What do you really know about Universal Health Care?

1. Everyone is covered, not matter of citizenship. - Obama's plan is a bit fuzzy on this subject but his past record suggests that citizenship will not be a factor. His plan, unlike some, only covers people that don't currently have "affordable" insurance. This is better than some plans that would get nationalize the health care system.

2. Facilities are run down. - This usually occurs when there is too much government control of the health care industry.

3. Not enough doctors. - This will occur if rates the government is willing to pay for doctors is set too low to cover costs. The biggest cost for doctors is insurance against malpractice lawsuits. There needs to be changes in malpractice lawsuits such as penalties for filing frivilous lawsuits and payouts of actual damages only. This alone would reduce the cost of health care and health insurance.

4. Waiting time can be all day, day, or months to include broken bones. - see #2.

Universal Health Care can mean a wide variety of things. There are plans that are based on some European countries that make all health care paid for by the government through taxes. These are usually the ones that cause the issues you are describing. This is the type of plan that Clinton was advocating. Obama's plan is scaled down to give anyone that doesn't have insurance the chance to purchase cheap insurance through the government. It also makes it madatory to carry health insurance for children. McCain's plan is to work with insurance companies and the health care industry to lower costs which would in turn lower insurance costs making it more affordable for everyone.

In Massachusetts, we now have universal health care (Mass Health) for anyone who doesn't have insurance from an employer or just can't afford it. In theory, it's a good idea - but the biggest problem we have is that many doctors won't accept Mass Health because the state takes too long to pay them. If it's going to work here, all doctors should be required by law to accept it if they want to practice medicine in the state, but at the same time, the state has to get rid of the red tape and pay these doctors on time.

"Physicians for a National Health Program" is a group of 15,000 or so health care providers with a great site. They have a lot of questions and answers on this issue. I could write a really long reply but instead I'll refer you to them:

Home page:

http://www.pnhp.org/

Frequently Asked Question page (scroll down for answers):

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php

First, hands down BEST solution--comprehensive AND voluntary AND free market:

That means preventative care (physical with follow up). Real medication (no Medicare "donut holes" the really ill are ripped off again.) No bogus ridiculously low "caps" on needed medical procedures. No abuse of the ER. No paying for the silly with the sniffles to go to the doc for free. No more bankruptcies over medical bills. I want THIS plan that ends abuse of the taxpayer, takes the burden off employers, provides price transparency, and ends the rip-off of the US taxpayer at the hands of greedy insurance CEOs (which has been repeatedly documented).

http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.html

Read the PDF, not the blurb, for the bulk of the plan. Book is searchable on Amazon.com

Cassandra Nathan's Save America, Save the World

UHC is ALWAYS bad news:

The NHS, the oldest system, is in Britain:

"Staff are being laid off, and deficits are at an all time high (£1.07bn for 2005-2006)” (Hazel Blears, Labour Party Chair and Minister Without Portfolio, labourachievements.blogspot.com/2006/08/23-investment-in-nhs.html).

In the National Review Online article, Coburn & Herzlinger state “more than 20,000 Brits would not have died from cancer in the U.S.” Just recently Alex Smallwood of the BMA (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, postcode-lottery of care. Government no longer has a choice.’” (Moss, “NHS rationing is ‘necessary evil,’ says doctors,” 26 June 2007).

"Comparing Canada with other industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that provide universal access to health care, a study released by The Fraser Institute in May revealed that Canada spends more on its system than other nations while ranking among the lowest in several key indicators, such as access to physicians, quality of medical equipment, and key health outcomes.

...

In 1999, Richard F. Davies, MD, described how delays affected Ontario heart patients scheduled for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. In a single year, for this one operation, 71 patients died before surgery and another "121 were removed from the list permanently because they had become medically unfit for surgery;" 44 left Ontario and had their CABG elsewhere, such as in the USA. In other words, 192 people either died or were too sick to have surgery before they worked their way to the front of the waiting line.

One of the reasons Canadians are slow to acknowledge the problems with their system is that general practitioners have been relatively easy to access and reasonably efficient at providing everyday services for common complaints, such as colds, sprains, aches and pains.

As time passes, however, more and more Canadians are confronted by the halting quality of their system when they face complex and expensive medical problems. They often cannot get timely or appropriate care for bone fractures, prompt treatment for cancer, or non-emergency surgery such as hip replacements. Their doctors complain that they are unable to help them and the government pleads shortage of funds.

...

Canadian physician frustration with their inability to provide quality and timely care is resulting in a brain drain. According to one poll, one in three Canadian doctors is considering leaving the country. A doctor shortage looms, as the nation falls 500 doctors a year short of the 2,500 new physicians it needs to add each year to meet national health needs, according to Sally Pipes, a policy expert formerly with the Canadian Fraser Institute.

