Socialized healthcare is a terrible mistake but so many people seem enamoured of it or a government ran socialized health insurance. Why don't people understand that this will drive up the costs for everyone and make it more difficult to obtain? People in Canada cross the border into the U.S. daily to use our healthcare system and people in Great Britain die waiting for Cat scans. Socialism has never worked; yet many people here seem to think it's the way to go.
Politics - 11 Answers
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1 :
It is better than the healthcare system we already have.
2 :
87% of people in Canada are satisfied with their healthcare system. A few people crossing the border does not mean the system failed. Did you know that people from the US go to other countries to get operations performed. Look it up, it is called medical tourism. Does that mean our current system is a failure?
3 :
Every major industrialized nation on the planet has socialized healthcare except the united states. It's clear that WE are doing something wrong. Is the system perfect? Far from it, but even then, it's something. Even waiting a month for something like a MRI scan is better than never getting it at all because you can't afford to pay for it. Private healthcare is always an option though, even in countries where socialized medicine is the norm. But a public one is invaluable. Especially one day if say you'd need a liver transplant, and your insurance carrier doesn't think you're worth it, so to keep the bottom line high, they'll claim that a liver transplant is "experimental" and deny you payment for one.
4 :
why do you people never mention americans who have to travel to europe or canada for procedures not offered here? you only mention the vice versa
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Debunking Friday the 13th: 13 Myths about Health Care Reform Written By: Conrad F. Meier Published In: News Releases Publication Date: June 12, 2003 Publisher: The Heartland Institute -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you cross the path of a black cat this Friday the 13th, you’re about as likely to experience bad luck as you are likely to win the lottery. That’s a fact. But facts often give way to myth. While many of those myths are relatively harmless, others can be downright dangerous to our life, liberty, prosperity, and health. The single-payer health care plans touted by former Vice President Al Gore, Congressman Richard Gephardt (D-Missouri) and other Democrats offer a truly frightening case in point. Consider these 13 myths about single-payer health care. Myth #1 Single-payer systems are not socialized medicine. Single-payer means government is the insurance company. It doesn’t charge “premiums,†but instead raises taxes. It controls not only the financing, but who gets what services, the quality of what they get, when they get it, and if they get it. You don’t get much more socialized than that. A single-payer system is one big HMO, without the discipline and accountability achieved by competition. Myth #2 Single-payer systems are efficient. A study by the Institute for Global Health at the University of California concluded the Kaiser-Permanente HMO in the United States and Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) have similar resources, but the HMO offers better care more quickly. The difference is explained by better management, better use of integrated systems, greater investment in technology, and free-market competition. Myth #3 Single-payer systems are compassionate. If you think HMOs and insurance companies lack compassion, wait until you experience a health care system run by politicians and government bureaucrats. Single-payer health care systems depend on coercion and intrusion into the private affairs of persons subjected to them. Paperwork and red tape--not compassion or respect for the doctor-patient relationship--rule. Myth #4 Single-payer systems are not expensive for governments. Gephardt’s proposal would cost $247 billion--every year. A proposal to implement single-payer health care in Maryland alone would have cost $40 million a year ... plus lost payroll tax receipts of nearly $5 billion. As many as 117,000 jobs would have been lost. Myth #5 Single-payer systems are “free†for individuals. Single-payer health care plans are not free: They are paid for by tax dollars. Billions of them. The Maryland proposal would have required a 33 percent increase in the state’s personal income tax. Canadians pay extraordinarily high income taxes for their “free†care ... only to have to pay again when they come to the United States for care they can’t get in Canada. Myth #6 Single-payer systems do not ration care. In a single-payer health care system like Britain’s, patients have every incentive to demand care, and lots of it. Since no system can satisfy unlimited demand, the central authorities must resort to the only strategy open to them: rationing. In single-payer systems, you get rationing by waiting list; rationing by price controls; and rationing by restricting access to specialists, technology, and new drugs. Myth #7 Single-payer systems offer high-quality care. To get access to the least-invasive, most effective health care technology, citizens living under single-payer health care schemes come to the United States. The Canadian Fraser Institute reported in August 2002, “with regard to access to high-tech machinery, Canada performs dismally by comparison with other OECD countries. While ranking number one as a health care spender, Canada ranks 18th in access to MRIs, 17th in access to CT scanners, [and] eighth in access to radiation machines ...