Posted on 03/12/2006 4:58:03 PM PST by Ultra Sonic 007
Greetings. I have a piece of text I'd like to copy and paste from a topic on another forum (known as Marble Garden, which is where political, philosophical, and sociological threads and debates are posted). I had started a topic (username: Ultra Sonic 007) about health care, asking which system would be better; socialized or private?
One of the forumers there is TheCycle, a Canadian. He just recently posted a long post on the universal health-care system and why it would be a good idea for the US to make the switch to such a system. It was in response to snippets from Michael Savage's book 'The Enemy Within' that regarded health-care. Snippets I posted.
This is where I ask for help.
So to you FReepers, I ask for a rebuttal to his argument, if there is any. Please try and present logical reasons as to why.
xxxx
Okay, it's not that it's too long, but it's just that he, like Coulter Fhtagn and her degenerate ilk, is incapable of saying anything intelligent that isn't laced with venomous comments about various Democrats who I've never heard of, with words like "bottom-feeders" and "Stalinists" sprinkled about willy-nilly. Basically his entire argument is based around not wanting to indirectly subsidize medical care for people who aren't him.
The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not cover the cost of health care for all its citizens. The US spends more than twice as much per capita on health care than any other nation in the world -- over $4,000 per year for every man, woman, and child. Still, more than 50 million Americans have no health insurance. People without health insurance experience more illnesses and do not live as long as those who are covered.
In the United States two different government agencies, the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office, conducted comprehensive studies on the cost of providing health care to all. Both concluded that the conversion of the current patchwork of private and public health insurance programs to a universal health care system would save $100 billion on paperwork alone. There would be additional savings depending on how the plan is structured. The GAO concluded that the savings created by switching to a national health system would make it possible to provide comprehensive care for all Americans.
About a quarter of health care expense in the United States essentially comes from paperwork —- having to comply with the requirements of a multitude of different insurance companies for documentation, eligibility determinations, billing of patients, and collections. Because of this complicated payment system, trying to sort out who will pay for the care of a patient means hospitals need large administrative staffs to deal with the procedures of a variety of insurers. Further complicating matters, the present system offers a limited, expensive, and ineffective form of universal coverage by requiring hospitals to provide emergency care to the uninsured. Emergency care is the most expensive form of health care.
Physicians in the United States presently average about an hour a day completing paperwork for different insurance companies in order to get paid for services they have provided. Patients often experience long delays in receiving care because paperwork is being processed. Under many plans, insured patients must make the initial payment for medical care, then submit a request to their insurance provider to get reimbursed.
When everyone is covered under the same plan, the need to keep track of who has insurance no longer exists. A patient in a doctor’s office or hospital doesn't need to provide insurance information before receiving care. Everyone simply carries a card that guarantees access to the care needed.
A single-payer system of health-care financing frees physicians and their patients to keep their focus on health care and the best way to deliver it. The term single-payer describes a government-sponsored form of health-care financing in which a single insurer, the government, pays all of the bills. Hospitals in a single-payer system are paid on the basis of the costs they incur in serving a population, not by each individual patient admitted. The hospital does not need to submit a bill for each aspirin or bandage that is given to each patient. The amount each hospital receives from the government is based on its costs from the previous year plus the cost of inflation. This aspect of the single-payer system is called global budgeting.
The concept of global budgeting for hospitals allows communities and government agencies to make plans to improve the health of the population and prevent illness. By focusing on preventive medicine, universal health care invests in measures such as immunizations to prevent diseases, campaigns against smoking, and mammograms to detect breast cancer in its early stages. A forward-looking health policy carries benefits for public health and government budgeting.
An increased focus on preventive medicine will improve general health conditions and help avoid many costly medical procedures in the future. The use of expensive resources for individual patients can also be reduced as care is shifted to other venues such as outpatient clinics and community care. The outpatient setting allows healthcare professionals to focus on preventive care. Outpatient clinics and community health centers have been shown to reduce the incidence of pregnancy complications and to improve the treatment of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and asthma, resulting in tremendous savings on health costs.
