Thursday, February 26, 2009
Nationalized Healthcare in the U.S.
Righty: The U.S. healthcare system is the finest in the world: the best doctors, the best facilities, the best research. To tamper with it and bring it under federal control would be a disaster. Doctors are already smarting from HMO red tape and absurd amounts of paperwork. Do we want our medical facilities to be staffed by doctors or bureaucrats? The best healthcare isn't cheap, and it shouldn't be. But why should people who watch their diet and take time to exercise (like me) have to pay for the follies of chronic smokers and couch potatoes who stuff themselves with corn chips? Typical socialism: just dump everyone into the same pot without regard to individual habits or initiative. Grrr... why don't you malcontents just move to Sweden?
Lefty: Nobody should ever have to face bankruptcy because of illness, but that's precisely what's happening to millions of Americans under the current system. Our health insurance system is an international disgrace: profit-hungry insurers routinely deny coverage to the people who need it most and gouge those who have to pay for it themselves. It almost seems as if they go out of their way to make life miserable for the sick and needy among us. There's your social Darwinism in action, Righty! Ain't it grand? We need a sweeping reform of our entire medical establishment, and we need it now. No more delays!
The New Moderate:
I have an important question, and now is the time to ask it: why do we have to choose between totally nationalized healthcare and our current "too bad if you can't pay" system? These seem to be the only two options under discussion, and they're both unacceptable. Why can't we simply opt for nationalized, universal health insurance? Seems sensible enough, doesn't it? But nobody's even talking about it.
Here's the perfect centrist solution to our healthcare crisis. We'd let the doctors practice medicine the way they've been practicing, and we'd let patients see their doctors at will -- without having to wait six months for a tonsillectomy. But we'd fund the health insurance system with our taxes to create a safety net for those who aren't covered by an employer. That way, no individuals are denied coverage and nobody is forced into bankruptcy.
Under this plan, we wouldn't have to nationalize the insurance companies (even though this irate moderate thinks they deserve to be nationalized!). We'd simply nationalize the payment of premiums. End of story. We're long overdue for universal coverage, and we can't wait any longer as our population continues to age. Wake up, Washington!
Summary: Let's stop pushing for a totally revamped, nationalized healthcare bureaucracy and simply fix the system where it needs to be fixed: by providing tax-funded health insurance for those who don't already receive it from their employers. That way, nobody gets left out.
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6 comments:
I believe that you said it best, let's not create a new system but reform the one we already have. I feel cautioned when it comes to a national health care plan but I also feel angry when I look at health insurance premiums and know that I can never pay that amount. If insurance were to become affordable then more would buy it.
Thanks -- it's good to know I'm not the only one who thinks we're overlooking the obvious. I still don't understand why the two options have to be all or none (totally revamped nationalized healthcare vs. pay through the nose). It would make so much more sense simply to have our taxes pay for health insurance. But I guess that would be too simple.
I believe the answer to that would be a paraphrase on the old baseball saying, "Common sense has left the building".
Hi Rick,
I think your job is fantastically done, I hope you will keep it up. As another moderate who believes our way of thinking needs to emerge as a new movement, I have been tracking the views of the "average" American. On my blog, moderate-thinking.blogspot.com, I am currently conducting a survey which will hopefully give a good and accurate picture of what issues Americans truly care the most about, not just what extremists care the most about. While it is too early to say definitively, in terms of Health Care issues, the one thing people are concerned about more than anything is not the Health Care itself, but Health Insurance. I think you are right on suggesting this be the issue to tackle.
Nils
Nils,
Thanks for the kind words. I'm convinced more than ever that we moderates need to forge a strong centrist political philosophy and base of support -- and possibly even a new party. Unfortunately I'm also wondering if the average moderate cares enough to get involved. Even the most "popular" centrist blogs are barely a blip on the Internet radar. I couldn't believe it when one noteworthy moderate blog refused to link with me because I also featured liberal and conservative opinions (even though I was lampooning them) -- we're doomed if that kind of mentality persists.
Both the left and the right tend to dismiss moderates as namby-pamby weaklings who can't summon the courage to take a stand. We know that's not true, and we know that most Americans consider themselves moderates. Our challenge is to generate a passion for moderate ideas -- and to prove to the ideologues that moderate ideas aren't simply a matter of taking the average between leftist and conservative opinions.
Glad you agree with me on the healthcare issue. It still baffles me that nobody that I know of has seriously raised the issue of nationalized health insurance -- as opposed to a completely revamped universal healthcare system or our unfair and unaffordable current system. What else can a moderate expect?
Anyway... I do plan to keep posting on my site, even if it's only once a month or so. (I've been detecting an upswing in interest, so I might get more involved again.) I'll link to your blog, of course. Good luck with your survey, and keep the faith!
I work in the healthcare industry, and would love to see some reforms. I am not sure that a government insurance would be it, though, without some other major changes. Remember that we currently have a form of government health insurance, Medicare, to go by.
In my experience, Medicare is actually one of the reasons health care costs are so high. A large percentage of the processing and paperwork we do is because of governmental regulations we have to follow because we accept Medicare even if we are treating a patient that does not have Medicare. If we don't follow their arcane rules, even if by accident or because it is literally impossible to always comply with the labrynthine requirements of medicare without crossing one regulation or another, we can be charged with fraud and end up paying millions of dollars in fines.
Additionally, in the end, a government-run insurance would still have to do exactly what the current insurance companies do in order to maintain profitability, or even to break even, which is to limit payments for a service and deny some services to some patients. Medicare does this to some degree now, and one of the ways doctors and hospitals make up for the losses we take on Medicare patients is to charge more to other patients.
Personally, I think a better way to drive costs down with start with giving hospitals and doctors the right to say "no" to patients when they come in. If I am working in an Emergency Room and someone comes in and says they have had the sniffles for two weeks, I have to see them in the ER even though they obviously should be seeing their regular doctor, and urgent care or even just their local pharmacist. Instead, we have to do all sorts of expensive tests and suck up the time of the doctors to treat this obvious headcold.. which means we have to have more physicians, more nurses and more lab staff on hand.
In the Army, you would have someone of field medic grade with a checklist of questions; if the answers to those questions fell a certain way, you sent the patient away with a standardized "cold pack" and instructions to come back if X Y or Z happened. In the civilian sector, the hospital would be sued if they did that, fined by EMTAALA and likely lose their ability to serve the community. At the least, they would lose their nonprofit status, which would mean they would have to charge that much more for the same services.
I am sorry if I went on rather long, but this is actually something I know a fair bit about -- which is unusual enough to warrant the extra effort. :-)
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