Forget about Canada, we can do better!
By Jack E. Lohman
Yes, Canada’s health care system has wait times, and well it should. They spend just 10% of GDP compared to our 16%. But they cover 100% of Canadians and we only cover 85% of Americans and leave another 15% under-insured.
If Canada took one of every six people out of line, as we effectively do here in the U.S., they’d not have wait times either! But they are, indeed, underserving their people. Shame on them.
But enough about Canada, let’s talk about the U.S.. We have the best doctors and nurses in the world, we just don’t make good use of them. Let’s fix the system we have.
Let’s follow Taiwan’s lead. They recently reformed their system after studying every health care system in the world. They came back with an answer, and modeled their new system after … drum roll please … our Medicare.
Medicare isn’t perfect, and it must be fixed. But those fixes are being blocked by the politicians whose campaigns are funded by the hospital, insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Or they have personal investments in them. We must at least get rid of the wasteful insurance bureaucracy, and some corrupt politicians as well.
Actually, private healthcare has even more waste and fraud than does Medicare. Excessive charges, high broker commissions, high executive salaries and bonuses and stock options, shareholder profits, and even lobbying and campaign contributions are added to the system and passed on to the patient. And they refuse the sickest of the sick, all things the insurers want to preserve.
Doctors and nurses, even hospital CEOs, should be paid well… very well. But they shouldn’t be expected to share the health care dollars with an industry that never lays hands on the patient. Our current insurance bureaucracy is draining 31% of health care costs, when those dollars should be spent on patient care instead.
Medicare is simple: You get sick, you get care, and the caregiver gets paid. Nothing more complicated than that. Even the Medicare drug plan – which will cost taxpayers $780 billion over the next decade – could be turned over to our drug stores at a fraction of the cost. The doctor would write a prescription, the patient would pay a deductible, and the drug store would bill Medicare the balance. Nothing could be simpler.
But the insurance industry doesn’t like simple; complexity is more profitable.
So, who’d pay for a Medicare-for-all system?
The same people that are paying for it today, the taxpayers. But we’d pay less than we pay today. We are now paying through cost-shifting, higher taxes, bankruptcy costs, and when employers add their costs to their product price and we reimburse them at the cash register.
For the same amount of dollars we are spending today, we could provide first-class care to 100% of our population, employed and unemployed, and we’d eliminate COBRA and the tie to employers.
But we’d pay for it differently than we are today.
Employers would be freed of the costs and be able to compete with foreign companies that do not have health care costs built into their product. Less outsourcing would occur. The Big Three automakers are building more cars in Ontario than in Detroit because Canadian healthcare costs are $850 per employee per year versus $6500 here. Janesville, are you listening? Gov. Doyle?
Instead of outsourcing our expensive surgeries to India and other countries, where travel exposures and malpractice issues arise, we should be eliminating our outrageous waste here in the US. As the more expensive and profitable tests are outsourced, hospitals will lose critical revenue and require taxpayer subsidies or more cost shifting. A downward spiral will ensue as U.S. hospitals are left only with low cost and emergency procedures.
Isn’t free-market medicine great?
How much longer can we send our cash and jobs to other countries?
How much longer can we withhold vital care from our own people?
How much longer can we allow our politicians to sell us out?
Medicare-for-all would cover all citizens, including our politicians and Medicaid patients, and it would greatly reduce overall administration costs. We’d use the same doctors and hospitals we are using today, so there would not be any wait times or degradation in service.
A full 59% of physicians and an even greater number of nurses already support this change, and we’d hope the next administration does its job and passes John Conyers’ HR676 (see www.hr676.org).
I’m probably the only person here who has been to Taiwan.
I’m certainly the only person here who has actually lived in Taiwan. Twice.
I may be the only person here who speaks and reads Chinese, learned in Taiwan.
It is a fair bet that I’m one of only a few here who can find Taiwan on a map.
There in no question that I am the only person here to have actually used Taiwan’s medical services.
.
They’re good.
They’re inexpensive.
They’re universally available.
They’re state-funded, for the most part.
Attention new readers: If you’re sick of socialism DO NOT go see Doc Kirkwood. He’s infected with the SUPERBUG OF SOCIALISM!
Thanks for the input David. As I recall, you have traveled in other countries. Do you have a comparison?
Bill, that is an absolutely foolish remark.
Every other industrialized nation in this world, sans America, has some form of socialized medicine or universal health care. Even Taiwan, as David confirms.
And the US system of free market, for-profit medicine is ranked 37th in the world by WHO, and we have lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality that the others, even though we spend twice the dollars per patient as all others.