The Canada Health Act of 1984 includes five basic principles that determine how care is to be provided. The act requires that care be publicly administered to avoid the profiteering and increased costs of for-profit health care; comprehensive, so all medically necessary care is covered; universal, so everyone will be covered; portable, so people can move from job to job or city to city without losing coverage; and accessible, so people do not have to go too far to receive health care. This simple act provides one successful example of how the principles of the single-payer system can be put into use.
In the United States, by contrast, the government provides health insurance only for the poor, citizens over the age of 65, and people with disabilities under the Medicaid and Medicare programs. These programs account for less than half of all Americans. The majority of the uninsured are working people and their families. Many employers do not provide health care as a benefit to their employees, or they make the employees pay for such a large portion of the premium that employees cannot afford it.
The single-payer system of health care is not the only possible way to provide universal health care, but it would probably cause the least disruption. In another alternative, known as a national health service, all physicians and nurses are employees of the government and are paid flat salaries. A national health service provides inexpensive and comprehensive care, but reduces the independence of health-care professionals. The single-payer system is more compatible with the way health care is now provided in the United States.
If the United States adopts a single-payer system, the cost of care will be included in taxes instead of the payroll deduction most people pay to cover their health insurance premium at work. Working people who are presently covered through their employment would not experience an increase in taxes. Instead, the money now deducted from their paycheck to pay their health insurance provider would go to the government to help cover the cost of universal health insurance.
Some critics contend that greater government involvement in health care will result in inefficiency and declining quality. In a single-payer system it is not necessary for hospitals to be owned by the government, or for physicians and nurses to be government employees. Government involvement in actual medical care can be minimal. Single-payer is only a method to finance universal health insurance. The government’s primary role is simply to collect money and pay bills, a role that the government can carry out effectively and efficiently.
The single-payer system allows people to decide where they would receive their health care. For many people in the present system, especially those covered by HMOs that restrict choice, the single-payer system would provide far more choices about who they could see for their care and what kind of care they could receive. The current system often does not allow people to have long-standing relationships with a physician because coverage plans change so often that patients never really get to know their doctor.
Some people worry that if the United States adopts a single-payer form of health-care financing, problems with waiting lists might begin here. Indeed patients in some countries where everyone is guaranteed health care, such as Britain and Canada, must wait for certain types of elective care. In these countries, patients with urgent problems receive care immediately. Where waiting lists do exist, such as in Canada, governments are working on managing the systems better. More importantly, in these systems care is given based on medical need instead of the ability to pay. Those who need care the most get the best care first. It is important to note that in any system insufficient financing creates bottlenecks when people try to get access to limited resources. The problem of waiting lists arises from insufficient funding, not from any fundamental problem with guaranteed care.
An important difference between the United States and other industrialized nations is the amount of money the United States spends on health care -— over twice as much per capita on health care as the next closest nation. The United States spends nearly 14 percent of its GDP on health care, whereas most nations spend only 6 to 9 percent of their GDP on health care.
The United States is certainly spending enough money. However, in addition to the amount spent on paperwork, much of this money is diverted into profits for insurance companies and large for-profit managed care organizations. In the US system, care is also rationed, but it is distributed according to the ability to pay rather than according to need.
In most industries free-market competition tends to increase the quality and decrease the cost of goods and services, but this tendency does not apply to health care. Numerous studies show that for-profit HMOs and hospitals tend to have lower quality as measured by complication rates. Increased costs and reduced quality of the US system are evidenced by rising health-care premiums and decreasing patient satisfaction. At the same time more than 125 studies have demonstrated that people who lack health insurance suffer more illnesses and die earlier because they fail to obtain preventive care and receive health care only when their conditions are more advanced.
People in the United States have always had a great deal of pride in the technology and innovation available through the health-care system in their country. Some people worry that changes in the way health care is financed might diminish the incentive to create new innovations. Although many innovations in health care have originated in the United States, countries with universal health care and single-payer financing have also been on the cutting edge of medicine. The first heart-lung transplant was performed in Toronto. The first laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed in Newfoundland. Surgeons at Saint Paul's Hospital in Vancouver recently pioneered an efficient new way of replacing heart valves. The incentive to create and innovate in medicine comes from physicians’ ambition to help patients and from the prestige and compensation that follow. Single-payer financing does not negate these rewards.
