The lack of facilities in a national health-care system has resulted in the death of a newborn. Japan, whose system has been cited as a model for the United States to consider, has few medical facilities in their rural areas, and the lack of obstetricians led one couple to be turned away from eight hospitals when the mother-to-be went into labor:
Japan’s health minister has pledged to address the shortage of doctors in the country after a woman in labour was turned away by eight hospitals.
A ninth hospital refused to admit her even after she miscarried in an ambulance and her baby died.
The woman, who was in the sixth month of her pregnancy, lived just three minutes away from a hospital.
But she was forced to travel 70km (45 miles) by ambulance looking for a facility that would admit her.
Actually, the ninth hospital initially agreed to accept the case. However, the ambulance crashed on the way, and the woman miscarried and the baby died. After they found out what happened, that hospital then refused to admit her.
It’s not the first time this has happened. Last year, a pregnant woman died under similar circumstances, only in that case twenty hospitals refused to admit her. None of them had bed space available, and Japan has a nationwide shortage of physicians, particularly in specialties such as obstetrics.
Why the shortage? Specialization costs more money, and in the Japanese system, the compensation does not make it worthwhile. Overall, compensation and malpractice costs have driven people away from studying to be physicians and surgeons. This is similar to the issues that Britain has had in the transplant specialties, first reported three years ago. Viable organ donations went to waste because the UK doesn’t have enough transplant surgeons.
Japan has a somewhat different system than Britain or Canada. It allows for private insurers and facilities, but the government controls the market. It regulates prices, compensation, and the manner in which insurance operates. The effect is similar to that seen in other national health-care systems, which is that health care gets rationed through a mechanism other than patient choice. The NYU study claims that Japan has twice the beds per capita rate as the US, but that hardly explains these two instances of refusals. It also notes, probably more to the point, that Japan has one of the lowest physician per capita rates among industrialized nations, and that they spend less than seven minutes on an average for patient contacts (American doctors spend over 20 minutes).
Any system that allows a woman to die because 20 hospitals refused to treat her from lack of resources has serious problems. Any system that would refuse an emergency admission for a miscarriage in progress at nine separate facilities — with an ambulance begging for assistance — is not a model which we want to emulate here in the US.
I am european, and very well aware of the soc. medicine. It really angers me when libs lie about soc healthcare. What they don’t tell the people is the fact that accross the board to pay for that failed baloney is a average paycheck cut of 38%. That’s more than a third of everyone’s income to lose on a failed program. Naturally, that was before I came here, so I am sure it’s more now.
Those wanting soc healthcare are dishonest in presenting the fact; this type of healthcare is unsustainable in the USA. One reason also is the illegal immigration population, putting a strain on resources, and not not contributing to the program. How else would the people pay for it?
The quality of this program is also very questiopnable, and to explain would take pages on this blog.
I can only hope that enough informed people never allow for soc healthcare to take hold here in the USA. take it from someone who knows, and lived with for many years.
Unless we’re thinking about reinstating slavery, socialized medicine would be a disaster for this country. So would single-payer.
Why go to college/med school for eight years, slog through an internship and residency, to finally start practicing at 32 or 34 and have to work 80 hours weeks, just to make a lot less than 25 year old, absolutely worthless attorney, straight out of law school?
How much do physicians make in Canada and the UK? I remember reading a few years ago that the starting salary for a primary care physician in Canada was $40,000.
Already physicians are leaving the profession due to declining reimbursement. Put the squeeze on some more and even more young people will choose not to go to medical school. We’ll have horror stories like this in the US.
I am european, and very well aware of the soc. medicine. It really angers me when libs lie about soc healthcare. What they don’t tell the people is the fact that accross the board to pay for that failed baloney is a average paycheck cut of 38%. That’s more than a third of everyone’s income to lose on a failed program. Naturally, that was before I came here, so I am sure it’s more now.
