others. How? They jack up premiums and co-pays, put low "caps" on procedures they claim they cover, and sometimes just flat out deny things which they absolutely SHOULD cover. (Read about the ERISA shield in Jamie Cort's 1999 book, Making A Killing: HMOs and the Threat to Your Health, Cort shows that the law regards health insurers through employment as "an administrator of employee benefits" more than an actual insurer. This means when they deny a claim, even if they are found to be at fault in court, they can get it moved to the federal level, use their special standing, and only pay out the value of the procedure denied, not the actual damages to the person. If they can drag it out and the patient dies, they owe nothing.) The uninsured are billed two to three times as much as the insured routinely. Now there is a new wrinkle for these most vulnerable folks (not everyone CAN get insurance in the US--a company has to take you, after all. Not all states offer high risk insurance pools for those who are uninsurable either.) http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/nov2007/db20071120_397008.htm Moving on to universal health care/insurance. It does not work anywhere it exists. I'm going to quote myself on that: You can look country by country for the problems that they have, but whole premise it is built on is illogical as it interferes with supply and demand and makes people think they're getting something for "free" when no such thing exists. Canada has lots of problems and besides the long wait times they have as well they are going broke: The Fraser Institute (Canadian) was hired to determine what was going on in Alberta and said by 2016 that HALF of the province's budget would go to health care if they keep the current system. By 2030, 100% of the budget would be consumed by health care. (“Canada’s health system dream turns to nightmare,” 11 June 2004, Dr. Glueck). Let's also realize that enough Canadian doctors find the system so stressful that WE get 500 of them a year from that small country coming to the US. (Bell, “Step into the single-payer rabbit hole,” April 2001, amsa.org). Also a 2003 survey of Canadian doctors found that nearly half were burnt out and 12% had thoughts of suicide (staffweb.uleth.ca). The government is thinking about delisting some services (not offering them anymore). Thankfully there has been a proliferation of ILLEGAL for-profit health centers through Canada so Canadians can get care without leaving Canada. This is so needed that the president of the Canadian Medical Association headed such an ILLEGAL facility. They're illegal not because these are not qualified doctors, but because if the government offers a service, then the private sector is not supposed to in Canada. ("Individual Freedom vs. Government Control,” 1 August 2007, nationalreview.com). Great Britain has the oldest national health system started in 1948. “Staff are being laid off, and deficits are at an alltime high (£1.07bn for 2005-2006)” (Hazel Blears, LabourParty Chair and Minister Without Portfolio, labourachievements. blogspot.com/2006/08/23-investment-innhs… Alex Smallwood of the British Medical Association was quoted in the Scotsman as saying: “’Rationing is reduction in choice. Rationing has become a necessary evil. We need to formalise rationing to prevent an unregulated, widening, postcodelottery of care. Government no longer has a choice.’” (Moss, “NHS rationing is ‘necessary evil,’ says doctors,” 26 June 2007). In France, 80% of the public have supplemental health insurance through their employers according to their web site (ambafrance-us.org). Private medical care in France is providing more than 50% of the surgeries and more than 60% of cancer case treatment. Vision and dental care are not well covered there. “The public system is facing chronic deficits and recent cost containment policies have not proved very successful.” The government is interested in having more of the tab picked up by private insurance (Buchmueller & Couffinhall, “Private Health Insurance in France,” 2004, oecd.org). Yes there are problems in Japan, the Netherlands, and Sweden as well for sure. Universal health care does NOT work. Governments overpromise, jack up taxes, ration medicine, and more. So, as you seem to want a plan, I think I have found one that would be very hard to achieve POLITICALLY because a lot of power and money is involved in the health care business. Consider this plan for a new kind of US health care system--the author has a good deal more to say about fixing health care, but this is enough to think about: http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.htm... The PDF has the basics of a plan, including how to finance it. The book itself has much more to say in the lengthy chapter on health care (and also addresses Social Security, taxation, and more). Universal health care can appear to work if a person is healthy. Most Americans do NOT understand their insurance policies and claim they're covered. If that were so, then explain why more than HALF of ALL bankruptcies in the US are over medical bills and most of those folks ARE insured. Until there is a problem, most people do NOT know the full story. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/02/business/bills.php The government health care we have now does not work. In 1998 the Medicare premium was $43.80. In 2008, ten years later, it will be up more than 100% to $96.40. Most people on Medicare ALSO either pay for a "medigap" policy or take an HMO or such to try to reduce their out-of-pocket, which keeps rising. About 15 years ago, my father on regular Medicare where he was supposed to pay 20% of his angioplasty, was allowed to forego that co-pay. IF he had had the HMO he got shortly thereafter he would have had NO co-pay. Now, less than 20 years later, not only would he not have likely had the Medicare 20% waived, but I can't find a single Medicare HMO plan where there is NO co-pay for an angioplasty--it's over a grand from what I can see. The list goes on. If you doubt about how the government will handle things, check out the IHS. http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:v3hdbr0bwyUJ:info.ihs.gov/Files/FundingDisparity-Jan2007.doc+IHS+gets+40%25+funding&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us Universal health care SOUNDS good. It does not work the way people are told it does. It can't--it ends up being rationed and too expensive. That's why I like the plan I cited from that book (and there are good ideas in the whole large chapter in the book, not just the plan).