The single-payer form of health-care financing does not necessarily change the way in which physicians are compensated for the care they provide. Physicians still have incentives to provide care under a single-payer system because patients can choose their providers based on their satisfaction with the health-care provider. For example, a physician who sees patients in a private office gives the government a slip imprinted from each patient’s health security card. The government then pays the physician according to a predetermined fee schedule. Income is determined by how many patients a physician sees. As in any system, of course, there can and should be limits on how many patients a physician may see in a given time, to ensure that each patient receives optimal care.
Universal health care with a single-payer form of financing would make the United States a more productive society and allow citizens to feel good about taking care of each other. The current system is broken and harmful. Studies have shown people stay in unwanted jobs to keep their health insurance. There is a growing dissatisfaction with the way in which health care is provided in the United States. This is especially true with the for-profit HMOs. Dissatisfaction with the health-care industry in general is increasingly driving bright, innovative people away from careers in health care.
The biggest question about universal health care is not whether it works, but whether sufficient political will exists in the United States to make such a dramatic change in the way health care is provided. This is the challenge that lies before the United States in the new century. The public acknowledges the need to guarantee the education of all children and the obligation to provide police and fire protection for everyone. Do US citizens feel it is the responsibility of society to provide health care for everyone? If not, who does not deserve to have health care?
xxxx
A good debater, that he is. Any help on this matter would be appreciated.
Health/Canada ping.
Ping to deal with it tomorrow.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
bump
well...if you're sick enough..at some point your master is better off if you're dead...
ML/NJ
No debate needed, just one word:
FEMA
The reason you pay more for health care in US is because there is no government price fixing which inevitably results in poorer service by less qualified individuals using older equipment and technology. Ask him to provide one example of something the government does more efficiently than the private sector. As far as consolidating the industry...of course it would result in some efficiencies. That would hold true for any industry. That doesn't mean that you don't give up anything. What about the loss of jobs? What about the loss of tax revenue to the government resulting from those jobs? What about future innovations and break throughs that come as a direct result of competition?
What this guy is arguing (consolidating entire industries and making everyone goverment workers) is called Communism and it has failed in every instance that it has been tried. You don't need to argue with this guy, that argument was lost long ago.
Holland to allow ‘baby euthanasia’
Euthanasia Rates Double in Belgium
Scottish Doctors Sterilize up to 400 Girls Without Parental Notification
There's no free lunch. You can't have your cake and eat it too, as much as the socialists try to tell you otherwise. I'll never forget the letter to the editor of the British Medical Journal over a decade ago. It told about a smoker who needed a coronary artery bypass graft. The surgeons wouldn't operate until the patient quit smoking. It took him some time before he could quit, but he did, and he finally was scheduled for the bypass. He had a fatal myocardial infarction a few days before the bypass was scheduled.
....
Where waiting lists do exist, such as in Canada, governments are working on managing the systems better.
Managing costs by having long waiting lists where people die instgead of receiving care. That's compassion from a government agency where YOU have no say in your treatment.
My grandmother was in a hospital waiting for rehabilitative therapy. She waited 2 years and died before treatment was available. If you are old, the governmetn doesn't think it is worth the cost of helping you.
Also tell those who want socialized medicine that only Canada and Britain make it against the law for a doctor to operate outside the government-as-only-provider system. In Europe and Japan, there is socialized medicine, but there is also private care available, too. A recent supreme court decision has opened the door to private care in Canada with Alberta and Quebec being at the forefront and the socialist Liberals of Ontario the most reluctant.
Universal health care is health care rationing by government, mediocre care for all by unmotivated providers of medicine and care. I would rather have a system where the doctors have a reason to excel, so I at least have a chance to get the best.