Those wanting soc healthcare are dishonest in presenting the fact; this type of healthcare is unsustainable in the USA. One reason also is the illegal immigration population, putting a strain on resources, and not not contributing to the program. How else would the people pay for it?
The quality of this program is also very questiopnable, and to explain would take pages on this blog.
I can only hope that enough informed people never allow for soc healthcare to take hold here in the USA. take it from someone who knows, and lived with for many years.
I’ve had some experience with the Healthcare system in Japan.
The only comment I’ll make here is to try to explain (what I believe is) the reason for the shortage of hospital beds even where Japan statistically shows a 2 to 1 ratio of beds to U.S. Hospitals.
Japanese hospitals do not follow the American model of rushing to send patients home. There are practical reasons for this. Japanese homes are small and many people still sleep on futons placed on the floor at bedtime and put away during the day. This places a sick or post surgery patient in the middle everyone’s way – essentially making the house unlivable for the rest of the family. Also, getting up off the floor to go to the bathroom is much harder on you (try it) when you have stitches,etc, than when you are rolling yourself out of a bed.
In any case the bottom line is that each Japanese Hospital bed is occupied for a much longer period than the equivalent American Hospital bed.
All my Japanese friends who have encounters with our medical system are horrified at how quickly we toss people out of the hospital.
(Note: I’m not saying the American system is bad – it’s just different for cultural reasons)
You can find horror stories in any system. To effectively compare the US and Japenese systems, you’d typically look at both country’s infant mortality rates for a more complete picture.
I don’t support socialized medicince but it seems that some form of health care reform is inevitable, whether it comes from someone like Romney or a Democrat.
Whatever different Moores, or Liberals, or Leftists, or other Democrats are telling us, almost any national health-care system is a disaster. But the selling point is, that everybody is covered. In the practical terms people are really “covered” by a substandard services, LONG waiting lists and strictly limited services. The untold part of the picture of all national health systems are parts closed to the general public, servicing the elites (yes, also for free). Michael, are you there with your camera? I didn’t think so…
I actually agree with you bayam, but the way to do it is allowing what’s happening in the states to continue – not for the federal leviathan to institute a “one-size-fits-all” monstrosity.
We have 50 laboratories. Let the states try and come up with a solution that fits their particular population. A solution that might work in New York state, might not work in rural Montana.
Federalize it and it will become overly politicized.
Romney actually put together an actual health program. Meanwhile, the unaccomplished, unqualified Democrat candidates have merely pontificated about a deeply complex industry they know nothing about.
BTW, since attorneys Clinton, Edwards and Obama have expertise in one area that we know of, how about they take a stab at fixing our outrageously expensive, unjust, snake pit of a legal system?
I’ve had some experience with the Healthcare system in Japan.
The only comment I’ll make here is to try to explain (what I believe is) the reason for the shortage of hospital beds even where Japan statistically shows a 2 to 1 ratio of beds to U.S. Hospitals.
Japanese hospitals do not follow the American model of rushing to send patients home. There are practical reasons for this. Japanese homes are small and many people still sleep on futons placed on the floor at bedtime and put away during the day. This places a sick or post surgery patient in the middle everyone’s way – essentially making the house unlivable for the rest of the family. Also, getting up off the floor to go to the bathroom is much harder on you (try it) when you have stitches,etc, than when you are rolling yourself out of a bed.
In any case the bottom line is that each Japanese Hospital bed is occupied for a much longer period than the equivalent American Hospital bed.
All my Japanese friends who have encounters with our medical system are horrified at how quickly we toss people out of the hospital.
(Note: I’m not saying the American system is bad – it’s just different for cultural reasons)
What angers me most is that candidates(pimps) like John Edwards, who has driven specialists from practice through ambulance-chasing malpractice suits and exhorbitant settlements, is so vocal about promoting socialized medicine (for thee but not for me, as per the elitists’ code).