Another casualty of the lengthy waiting periods is Canada's much-vaunted equal access to medical treatment. Even though medical emergencies allow some people to jump ahead in the waiting line — making others wait longer — a survey published in the Annals of Internal Medicine medical journal found that more than 90 percent of heart specialists had "been involved in the care of a patient who received preferential access" to cardiac care based on non-medical reasons including the patient's social standing or personal connections with the treating physician."

Jewish World Review June 11, 2004 written by Dr. Cihak

AND

"The biggest Canadian fiscal drain comes from the single-payer medical system. "Current model of health-care delivery leading us down the path to financial ruin," states the lead editorial in the Calgary Sun. Health-care costs would consume 50% of Alberta's budget by 2016 (according to the Fraser Institute) or 2017 (according to Aon Consulting, a firm hired by the Alberta government). Health care would devour 100% of the provincial budget by 2030, if present trends continue.

...

An estimated 90,000 Canadians sought medical care outside their country in 2005. The cry "no two-tiered system" could be replaced by "set our patients free," stated a lead editorial (National Post 9/18/06)."

Jewish World Review Dec. 1, 2006 by Dr. Glueck

So why no total collapse yet? Because “illegal, for-profit health-service centers” have “proliferated” in Canada and are so accepted that the head of one became the president of the Canadian Medical Association (“Individual Freedom vs. Government Control,” 1 August 2007, nationalreview.com).

Japan doesn't fare any better:

"According to Japanese legislator Takashi Yamamoto, who was just diagnosed with cancer, "abandoned cancer refugees are roaming the Japanese archipelago." Patients are told they¹ll never get better, even when treatments exist, and many are not even informed of their diagnoses. Cancer mortality rates in Japan have been steadily climbing and are now more than 250 per 100,000, while U.S. rates are now around 180 per 100,000. (Glueck, “Far East illustrates the limitations and dangers of universal health care,” 26 January 2007, jewishworldreview.com)

Sweden:

A May 2007 article the National Center for Public Policy Research ran called “Sweden’s Single-Payer Health System Provides a Warning to Other Nations” (Hogberg, nationalcenter.org) indicates that this government with good GDP ($31,600) and relatively low unemployment (5.6 percent) had a single-payer system for much of the 20th century. They covered basically all health care costs and as a result, had to ration health care, and found themselves with waiting lists for both surgeries and doctor visits. In the 1990s, there was a move toward semi-privatization which reduced those problems, but they have re-emerged. In that author’s, view, the reforms were not permitted to work as they were not full-on free market ones.

The much lauded French system raises some questions as well. From their Embassy site (ambafrance-us.org) they state that 96 percent of the population receives free or 100 percent reimbursed health care. They state the system is part of their Social Security and is funded from worker’s salaries (60 percent), “indirect taxes on alcohol and tobacco and by direct contribution paid by all revenue proportional to income, including retirement pensions and capital revenues.” They state that it appears that health insurance pays less to its doctors in France than in other European countries, but that 80 percent of the public have supplemental health insurance, typically from their employers. If they’re providing so well for the needs of the public, why is there a need for “supplemental” health insurance for the majority of the public and what about the additional cost that imposes? The site states that the poorest have free universal health care, funded by taxes. Long-term illness sufferers are to be reimbursed for their treatments. They do have private clinics, as well as public hospitals, and not-for-profit healthcare. In fact, “private medical care in France is particularly active in treating more than 50% of surgeries and more than 60% of cancer cases.”

Private insurance, which the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) site said in a 2004 report, was held by 92 percent of the French, helps to cover both vision and dental care which are not well covered under the government system. “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).

...Another sign of transformation: Canadian doctors, long silent on the health-care system’s problems, are starting to speak up. Last August, they voted Brian Day president of their national association. A former socialist who counts Fidel Castro as a personal acquaintance, Day has nevertheless become perhaps the most vocal critic of Canadian public health care, having opened his own private surgery center as a remedy for long waiting lists and then challenged the government to shut him down. “This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week,” he fumed to the New York Times, “and in which humans can wait two to three years.”

And now even Canadian governments are looking to the private sector to shrink the waiting lists. Day’s clinic, for instance, handles workers’-compensation cases for employees of both public and private corporations. In British Columbia, private clinics perform roughly 80 percent of government-funded diagnostic testing. In Ontario, where fealty to socialized medicine has always been strong, the government recently hired a private firm to staff a rural hospital’s emergency room.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_hea...