Come and Get it! Free Healt Care for All!
 

OPINION By JOHN STOSSEL
Aug. 8, 2007

"On, Wisconsin … run the ball clear down the field!"

It's time to amend the Wisconsin football song so we can cheer on the Badger State's politicians as they move toward health care socialism.

The Wall Street Journal editorial-page editors are upset that Wisconsin's state Senate passed "Healthy Wisconsin," which will give health insurance to every person in the state. Of course, the Journal editors are right in saying that the plan is "openly hostile to market incentives that contain costs" and that the "Cheesehead nation could expect to attract health care free-riders while losing productive workers who leave for less-taxing climes."

In addition, as the Journal put it, "Wow, is 'free' health care expensive. The plan would cost an estimated $15.2 billion, or $3 billion more than the state currently collects in all income, sales and corporate income taxes."

And, of course, down the road it will cost much more than that. Even the $15 billion is based on the usual Pollyannaish assumptions such as millions in savings "from putting more emphasis on primary care."

As usual, most of the new taxes will be imposed on employers.

Progressives believe money taken from them doesn't cost anything. Rich corporations will simply waste less on lavish perks and excess profits. But taxes on business are often paid by workers, stockholders and consumers. Businesses that can't pass the taxes on to someone else will close or move out of state.

But progressives are oblivious to this fact. They see Wisconsin becoming a fairyland of health happiness supervised by the 16-person "authority" that will oversee the plan. Socialism will work this time because the "right" people will be in charge. Does it never occur to the progressives that the legislature's intrusion into private contracts is one reason health care and health insurance are expensive now?

The average annual health-insurance premium for a family in Wisconsin is $4,462 partly because Wisconsin imposes 29 mandates on health insurers: Every policy must cover chiropractors, dentists, genetic testing, etc. Think chiropractors are quacks? Too bad. You still must pay them to treat people in your state.

Want to buy insurance from another state, like nearby Michigan, where an average policy costs less? Too bad. It's against the law to buy across state lines. Your state's Big Brother knows best.

The WSJ writes about a "last line of defense against" Healthy Wisconsin, but I say, let Wisconsin try it! Its suffering will be for the greater good. As I interview people for my health care TV special scheduled to run on ABC this September, I'm struck by how many hate the current semi-free-market system America has now. I say "semi," because it's not a free market when about half the health care bill is funded by government. But it's still better than socialism. It allows for innovation, like the creation of better drugs, pain-relieving joint replacements, artificial hearts, Lasik eye surgery, and who-knows-what-else that may reduce pain and extend my life.

Socialism will kill that, but people seem to like socialism, at least when it's sold as free stuff from politicians. Wisconsin's Capital Times reports that "two-thirds of Wisconsin residents support the Democratic plan -- even when presented with opponents' arguments that it would be a 'job killer' that could lead to higher taxes. … Said Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, one of the plan's sponsors, 'Everything we have heard [against the plan], we put in the poll. And it still comes back at 67 percent approval.'"

That's why America needs "Healthy Wisconsin." The fall of the Soviet Union deprived us of the biggest example of how socialism works. We need laboratories of failure to demonstrate what socialism is like. All we have now is Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, the U.S. Postal Service, and state motor-vehicle departments.

It's not enough. Wisconsin can show the other 49 states what "universal" coverage is like.

I feel bad for the people in Wisconsin. They already suffer from little job creation, and the Packers aren't winning, but it's better to experiment with one state than all of America.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3460371

...and Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia, Canada, Croatia, Czech Reublic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom...

That's a pretty impressive list of countries whos populations are coming to the US for medical care.

I wasnt aware that it was that large of a number.

As long as they all go to Wisconsin, that is.

Yeap. Course most Brits just stay here in Blighty. Most French stay in France, their health system is excellent.

And Cuba has its own 'Health Tourists' as well. As do several other countries.

Can't say that for Canadians. Even the recent birth of identical quadruplets to a woman from Calgary took place not in the land of 'free, universal' health care, but in Montana. The woman and her husband had to drive 325 miles and cross the border for her delivery. Why? Hospitals in Calgary were 'at full capacity'. The two ways to manage socialized health care are to tax more, and to restrict access to care. Canada does both.

And it makes the kids US citizens.

OKay. First off: (my bold)

That suggests that's a regular everyday occurence that every hospital should be ready to deal with. When in fact you are dealing with an extremely complicated birth and very likely post natal complications for the babies.