Geriatric, cardiac, obstetric, and gynecology practices are dwindling here in Pennsylvania because of excessive liability insurance that must be carried by health-care professionals. Rural practioners are at a premium. Emergency rooms are stressed by people who use the facility as their primary care choice. Our state has an aging population. Socialized medicine a la nationalized health care or insurance will put these people at the bottom of the priority list, as they will be considered an expendable drain on the system.
What also bothers me is that people do not see health insurance as a protection against costs incurred by catastrophic illnesses, major surgeries, or accidents. Too many people think that every visit to a physician, whether for a virus, sore throat, booster shots, etc., should be paid for in total by insurance. Those who find the wherewithal to afford cell phones, Tivos,plasma televisions, pricey athletic shoes and designer jeans, acrylic nails, and so forth, ought to consider purchasing health insurance with a deductible that they can afford when they evaluate their other less-important consumer purchases.
The Dems are playing a marketing game with this health-insurance “crisis”. They are creating a one-size-fits-all, pay-for-everything solution for a problem that they are creating in the American public’s mind.
Health savings accounts, the ability for small businesses to join forces in purchasing affordable group insurance plans for employees, the choice to “up” one’s deductible, and freeing the market so that one can select insurance beyond state lines in order to garner a competitive rate are just some of the ideas floating out there. (Mitt Romney has some very creative ideas about addressing the issue, having learned from his experience in the commonwealth of Mass. and refining his thinking.)
As Chif Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Beverly McLachlin (aa Liberal appointee) said “access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare”. When Canada finally buries its healthcare system, I hope this is engraved on the headstone. Having grown up in Canada, I know that while the system is not all bad (annual visits to GPs are fine, the doctors are great – also, if you are hauled into the ER suffering an acute trauma, you will get good care). It is in areas like cancer or other degenerative problems where the system fails so spectacularly. If you are suffering from something that is not immediately fatal, you will be on a waiting list for a long time – and Canada’s lousy cancer suvival rate (though not as bad as the Britain’s) proves that this can be fatal. It’s also not good to become a dope fiend while waiting for a new hip.
NoDonk,
You serious? You really want any of those shysters to “fix” our legal system?
I wouldn’t let one of them get within 5 feet of a Tonka toy once they announced they were going to “fix” it.
Comparing infant mortality rates is a false measure of judgment because of differing values placed on infants–premature, full-term, handicapped– across cultures. American physicians and hospitals stive to foster fragile neonatal life whereas many other cultures do not consider those unable to sustain life without extraordinary means as viable humans. These preemies are not counted in the mortality rate statistics in such countries.
A number of things are combining to bring about the same result in the US. Illegal immigration, the requirement of emergency rooms to treat anybody regardless of financial ability, and the unrestrained trial lawyers war on physicians.
“All my Japanese friends who have encounters with our medical system are horrified at how quickly we toss people out of the hospital.”
Numerous studies have shown that the longer patients stay in hospitals, the more likely they are to acquire a hospital acquired infection. They’re actually safer at home.
I recently read about an incident in Scotland, where patients who were staying in an unclean facility, got violently ill:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1774733.stm
A total of 254 people have now been hit by the “winter vomiting” bug, which causes sickness and diarrhoea (sic).
This kind of thing does not happen in the US, due to hospitals being required to meet JCAHO standards. Also, patients do not linger in our hospitals any longer than is necessary.
Socialized medicine would eventually require the relaxation of JCAHO standards, lower physician pay and would exasperate our already desperate shortage of RNs.
In the US, an ambulance gets diverted from an emergency room EVERY MINUTE due to overcrowding.
One of the main reasons for this is that our model health care system has 42 million uninsured people plugging up the emergency rooms:
“One way to alleviate the overcrowding, they contend, would be to find coverage for the more than 42 million uninsured Americans, whose first stop is often the emergency room… the number of uninsured Americans, who often use ERs for primary care, has continued to grow. With the exception of last year, more than 1 million people joined the ranks of the uninsured every year since 1993, when overall healthcare reform foundered in Congress. There are now more than 42 million Americans without health insurance. Most are working people, like Estelle Meyers, a self-employed nanny who can’t afford private insurance. Studies show most put off getting care until their situation becomes acute. Then they head to the emergency room. In fact, the uninsured are four times more likely to use one than the insured.”
Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA)
January 23, 2001, Tuesday
ER confronts new emergency: too many patients
BYLINE: Alexandra Marks Staff writer of The
“…it’s not just small community hospitals. Even world-renowned medical centers go on diversion, and not just once in a while. Last year, the Johns Hopkins ER turned away ambulances over a quarter of the time. During the first half of last year, the Cedars Sinai ER was closed a full 35 percent of the time, while The Cleveland Clinic ER was on diversion nearly half of the year 2000…”
CBS News Transcripts
July 3, 2002 Wednesday
SHOW: 60 Minutes II (8:00 PM ET) – CBS
No vacancy; tragedies involving ambulance diversion
ANCHORS: VICKI MABREY
I could start listing stories about people who have died from this, but the Captain might start getting mad at me for my long posts. It is more than one per year that the Captain shows with Japan.
But let’s just ignore all of that, find whatever horror stories we can in other systems (even if they are overall much superior), and just focus on that. That sounds like a plan.
There are not 42 million uninsured Americans, that number is a complete fabrication.
10 million are illegals – not Americans.
Most of the others are uninsured AT A POINT IN TIME during a given year. For example, I was “uninsured” for one day while switching jobs.
A good number of people are eligible for Medicaid, etc. and don’t bother signing up.
Most of the others live in households with incomes over $50,000 and some over $75,000 per year. Why should taxpayers fund health care for people who don’t care enough to fund it for themselves?
There is no problem with regard to the “uninsured”. The problem is with personal responsibility and with government bungling, both of which would be exasperated by any sort of govt run health care system.
Lokki’s is very true. The hospital stay is much longer. This Japanese literature explains the pitfalls and improvements needed for the system.
http://www.j-circ.or.jp/english/sessions/reports/67th-ss/takeshita.htm
“accross the board to pay for that failed baloney is a average paycheck cut of 38%”
I don’t know about other european countries, but as a Czech rep. citizen, my government takes just about 1/10 of all the money my employer pays for me. I get all health care for free, with the exception of payments for cheaper drugs. And the czech wages are just a fraction of U.S. wages …
NoDonkey:
We went through this before on another thread. You spouted off this crap without sources, I showed you that you were wrong, and now you spout it off again. I will show you again that you are wrong, but I don’t think it will help the second time around either.
“There are not 42 million uninsured Americans, that number is a complete fabrication.
10 million are illegals – not Americans.”
This report says that 4.3 million out of the 42 million uninsured are illegal aliens. So 37.7 million Americans are uninsured:
iom.edu/CMS/3809/4660/17632.aspx
“Most of the others are uninsured AT A POINT IN TIME during a given year.”
One data set mentioned in the report linked to above is the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which found that over a two year period (1996-1997) 23.5 million people under the age of 65 were uninsured *throughout* the two year period. Regarding short term insurance loss, the same survey found that 80.2 million people lacked health insurance for at least one month out of the two year period. When MEPS counted the average number of persons *for at least a one year period*, they got a value of 45 million people. See:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10874&page=32
The object of reading is to try and learn from it.
Ondrej,
And how would you compare the healthcare system in the Czech Republic to the United States, in terms of quality, quantity, ease of access, and choice of care?
How many conjoined twin separation surgeries were performed in the CR last year? How many foreign Heads of State have traveled to the CR to receive major medical treatments (oncology, heart disease, and yes, detox)?
If you developed leukemia, where would you select (if given a choice) to receive treatment: the USA, or your home country?
Do you have recourse against a healthcare provider in the event of malpractice?
As a control in this comparison, healthcare in Liberia is free. No income deduction at all.
See here: http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR28/09.pdf
Bob Mc:
The WHO ranks the Czech Republic 48th, and the US 37th.
bayam,
Note that Japan only provides coverage for its citizens — and that it is impossible to become a citizen unless both parents are ethnically Japanese.
