Posted on 09/03/2009 12:50:43 PM PDT by Signalman
Health care reform may be defeated this year in part because so many Americans believe the government can’t do anything right and fear that a doctor will come to resemble an I.R.S. agent with a scalpel. Yet the part of America’s health care system that consumers like best is the government-run part.
Fifty-six to 60 percent of people in government-run Medicare rate it a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. In contrast, only 40 percent of those enrolled in private insurance rank their plans that high.
Multiple surveys back that up. For example, 68 percent of those in Medicare feel that their own interests are the priority, compared with only 48 percent of those enrolled in private insurance.
In truth, despite the deeply ingrained American conviction that government is bumbling when it is not evil, government intervention has been a step up in some areas from the private sector.
Until the mid-19th century, firefighting was left mostly to a mishmash of volunteer crews and private fire insurance companies. In New York City, according to accounts in The New York Times in the 1850s and 1860s, firefighting often descended into chaos, with drunkenness and looting.
So almost every country moved to what today’s health insurance lobbyists might label “socialized firefighting.” In effect, we have a single-payer system of public fire departments. _____________________
Take the hospital system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest integrated health system in the United States. It is fully government run, much more “socialized medicine” than is Canadian health care with its private doctors and hospitals. And the system for veterans is by all accounts one of the best-performing and most cost-effective elements in the American medical establishment.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The VA actually operates in competition with other health care providers since the rules were changed and only those with service related injuries and those without other insurance can be treated without being charged for their services.
So you can’t compare the VA to Canada’s or Britain’s socialized medicine.
Only Kristoff could come up with such nonsense. Medicare, the VA, and IHS (Indian Health Services) are ALL bankrupt ( out of money kaput zero nada). These services suffer from rationing, clinic like efficiencies, and care that is not the best it could be. Is that to say that the people ( docs and nurses and others) aren’t doing their best? NO WAY. On a daily basis these folks TRY to get the bureaucracy to allow them to practise top notch medicine. Routinely they are denied that ability ( lack of equipment, lack of office time, lack of office space, and on and on).
Whatever the short comings of private insurance there is at least the opportunity to go else where when your care is not up to snuff. The VA this year particularly is trying to shove vets out of the VA services and into the private health care world. They have closed clinics, reduced staff, and closed nursing homes. This trend is continuing in the current budget and the forecasts for the next 5 years.
Face the government does a lousy job of health care
And actually the VA focus has been, in the past, on increasing patient satisfaction so that those who DID have other coverage would choose the VA, increasing non-governmental revenue. However, since the economy has become increasingly wrecked there has been an influx of patients into the VA with no insurance coverage. This is increasing the strain on the VA causing delays in care... which is exactly what would we see if the VA were converted into part of a universal health care system.
“Fifty-six to 60 percent of people in government-run Medicare rate it a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. In contrast, only 40 percent of those enrolled in private insurance rank their plans that high. “
Medicare costs the federal govt. 650 billion a year and is due to go bankrupt in 7 years. Private insurance is not going bankrupt, costs the taxpayer nothing and pays taxes on any profit.
And they have managed to go bankrupt while only paying 60-70% of their bills - who pays the difference? You do, in the form of higher hospital/doctor bills.
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