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| Home > Myths > Top 10 Myths of Universal Health Care |
| Top 10 Myths of Universal Health Care | | Date Created: Aug 20, 2005, 01:05 PM |
The myths of the Universal Health Care, Single-payor, socialized medicine, politically correct crowd
-- health care is a right
Making something a "right" is a common approach of the leftist-socialists. If something is a right then you're owed something and the lefties will want to give it to you using someone else's money. Health care is no more a right than shelter or food. The only rights agreed on by most US Americans are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Try telling the deity or whoever controls the universe that you have a right to health. Even what constitutes "health care" is different for different people, let alone who's going to pay for it. One could argue that you should have a right to access to medical care which leads to #2.
-- we have a problem with access to medical care -- millions of uninsured US Americans have no access to health care.
Baloney. We have no problem of access to care in the US whether we have medical insurance or not. What we have is a problem (if you want to call it that) with access to health care and have someone else pay for it. Anyone who works in a hospital knows that at least emergency care is mandatory. No one can be turned away because they have no insurance or can't pay. So who pays for that care? Someone decides they'd rather buy cigarettes or a case of liquor rather than a mammogram. Are you going to force them to get the one and forego the other?
-- uninsured means no medical care or no access to medical care
The socialist thinking crowd makes a huge point of the "45 million Americans uninsured". This assumes that not only does insurance coverage equate to health care delivery but that if you don't have it, you can't have any health care. Insurance is an extremely poor way to pay for health care needs and wants, particularly if someone else appears to be paying for it. Lack of insurance means you are going to have to figure out some other way to pay for it, not that you can't have it.
We used to have charity hospitals and various services to provide things for people who couldn't or wouldn't pay for them. As we've seen in social security, when the government takes over that role, private charity declines. My local Rotary struggles to get $1000 for charitable services in the community or the world and my local Congressman charges that to go to his benefit for the beginning of his campaign to run for the party nomination for Governor of the state.
-- health care insurance is the same as health care
Folks that think this have little idea of what insurance is for or how services are provided and paid for. Would it make sense to have "grocery insurance"? We all need food. Some of us want more than others. Some want different types or different qualities. How do we sort this out? By paying for what you want/need. Would it make sense to pay someone to decide where you can shop, what you can buy, how much, and then pay your grocery bill? Insurance is a bet that if I pay this for-profit company something that I can afford now, they will pay a bill that I can't afford in the future. Government insurance is practically an oxymoron. It's a form of welfare. And along with someone else paying the bills, someone else gets to call the shots.
-- the US has a medical health care "system"
One of the biggest problems liberals have is getting around the idea that an economy or a sector of an economy can function on its own with only free markets, property and contract rules, and rule of law. A "system" implies that someone is running it. Who would that be? It can't be anything but the government or a company using government power. The extreme version of this was the Central Planning Committee of the Soviet Union. Free markets always do better than government planners or propped up private companies, but few on the left can deal with the Invisible Hand. On the right, fear of lack of control by the government falls back on "the will of God" or some form of religious moral code -- or maybe Intelligent Design. Actually, the US has a bastardized system with a model of insurance company coverage provided by employers (left over from WWII) and government welfare insurance (Medicare, Medicaid) along with the VAH. What is left of the private health care industry is heavily government regulated and controlled.
-- US medical care is worse than countries with socialized medicine schemes even though we spend more
This is a brand of lying with statistics using false comparisons and biased numbers that make for scoring points with people who don't know any better. True comparisons such as infant mortality fail to show these differences, nor is there data to support a causal relationship between the US "system" and fully socialized European systems. It is also not clear that more government control of health care delivery in the US would solve these problems.
-- Canada's socialized medicine scheme is better than the US and they do better than the US in several important categories.
Canada is very different than the US but Canadian doctors try to move to the US rather than the other way around and Canadians come to the US for health care. There are signs promoting ways to get around the Canadian health care system and the recent Canadian Supreme Court decision indicates that all is not well with the Canadian system.
-- drugs are cheaper in Canada because of "bulk buying"
This canard is an artifact of price fixing and the small Canadian market compared to the US market. The whole issue of the pharmaceutical industry and it's "obscene" profits is another example of a lack of understanding of how free markets work under the constraints of heavy government regulation, political influence, and the assault of the plaintiff's bar. A good summary of this is to be found in: Miracle Cure: How to Solve America's Health-care Crisis and Why Canada Isn't the Answer by Sally Pipes
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0936488921/qid=1124558143/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-4585485-4875828?v=glance&s=books
-- (from a talk promoting Universal Health Care) US Americans want:
guaranteed access
free choice of doctor
high quality
affordability and accountability
trust and respect
Well, maybe, but then you'd have to add "and someone else to pay for it". There are no guarantees of much of anything but we already have access to health services. Free choice of doctors is a joke under HMO's and would be under universal Medicare. High quality? Define that other than letting people decide it for themselves. Affordability? That's like "affordable housing" and rent control. It's code for everyone should be able to have whatever they want and not have to pay for it. Accountability? That's code for our current tort legal system which not only plays on the same liberal fears but funds the Democratic party. How accountable would a government doctor be? Trust and respect? That's usually best established by people making their own choices and deciding whom they trust and respect rather than relying on the government or someone else. Public versus private education is probably the best comparison.
-- Single-payor would be more efficient than the current "system".
This is where liberals, particular liberal doctors, really take leave of their senses. They bandy about "facts" such as "Medicare runs at 97-98% efficiency". It's an artifact created by the mountain of paperwork created by different insurance companies and government regulatory abuse, but somehow less paperwork with a single-payor equates to better care for the patient and better reimbursement for the doctor. Patients dealing with Medicare don't see it that way and hospitals depending on Medicare alone don't see it that way. Single-payor is a government backed monopoly and liberals only understand monopolies when they're big bad companies with mythology created around them like Standard Oil or Exxon. For some reason they have no fear of the US government acting as a country but with monopoly power and the power of coercion. They also fail to make the connection with their other shibboleths like government contractor waste and defense spending waste. And how about other government industry segments like HEW, Education, Energy, and the Postal Service. They're really efficient. But a government controlled single payor would be better right?
Actually such a system would combine the worst elements of the current system: using insurance as a model for payment of health care services, monopolistic power and lack of competition of a single payor, and central planned economy of the federal government bureaucracy.
The best solution possible today would be to set up a network of government hospitals like the VA and let that serve as the safety net for those who can't or won't pay for their own health care needs. This would be in competition (like public and private schools) with a free market form of health care industry that could be purchased however people want to pay for it including health insurance. The government would have to butt out of this segment of the health care sector (which isn't going to happen) and the plaintiff's bar would have to be put back in the box they crawled out of (which isn't going to happen) but at least there would be "free care" for all and the ability to go elsewhere if you weren't satisfied with what your taxes are paying for. You could even call the government hospitals "single payor" or "universal health care" hospitals.
Oh and one other suggestion. If we do set up such government hospitals, let's make it mandatory that lawyers and politicians have to receive their care there.
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