If you’ve read the story of Tokyo Rose, remember the Portuguese citizen Felipe D’Aquino she married while in Japan? He was a Portuguese citizen in spite of having been born and spent his whole life in Japan, because, while his mother was Japanese, his father was Portuguese. Japan could have deported him to Portugal at any time. This situation is still present in modern-day Japan. My brother in law came from Japan to the US on a Portuguese passport — he’d never been anywhere closer to Portugal than their Embassy in Tokyo.
Japan is an island. It has no land border with another country like we do. Hence, sick immigrants arriving without permission do not present a problem in Japan — they are stopped at the airport and put on the first plane back home.
To understand how the US’s porous borders affect its healthcare system, you only have to go to any emergency room in Los Angeles, and notice how many sick illegals have been triaged into the “wait nearly forever” category. Since emergency rooms under federal law cannot refuse patients and healthcare anonymity is currently guaranteed, the illegals use them to gain access to our healthcare system for minor ailments (such as the flu or a cold) that you or I would treat at home.
That, in the end, is why that woman died in the emergency room at King — had the emergency room not been inundated with input, she might have been seen earlier — but they triaged her (due to her many previous visits for innocuous reasons) into the third category, and that was that.
Dave:
OK. Lets say our current health care system is via private insurance that covers 260 million people leaving 40 million uninsured with no health care. Of course the latter is not really true as the 40 million uninsured really do use the health-care system and they pay nothing for the use of it. The cost is passed on to those who are insured through increased health-insurance costs and through increases in taxes. So liberals and people like yourself say that we’re already paying the health costs of the uninsured so why don’t we have a national health-care system which covers everyone in the US – it can’t cost that much more. The problem with national health care is that the incentives for individuals to manage and minimize the cost of their own health care (via health savings accounts, deductibles, co-pays and abstaining from using health care unnecessarily) are removed and the system becomes grossly overused and concomitantly much more expensive. Overuse will be especially true by the formerly uninsured. Overuse is not just a characteristic of ‘free’ national health care. It is true of attempts at energy conservation. People who have purchased Toyota Priuses probably now drive more miles than when they had a gas-guzzler. People who replace their lighting with compact fluorescent lights go to higher wattage ratings and leave their lights on longer. You cannot change the behavior of people when something is lowered in cost or becomes ‘free’ – they’ll use more, much more of it. This is why national health care will always fail to meet the great expectations that liberals and socialists have for it. It will do OK at first but then when usage and costs go up the eventual end-game is medical-care rationing and reduced health-care quality. In addition, the great medical and drug innovations that have made the US the world leader in new surgical techniques and new medications will be stifled by the national health-care bureaucracy. With national health care the US will become just another nation of the world that provides mediocre health care for its people. Is that what you want? We need something different from national health care systems of Japan, the UK, Canada or Cuba. (If Michael Moore thinks that the Cuban health-care system was so great, why were Spanish surgeons used to operate on Fidel?)
As a US citizen who summers on Lake Erie in Ontario, the Canadians that I talk to have many stories to tell about health-care rationing and are always amazed at how fast Americans are able to schedule MRI’s and other tests in Buffalo. Canadians have to wait months for these tests which could be deadly if they have cancer.
ConChem
Conchem:
“have many stories to tell…”
This is what it always comes down to. It’s the same issue with the subject of this thread. Whenever you see a study that comprehensively compares single payer or socialized systems to the US, the US loses every time. It is impossible to defend the US system by pointing to any comparative study that looks at anything but some myopic topic. So how does one defend the US system in light of this? Ignore all the studies and instead focus on individual horror stories. All health care systems, no matter how good, has terrible things happen within them. So if you are a defender of the US system, you ignore the comprehensive issues, and point to this or that person who had a bad experience. Problem is, this means nothing and proves nothing. I am not interested in your individual stories. Please show me any study the compares systems on anything but some myopic issue where the US comes out on top.