†Myth #8 Single-payer systems offer timely care. On any given day, one in 60 British citizens are waiting for medical treatment. Of those who are sick and actually need care, one in six must wait. After meeting with a senior doctor, one million people in Britain are on a waiting list for in-patient hospital admission at any given time. Just 155,000 of those are seen within four weeks. For 250,000 of them, it takes more than 26 weeks to be admitted for care. Myth #9 Single-payer systems improve access to prescription drugs. In Britain, the government determines how much profit a pharmaceutical firm is allowed to make--a sure way to arrest research and development. In addition, they ration access to drugs with a lottery based on a consumer's zip code. The prize is your eligibility to receive free medication. The “lucky†zip cod can change at any time, apparently on the basis of political expediency rather than medical necessity. Price controls and rigid drug formularies--hallmarks of a single-payer health care system--limit access to drugs and violate doctors’ and patients’ freedom of choice. Myth #10 Single-payer systems allow you to see any doctor you choose. Many doctors already refuse to accept Medicare patients. A recent study by the American Medical Association found nearly half of all U.S. physicians would have limited their Medicare practices further if the federal government had carried out a plan to cut physician fees. How many more doctors would “opt outâ€--or quit the professional altogether--if the entire U.S. were one big Medicare program? Myth #11 Single-payer systems are popular with doctors. Five hundred physicians leave Canada every year to practice in something other than a single-payer health care system. Zosia Kmietowicz wrote in the October 20, 2001 issue of the British Medical Journal, “one in four general practitioners (GPs) in Britain's National Health Service is seriously considering leaving general practice.†The British Medical Association surveyed all 36,000 General Practitioners in Britain, asking them if they would be prepared to resign from the NHS. There was a 66 percent response rate ... and 86 percent voted in favor of resignation. Myth #12 Single-payer systems are popular with patients. In 2002, seventy-nine percent of Oregon voters rejected a plan to have government officials run a health care system for the state’s 3.5 million residents. Measure 23, touted by supporters as “health care for all Oregon,†attracted just 204,082 votes, 21 percent of the total, while 786,768 voters--79 percent--rejected the plan. Myth #13 Single-payer systems are preferred by “forward-looking†countries. Nobody outside Britain--and apparently the United States--praises the NHS anymore. The country is out of step, clinging to central government control and management of health care while other countries move away from a single-payer model towards some mixture of free enterprise and government health care. Canada, Russia, Sweden, Germany ... and even Britain itself ... are moving toward greater reliance on the free-market. Friday the 13th myths are harmless enough. But single-payer health care? I would just as soon cross paths with a black cat while walking under a ladder. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conrad F. Meier is senior fellow in health policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Health Care News. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For further information, contact Heartland Public Affairs Director Greg Lackner at 312/377-4000, 773/489-6447, email lackner@heartland.org
6 :
People "think" such a health care plan would be a "given". They do not realize that we will be taxed to death. It's not just the socialistic healthcare, it seems more and more politicians are of the socialistic "mindset". This "mindset" is NOT good for our country. Big, Bigger, and Biggest Government does NOT work folks.
7 :
it seems to be working in China,. as long as you buy your poisonous, cheap crap from the great wall-mart of China,.
8 :
I don't believe that such programs are going to work. However, I'm still voting for the Democrats because a "Universal Health Care" program is far less wasteful than that pointless war in Iraq or the planned War to overthrow the government of Iran (all we've done in Iraq is strengthen al-Qaeda and increase how hated we are in the Middle East and it will be even worse if we go into Iran). Obviously, trying to copy Canada or Britain's health care system would be idiotic and Barack Obama is facing attacks from his opponents because his plan would simply make health care affordable to everybody and not force people to be insured or have the government nationalize the health care industry.
9 :
It didnt fail anywhere ! They just dodnt know how to apply it ! When i lived in former Yugoslavia it was perfect before USA destroy it so they can make you believe it failed !
10 :
Socialism IS feasible. Why it wont embrace socialism, even though it can: Because American leaders look at statistics and probably shit their pants. And they're right, judging from raw statistics at least. In America: Health care expenditure as a % of its GDP is 14%. That is a HUGE figure, especially with America's economy being second to none. ( while in the UK it is only 8%) Already America is ponying up 45% of its citizens' medical bills, while the citizens themselves pay 55%. (In the NHS in Britain, they pay up to 82% of its citizens' medical bills, while the citizens themselves only pay 18%) Statistically speaking, America cannot afford to embrace socialism, especially now with the falling dollar. What I'm sure they're missing, is that out of this 14% most of the health care expenditure is due to vanity, in which the govt. doesn't need to cover in the first place! (E.g. plastic surgery, rhinoplasty etc.) America CAN embrace socialism, however, it would reduce the efficacy of medical services. ( Due red-tape and bureaucracy, NHS waiting lists number up to 1.01 million, also the NHS is slow in adopting new medical procedures and delivering up to date technology. Its health care services are one of the worst in the developed world.) My substantive: America can embrace socialism in regards to healthcare, but most Americans wont like it anyway. At least if you're rich ,you wont suffer, but in the NHS, regardless of whether you are rich or poor, you suffer sloppy services and outdated procedures. (unless you're rich enough to cross over to somewhere where your money matters.) Besides, as Darwin would explain it, American culture has evolved in such a way that even the absolutely dirt poor Americans are not left completely defenseless, you could like, be on Oprah or something lol.
11 :
I don't know where you got the idea that national health care doesn't work. I've asked a lot of people from the UK, Australia, Canada, etc., "Should we do the same?". The answer has never been no. Not once. And they don't die waiting for cat scans. They do wait a bit for surgeries and procedures that are not critical. Carpal tunnel surgery would be a good example. But here in the USA we have some getting it a bit quicker and many others not getting it at all. That's not better. And those "socialist" western European societies are not doing so badly. but anyway the reason we need something like socialism is that without it what we have is economic anarchy. A system that does nothing to stop those with capital cannibalizing those without.
