Posted on 09/06/2006 5:23:57 PM PDT by Skooz
Help, please.
I am looking for a definitive source or two refuting socialized medicine. I have looked most of today, but cannot find what I am looking for, but I am sure it is out there and if anyone has their fingertips on it, you will.
I need facts, stats, numbers etc documenting how socialized medicine has failed where it has been implemented and the likely consequences of such a nationalized health plan here.
I humbly thank you all in advance.
Have looked for "Canadian Health Care," "UK Health Care" or "French Health Care?" Those searches should return some of the figures you seek.
Yes, I have. But I mostly get blogs and opinion pieces. I am looking for numbers and facts. It is my intention to annihilate the pro-socialized medicine arguments I encounter.
I can't do that with the resources I have thus far uncovered. I can make a more polished argument, but I need more. I want to be able to spout the numbers and stats. I know they are out there.
The blogs I found have links. Dig through them. Google on Socialized medicine horror stories
I found quite a few by googling Why Socialized medicine fails (no quotation marks).
Thanks.
I can find much anecdotal evidence like that, but few hard facts and stats.
I'll keep looking, though.
Not sure what you are after. The argument may have not been made for you to simply borrow. You may need to make it
There's an excellent article written by an expert on 6/12/03 with many facts and data. It's on David Horowitz's site - frontpagemag.com
The author is Jeffrey Miles - let me know if this is helpful.
Contact Thr Fraser Institute in Canada. They chronilcle all the horrors of Socialized medicine there.
For instance, I read a blog that makes the claim that life expectancy in Canada has actually declined since the implementation of their socialized medicine scheme.
Rather than just quote the blog, I would like to know whether or not that is true. And, if so, at exactly what rate this has ocurred.
I am looking for primary sources and rock solid stats.
Sweet. Thanks.
here's a couple...
Brits wait Four years for Hearing Aids
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497825/posts
NHS Not To Treat Smokers, Drinkers Or Obese (UK)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1536809/posts
How hard have you really looked? You have to play with google and sometimes drill down deep to find the gem
I'll share this w/o even reading it.
For me, the most effective arguments against socialized medicine are the same arguments used against...socialism.
I believe in Free Market Capitalism.
Nothing motivates people like money. Money can buy a roof over your head, food for the table, clothes for your back and a vacation in Tahiti if you have enough of it.
Consequently, the desire for more money can drive a lot of positive behavior in systems that effectively supress the negative behavior that is often manifested by greed.
I have worked in the Health Care Industry since 1985, and I use the term "Health Care Industry" deliberately. When it is frankly referred to by that phrase, people are often offended or horrified. But there is no need to be.
Competition drives costs down, and while there is not competition for health care the same way there is competition for your money that is spent on food, clothes and computers, there is competition at the hospital level.
Hospitals have to cut costs by streamlining processes to make them more efficient, providing better pre and post-operative care in order to minimize length-of-stay. Hospitals have to shop for the best deals on pharmaceuticals, contrast agents and other materials such as catheters, needles and other consumable items.
Most importantly, hospitals are forced to stay competitive with salaries in order to attract and keep qualified, motivated top of the line personnel. Hospitals, like many other entities in a capitalistic environment, have found that the worst thing you can do is to allow your pay scales to drop below the market norms. It is a cut-throat business, hospitals stealing employees from each other, jacking up salaries to attract those employees. If you don't pay...your competitor will. Your best people will leave and go to the hospital that is paying well. Their morale and performance at that institution will go up, yours will go down.
The end result is: patient care will suffer. If you have not managed your health care business appropriately, your patients will receive worse care than your healthy competitor.
Your patients will be subjected to rude, stressed, overworked employees.
Your patients will wait longer for a nurse to visit them in their bed.
Your physicians, nurses and technical staff will work longer, more stressful hours for less pay than their competitors, and will be more prone to making a mistake.
Your Information Systems will atrophy and not be upgraded. You will not be able to afford a new digital radiology system and will still work from traditional film. Your competitor WILL put in a new digital radiology system, as well as speech recognition software for dictation AND digital mammography units, and will trumpet that advantage in the advertisements they will pepper the media with in your locale.
Your institution will have a higher post-op mortality rate, there will be more critical mistakes, and the state and federal regulating agencies will notice, and come to inspect your hospital. Articles will appear in the daily newspaper, and you will see your hospital logo on the evening news referring to the poor patient care.
Nursing unions will go on strike, good physicians will leave for greener pastures, and sometimes, the hospital, often a community icon, goes broke. Those people in that community have to now drive 20 miles to a different hospital. Trauma patients have fewer places to be taken to, and stories appear about needless deaths due to ER's being shut down or on diverson.
THAT is what happens to hospitals that do not run their institutions like a BUSINESS. What makes it a business is money.
But just because you have to run it like a business does NOT mean you have to treat people like widgets on an assembly line. If you do a good job running the business end, pay well, provide a stable, modern environment, people are more efficient and happier, deliver better care, and patients are the beneficiaries.
Sure. Our medical care in America is expensive. And it is not perfect. Just as there are a lot of horror stories about socialized medicine, there are many about horrible mistakes in American medicine. But we do deliver the best care in the world for the most people. Nobody is ever denied care because they cannot pay in this country. That is a myth. You walk into an ER, you get care. You make an appointment to see a doctor and you are uninsured, you get a session with a financial counselor. You may sign a paper in a non-emergent situation stating that you are responsible for paying for treatment, but you still get the care, and in nearly all cases, the quality of care is blind to the amount of money you can pay.
If you take money out of the situation, all the benefits of competition disappear. Everyone gets lousy care. Or, sometimes you don't get that care.
Capitalism works. It is the engine that has driven more prosperity and good for mankind than nearly any other movement. It works in industry. And it works in Health Care.
Also, you might try poking around cato.org where I'm sure they've tackled the subject.
I HIGHLY recommend thomas sowell's writing on this subject.
Look through the titles of articles on the archives of his site and a few will jump right at you.
Thomas Sowell's archived articles:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/archive.shtml
His three articles on Universal Health Care from 2003:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2003/05/06/universal_health_care
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2003/05/07/universal_health_care_part_ii
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2003/05/08/universal_health_care_part_iii
free drugs!
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2002/07/31/bad_medicine
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