I, too, summer in Canada and spend a lot of time talking to Canadians about health care. Sure, they have their gripes… everybody has gripes about everything at least some of the time. They have lots of ideas for tinkering with the system, and most would support some type of modest user fees in order to insure its solvency. ($20 for a doctor visit or a trip to the ER, etc.)
But I’ve never… and I mean NEVER… met a single Canadian who would willingly give up his/her national coverage in favor of some other model for delivering health care.
Hi Bob Mc,
Frankly, I don’t know too much about the system of either country. I have never been to US (but I saw Sicko …. please don’t kill me!), and I even never seriously used the health care of my own country (cancer and stuff). I am afraid I cannot engage in serious policy discussions. I was just surprised by the 38% figure which does not look real to me at all. But it is obvious that the US health care can be both extremely good and extremely bad (with no or crappy insurance), in czech republic everybody basically gets the same care for little exceptional cost (you pay a constant health tax). I know that here you have to wait sometimes for a long time for non life-threatening surgeries like hip replacement, but I don’t recall hearing that people have to wait for urgent things like cancer screening.
I don’t recall ever hearing about any czech conjoined twins, perhaps such an event is too improbable for such a small country. I don’t think that the level of health care given to heads of states tells you much about the level of health care given to ordinary people. If I had leukemia and had no money limits, I would definitely choose USA, but what about a poorer person ? How about uninsured people and leukemia, how about people with cheap insurance or preexisting condition ?
I just like that I don’t have to fear that health care costs will take my savings, make me sell my home, push me to bankrupcy or that some for-profit company will label me as uninsurable because of a preexisting condition. That would never happen here. I don’t want to claim that CR health care is top notch, I just think it is probably fairly decent (48th vs 37th?), when you consider that the average working person pays about $150 per month. And I don’t think we have that much lower costs than the US, because drugs and machines here probably have similar prices compared to the US. Maybe it is really a matter of what you are used to, Americans seem to be very individualistic and used to a private system (although opinion polls suggest they are currently favoring socialized one). On the other hand, my country underwent 40 years of communism and such a vast robbing of people of their entitlements would be a kiss of death for the ruling parties, nobody is even contemplating such a move. In my country you can rely on certain level of care, just like in communism you could rely on certain level of living in general (unless you were an important Party member or politically persecuted). In my “leftist” point of view (I always vote the conservative party, but they are left of your dems 🙂 ), health is so important that even poor people should get it for free from the society and richer people (like me…) should subsidize that.
Not that I expect a retraction or correction but…
having worked in an Emergency Room during my college years (a for profit one BTW), let me tell you that Hospitals DO turn away Ambulances ALL THE TIME.
So the Captain’s insinuation that Socialized Medicine caused this is COMPLETELY ERRONEOUS.
I wonder how Americans got along without access to insurance? I know my parents never had health insurance for me or my four sisters, not did any of the parents of my childhood friends, yet we not only survived the minor bumps and bruises (not to mention cold, flus, measles, mumps,ect( that every child goes through, we also survived the broken bones and stitched cuts that just about every rambunctious child receives at some time of our lives. Despite the fact that we had no insurance, our parents somehow managed to cover the costs of stitches and broken bones without loosing the family home. Not only did we have our health care needs covered, we learned not to be so stupid as we had to listen to our parents complain about how expensive that doctor visit was for months!. That help teach me to avoid injuries as much as possible, an important life skill. I have to wonder if insurance for everyone is actually a good idea. What will that do for self-reliance?
Look at it this way, do you really need to take your kid to the doctor because he has an ear infection or a runny nose? Most children recover quickly from infections, so what more can a doctor do? Having access to free health care will not keep people from getting minor injuries and colds, but instead of staying home and taking care of ourselves we would me more inclined to go to the free clinic for quick and easy access to drugs, something that may make us feel better but will not actually cure us any faster. Isn’t it better to learn how to take care of ourselves than to leave all our health care decisions to a large government program?