And YOU are 180 degrees out from the norm.
Go figure.
Jack
Do you know anything about politics or economics or current events, or do you and the Doc just travel the blogosphere together and promote socialized medicine?
Jack Lohman,
My other information is about the US (22 years) and Hong Kong (24 years). Since I wasn’t paying my own way in the US, it is hard to judge.
Here in HK, the health care is better than in Taiwan, and about the same price (US$12.50 for a night in a hospital). We had an incident where an MRI was recommended, and told it would be a 2 month wait. Instead, we opted for private service for that one item, at a cost of US$1,000 or so.
Every government hospital bill has the full price on one line, the government subsidy on the next (about 95%, but it varies with each item) and the amount due on the third. Those on welfare submit the proper paperwork, and the third line is waived.
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Eventually, you just tune out Bill’s comments.
And guess who pays the bureaucrats’ salary ultimately.
P.S. as a taxpayer I feel justified in expressing my views when someone advocates spending my money.
Bill, I respect that you are a taxpayer expressing your views. But when you are also an a**hole they get lost in the shuffle.
And thanks David. Underfunding always results in wait times. Canadians beg for higher funding even though it means higher taxes, and 80% of them prefer their system to ours in the US.
I’m on Medicare, and we could provide Medicare to 100% of our people for the same 16% of GDP we are spending today. Problem is, the insurance industry (that funds the elections) are fighting that prospect.
You just don’t get it. Yes, we need to reform our health care system but the reform needed is to REDUCE government involvement–not INCREASE it. Taiwan is already behind the 8 ball in funding their health care system and like all other socialists health care systems, is rapidly evolving into a two tier system where those that can afford it, get better, faster care than the rest of the population. Nothing wrong with that but, don’t tell us it is more “fair and equitable” than our current health care system.
The US has barely scratched the surface to address the inefficiencies in its health care system because when government is the primary payer, true innovation is stifled. There are many health care technological/ IS efficiencies on the horizon but none are taking off until they have a definitive go ahead from the market that their innovations will be rewarded. Of course, many entrepreneurs will proceed in this climate of health care debate knowing if they maintain their patience, their competitors will opt out and they stand to reap a windfall from government investment in their venture–never mind it won’t be the best in their field. The taxpayers won’t know the difference in the long run and they stand to benefit from a life long government subsidy to deliver mediocre performance. And, so it goes when government becomes the primary financeer and decision maker in health care.
Yeah I do get it hoads. We ALREADY HAVE reduced government’s role by deregulating it and removing the 1989 Stark anti-fraud measures, and health care premiums have increased far faster than inflation ever since. They will reach 25% of GDP by 2025. How are you liking it so far?
No, I don’t like politicians, but I like them a hell of a lot more than CEOs and shareholders who deny care to add profits to the bottom line.
Medicare is NOT a socialized system. Though not perfect it is the most successful public-private venture ever.
Notice that I said health care premiums have increased. Medical costs have risen by 5% per year but insurance PREMIUMS have increased by 87% since 2000, obviously because the shareholders called for an offset to their hurricane costs in the south.
Those advocating expanded government are always the “good guys” and it’s always “for the children”, ect… And I’m sure the “professional tone” appeals to a lot of people. Except for freedom minded folks.
I’m as much for “freedom” as the next guy, but not to the extent that I want to revert to the 1900’s when we settled our arguments with guns. There is such a thing as “common good,” and I’m willing to pay the taxes for it.
But of course, after the new president and congress are elected, the same old special interests will remain in power. The recent bailout of Freddie and Fannie is just another example of how our corrupt political system has allowed the wealthy to get into the pockets of the middle class.
That campaign contributions have bought off politicians and the regulations needed to stabilize health care and other industries is unconscionable. Think Enron.
Only when we have public funding of campaigns will that change and the government given back to the people. Then we’ll see reforms that benefit the people rather than the special interests.
Bill
What do you think is the best solution?
John
I guess I’m a “radical” but let’s get government out of insurance, science, medicine, healthcare, hospitals, and stop the unfunded mandates, regulations, kill the bureaucracies and fire the bureaucrats (and maybe steal their benefits like in the private sector or with the military) Then balance the budget, strengthen the dollar, throw some of these offshore billionaires in prison who are posing as political leaders, and kill off socialism and it’s evil twin corporate fascism.
See, I told you. Let’s just reset our country to the 1900’s.
Jack
I like to call it “operation Bill”.
Ted Nugent describes our overreaching Federal Government as “Fedzilla”. No matter what it destroys it always wants more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTW19g-uUTw
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