I didn't read the article, but I will tell you the experiances of Canadian healthcare from my husband's family. They left Germany for Canada in the 50's. His family moved to the states, but all the siblings were old enough by that time that they all went back to Canada to live within 1 year of moving down here.
1. Cousins father in law in Canada diagnosed with prostate cancer. As per their regulations, he was told to wait a year and see what happens. Lucky for him, he is very successful (read rich) and came to the Mayo Clinic and paid cash. He had one of the most aggressive prostate cancers and would have been dead in a year.
2. Uncle in Canada had a heart attack. As per Canadian guidelines, heart attack victims do not just get to go to the cardiac wing and get (can't remember the name of the test, but it is standard procedure down here). In Canada you have to wait for a bed to open up in the cardiac unit. He died before he could get into the cardiac unit.
3. Cousin dislocated his shoulder down here white water rafting. Went to a local small hospital, had his shoulder looked at, x-ray taken and popped in in about 45 minutes. He could not believe it. He said he would have been on a waiting list for that in Canada for 2-4 weeks, and I think he meant just to have the darn thing popped back in.
4. My in laws are winter birds in TX and many of their neighbors are Canadian. There are several stories about health care from them. I cannot recall them exactly, but they are not very positive. I am positive though that if you have an ailment while travelling in the states, you need to return to Canada for treatment or you will be denied any and all follow up treatment from the original procedure you received elsewhere. This is different for emergency procedures, but I think you are the emergency is over and you are able to get back up there for continued care.
Doesn't that sound dreamy?
This should aid you in your debate :)
http://www.neoperspectives.com/canadahealthcare.htm
Especially see the first article.
I've never understood why Canadians make sure that I understand that they don't want any report of their care to go anywhere else. But I Know it happens.
I have worked in health care reimbursement for 15 years, so I consider myself somewhat of an expert in this field.
The government’s primary role is simply to collect money and pay bills, a role that the government can carry out effectively and efficiently.
This line is laughable when it comes to the governments involvement in Health Care in the US. They now administer the Medicare program, and they do alot more than "pay the bills". Congress currently micromanages the Medicare system. They decide what will be paid for and why, and they do this through Congressional bills. The doctors DO NOT decide medical necessity, Congress does. For example, up until a few years ago, a Medicare patient would go into a dr's office because he had been suffering nose bleeds. Medical necessity would indicate a CBC (blood test used to determine anemia among other things), but at that time, Medicare did not consider it a medical necessity so they wouldn't pay for it (this example has been changed in recent years, but it was an example that I always remember). Because of Medicares other rules, if the physician did not tell the patient before hand that it wouldn't be covered, and if they didn't have them sign a waiver, the physician COULD NOT bill the patient for this test. The physician would have to write it off.
Another stat that I see cited over and over again when Universal Health Care is brought up, is the so called "efficiency" of the Medicare system. The stat usually says that Medicare is 85% efficiant in it's paper work (compared to much lower efficiency rates with private insurance companies). The # 1 reason for their high efficiency rate is due to their non - bendable rules. If a claim comes in that is not 100% correct, it is automatically rejected. So it then becomes the physicians responsibility to do the paperwork, refiling etc. They are so efficiant because they don't do anything but either accept or reject a claim. In the cases of other insurance companies, they will actually look at the claim, and based on certain criteria they will pay it without resubmitting it. An example of this would be the CBC mentioned above. If the nosebleed diagnosis was not in Medicares data base as a payable diagnosis, they would reject it automatically. If the nosebleed diagnosis was not in Blue Cross/ Blue Shields database, they would have someone manually look at the claim, hopefully decide that yes, it should be paid for in this situation, and then pay it. All this generally without rejecting it first. They may ask for medical records, etc. But they would try and get it paid, before rejecting it out of hand.
None of this even begins to address the horrendous reimbursement amounts that Medicare pays today, but I may try and address those later.
ABSOLUTELY NOT. See: THE GOVERNMENT=SOCIETY FALLACY,
Besides, it's completely based upon COLLECTIVISM, not INDIVIDUALISM which is what AMERICANISM is all about.
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