Here’s another question: if so many people are uninsured, does it mean that they NEED insurance and can’t afford to pay the premiums, or does it mean that they are just willing to take a chance and spent that money someplace else?
Ray,
I’m not so sure your argument about self-reliance (which is in and of itself a great thing to inculcate people with!) makes sense.
When playing football, do people with health insurance actually think, “I might get hurt but it’s OK, I have insurance!” Somehow I doubt it.
I do agree that quite a few people might be making the choice of going without Health Ins. but you have to remember, that’s because it’s extremely expensive! My mom, on COBRA (she is – fingers cross – still healthy) pays over $300 a month. This is for Kaiser, one of the more affordable plans out there.
There’s a reason why the vast majority of bankruptcies are caused by serious illnesses, because they’re extremely expensive to take of, even IF you have coverage.
Would a single-payer system take care of that? I dunno.
We already have some degree of socialized medicine in place with the Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare sets the prevailing rates for office visits, procedures and surgeries by being the lowest payor that all other insurance companies then base their rates on (110%/120%/etc of Medicare). Providers don’t set fees – we are told what we will get based on fees set by our government and, in turn, insurance companies. You can charge whatever you’d like but it has little to do with what you actually get paid.
I worked many years in public health. I can tell you that we tried like heck to get patients on Medicaid so we could get reimbursement for care but lots of people just couldn’t be bothered (they knew they would get the care anyway).
About ER diversions – My understanding was that there always has to be one ER that can’t divert and that the area ERs take turns being the non-divert one. I have only worked in large metropolitan areas, so rural rules may be different. In fact, the L&D unit I worked at was not allowed to ever divert while the private hospitals in the area were allowed to (though an agreement had been hashed out to have them help relieve us that they didn’t live up to much of the time). No one in this country goes without emergency care based on inability to pay that I’m aware of.
If You Knew Sushi (Like I Knew Sushi)
Turns out, national “free” health care comes with a pretty steep price-tag: rationing. That is, because such systems discourage potential docs from pursuing high risk specialties (“why bother, I’ll never make it back?”), appropriate care is often dif…
One problem with health care in this country is the tendency for people on both sides of the debate to think they are absolutely right (or that there is an absolute right). Socialized medicine would be difficult to sustain in a population as large and diverse as ours in the US. On the flip side, a completely privatized system means that access to care is limited to only people who can afford it. I am in favor of a MORE socialized system. As a physician, I understand that I would be able to buy fewer boats if this was in place. However, unlike the previous writer who assumed that all physicians spend years in medical school/residency to make more money than a lawyer, I would do what I do for any amount of money (oncology). And most of my colleagues would do the same. I am personally tired of having to call a high school graduate sitting in front of a computer at Aetna to argue that a particular therapy would benefit my patient, only to have them refer me to the medical director (who inevitably was one of those medical students who barely scraped by on their boards but couldn’t get a residency). At that point, a non-practicing physician will tell me how to care for my cancer patients. Talk about forcing doctors to leave? Complete privitization breeds greed, which is perfectly fine if you are talking about automobiles. It is unacceptable in healthcare, however.
And for the pajamas,
I agree that no one is denied emergency care. In fact, many people use the ED as primary care. Why? Probably a million reasons, but one very prominent reason is that its free. Except, its not free. What we fail to understand is that we already pay for socialized medicine – but instead of the money going to the government, it goes to insurance, medical supply, and pharmacutical industries. There is an enormous cost eaten ever year by hospitals in unpaid bills. The burden has to fall somewhere, so insurance is billed more. Then, we pay exorbitant amounts for our policies, or we are offered jobs with benefits that offer 20% less in take-home (exactly like the europeans, however they see it taken off their checks, wheras we dont). I don’t think that ironing out a system that works is rocket-science. But those in power (I’m talking about the heads of industry, not our politicians), will not allow this to happen on their watch.
10/29/2007 11:53:26 AM
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