The British “Free Healthcare” Myth
It might just be time to settle this debate once and for all. Go over and read the whole thing – or come to the obvious conclusion and read these two and a bit paragraphs.
From the WSJ -
Therefore I, who have no solution to my own health-care problems, let alone those of the United States, say only, beware of health-care economists bearing statistics that prove the inevitability of their own solutions. I mistrust the fact that, while those people who work for commercial companies (rightly) have to declare their interests in writing in medical journals, those who work for governmental agencies do not do so: as if government agencies had not interests of their own, and worked only for the common good.
Selfishly, no doubt, I continue to measure the health-care system where I live by what I want for myself and those about me.
And what I want, at least for that part of my time that I spend in England, is to be a dog. I also want, wherever I am, the Americans to go on paying for the great majority of the world’s progress in medical research and technological innovation by the preposterous expense of their system: for it is a truth universally acknowledged that American clinical research has long reigned supreme, so overall, the American health-care system must have been doing something right. The rest of the world soon adopts the progress, without the pain of having had to pay for it.
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Most agree that health care reform in America is needed; but let’s fix the things that need fixing. Under the disingenuous guise that it won’t cost much if any more, the current proposal is an ambiguous set of guidelines, not unlike the way the income tax laws are written. No one can really understand what is written, so an expensive bureaucracy would be created to interpret, write and manage the new health care code, as the IRS has done with the tax laws. If enacted, it would never be revoked; it would only grow with time, becoming ever more expensive and restrictive to individual liberty and freedom of choice. Politicians listen! Tax payers of America don’t want or need this or anything similar!
To achieve health care reform that has long been needed in America, scrap all that Congress has written so far and do the following in order of importance:
1. Tort reform to drastically limit liability exposure for doctors and institutions.
2. Fix all the huge problems currently facing Medicare and Social Security. Scrap “Medicare D.”
3. Encourage the formation of a nation-wide private agency or private coop for bulk procurement of prescription drugs and health insurance plans to keep the price down. Engage the FDA to approve more generic drugs for more competition with brand named drugs.
4. Write federal standards to govern private health insurance plans and coops requiring that each provide the same coverage through a number of different levels from bare bones to high end coverage. This allows citizens freedom of choice to buy what is needed and wanted and competition to lower costs. These standards should be imposed equally on each state through the State Insurance Commissioners, who then become the enforcement authorities.
5. The Federal Government should underwrite noncompetitive medical insurance of last resort or broaden Medicare for catastrophic medical coverage for citizens, but not illegal aliens.
6. Test big changes before writing them into law; in stark contrast to the current ramrod approach to enact huge, expensive and untried changes.
7. Do not allow passage of a watered down version of the current proposals that contain a “Trojan Horse” for bureaucrats to unleash upon us later.
This approach does not pretend to be all inclusive or the only way, but it at least shows a valid and workable way for achieving genuine health care reform.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778.html
I guess I don’t understand your point of putting forward that article. I read it and still can find no reason to support the Obama admin’s proposed reforms. And I also seriously question the conclusions in it – not once has the writer taken into account the population of our nation vs. the populations of the nations whose HC systems are mentioned. And the writer also does not take into account the current interference of the government in the insurance industry which have resulted in mandates that limit consumers choices and ability to access insurance.
I’m a bit disappointed. The article did not “debunk” any of the myths stated in the original article. What was the point? Just to show he is/you are a universal/socialized/gov HC advocate? Mission accomplished.
Wow. And I missed the biggest factor. If you compare our system to those caring for populations that most closely resemble ours, you need to compare the outcome. In our admittedly somewhat deficient system, our mortality rates for the top killers – breast cancer, lung cancer, heart disease and prostate cancer – are much lower, across the board, than those of the UK, Canada and Germany. We must be doing something right.
5-Yr Cancer Survival Rates
So which would you prefer for yourself and your family – an expensive system that will not save your life or an expensive system that will?
Is the challenge to ensure all Americans have excellent, affordable care accessible to them or simply access to cheap care? Affordable and accessible is not eh same thing as cheap. Our Prez is trying to sell us cheap.
Oh sorry, I looked at the article again and just noticed it was an opinion piece. Of course!
The intent wasn’t to specifically debunk anything you wrote above, but just to point out that we get ahead of ourselves pretty easily by mindlessly railing against the “socialized” systems of other countries without actually seeing if other health care systems manage to do some things better than we do.
Reading about Japan’s health care expenditures in particular was pretty striking, especially given that they have the oldest population on the planet. The trade off between accessibility and quality does not have to be a stark one if we can effectively bring down costs.
And I would argue that Japan and the USA cannot be compared in any way, shape or form. Population is too small, very well educated and much healthier lifestyle. Yes, all those things are issues to be addressed but they also prevent any comparison whatsoever. Plus, our money paid for their system, remember? We don’t have a big brother “volunteering” to pay for our new system.
I see. So your argument is that the United States has the best health care system of all the United States’. Powerful.
So snarky! I thought we weren’t going there. I was pretty clear about comparing our system to a system with similar demographics ie western europe. It’s why I put up the link-I had edited the comment, maybe you didn’t see it.
5 yr cancer survival rates
I have tried in good faith to debate this issue honestly and openly, using statistics and facts to back up my reasoning. But I suppose there is no winning an argument when the opposition’s opinion is “If most stupid Americans does not want it, we most definitely need it.”
Interesting article, although comparing the US to a monolithic “Europe” comprised of 47 countries seems more than a little misleading – I’d be interested to see “Europe” disaggregated so that we weren’t averaging outcomes in places like Germany, or Britain with places like Latvia or Romania – I’d bet the differences would be much less stark.
The opposition’s opinion is “we need it” – nothing in there about stupid Americans.
Well, there’s this one that addresses the 47 nation issue and how the UK has some of the lowest survival rates. Looks like maybe Romania and Latvia should be angry with the Brits for screwing up their statistics.
UK lagging on cancer survival
Jut google some stats – they’re all there. We beat everyone – because of early detection and excellent & advanced treatments. You can not possibly hope to refute this. The point is that when comparing “comparative” nations, we win even with our insufficient system.
I don’t know what to tell you. We actually agree that reform is needed. I just think the reforms should come from within the private sector. The people have spoken. They do not want the Dems version of reform. It’s time to move on to some new ideas. Why don’t you present your case for public sector reform. I haven’t been through all your comments but I do not remember any specific information, just “can’t we all have health care” rhetoric.