Which brings me to: No. Hospitals in Calgary were not at full capacity. southern Alberta's only neonatal intensive care unit was, however, full. The highly specialised care needed was not available for four babies in one go. For the kind of care those babies were likely to need, we are looking at a serious spike in numbers with 4. Fortunately, they were near enough to the states to drive across. Presumably had they been further in the other direction they'd have driven to Montreal or something.


One extraordinary case does not a trend make. Figures to back up that assertion would be appreciated.



[edit] I just want to reiterate the first point i made in this post. *Even* the recent birth of quadruplets.....this is being offered as evidence of the perils of socialised medicine? i'm sat here now, listening to BBC news on the radio and they've just talked about this woman giving birth to "rare" quadruplets. This makes international news. Not that it was a Canadian in America, but that she had quadruplets. [/edit]

In fact, the odds of giving birth to identical quadruplets through natural conception are 1 in 13 million

Socialized medicine certainly has its benefits as well as its drawbacks, based on what I've read. Canada's plan doesn't seem all that great to me.

Unless a fundamental shift in thinking occurs in this country, I don't see Americans trusting their government enough and will not shell out extra tax money to pay for it. We're ornery by default and we like it that way. It makes us look like assholes on one hand, but helps cushion us when we hit rough financial times better than most countries.

A) this is an extreme example of a rare case.

B) How many Americans had their employer provided healthcare rates go down or coverage increase at the same price in the last few years? Canadians don't have to worry about HMOs or whether the closest/best hospital is in their companies network. Or losing coverage at the same time as they lose there job and ever after having a non covered existing condition. And of course 16% of our population doesn't have no healthcare coverage at all.

Well if I need a knee replacement or hip replacement how long would I have to wait? How about 5 to 11 months?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3749801.stm

What if I was diagnosed with lung cancer? How long would I have to wait for treatment? How about 44 days?
http://www.cardiothoracicsurgery.org/content/2/1/5

Joint replacements in Canada:

Joint replacements: Joint replacement surgeries grew significantly in the five years leading up to 2002–2003. Together, knee and hip replacement surgeries increased 30%, amounting to 11,340 more surgeries over this period. According to the Canadian Joint Replacement Registry, waits for a knee replacement are longer than for a hip replacement, with half of all patients undergoing surgery within seven months for knees and four-and-a-half months for hips. However, 10% of knee replacement patients wait 21 months or more, while 10% of hip replacement patients wait 15 months or more. These results reflect submissions from selected orthopedic surgeons in eight provinces.

http://www.cihi.ca/cihiweb/dispPage....ia_07mar2006_e

And what percentage of an equivalent American contingent had to wait indefinately whilst they argued with their insurance providers? What percentage of an equivalent American contingent were not able to access treatment at all, because they had no insurance cover?

These arguments against socialised medicine only really stack up if the alternative system results in treating a higher percentage of people faster and better. If, as is the case in America, many millions of people are without health insurance, and several million will go without needed medical care because of a lack of insurance, or a lack of co-operation by the insurance companies, then pointing at the much smaller percentage of Canadians or British who go without needed care (or have to wait several months for operations) is a little disingenuous.

The typical order of things is get treated first, then argue over who owes the doctor the money. We also have Medicare for the elderly, and Medicaid for the poor, and guaranteed insurance for all children in most states. In the "no insurance" statistics, they also never mention what percentage of those people are willingly uninsured, like both my brother and my father.

From a keynote address from the President of the University of Michigan 2003, based on the findings of the Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance:


http://www.umich.edu/pres/speeches/030519vodi.html

And me. For two years, ending last month. I could have afforded it. I enjoy gambling. I continued to purchase healthcare and paid cash. Sometimes it didn't work out so well

Just because some people choose not to be insured, doesn't mean there aren't millions of Americans who cannot afford insurance.

And, what about all those people whose insurance refuses to cover treatment? Okay so you get treatment and argue later. That works for emergency procedures. Doesn't work for a long course of chemotherapy. The treatment will cease if the cover isn't there.

They don't wait, they get the care and then get hammered with a bill.

Some get care. Many do not.

Dana srsly, we freakin live here, don't you think we have some clue about how things work here?

Wrong. No one is actually turned away from care that they have to have. I work in health care. I have never seen anyone turned away. Ever. I have seen people lose their shirts over hospital bills though, and seen insurance companies send the payment to the patient who then turns around and buys a new car, not paying the hospital or providers, who in turn have to take them to court, where in the end they can't pay the bill. Happens a 3 or 4 times a week where I work.

From the 193-page report, "Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late"
as reported in USA Today 2002 : http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...nce-deaths.htm
Presumably the people writing these reports and conducting these studies also live in America. You tell me you should know what it's like there. But who do I believe? You? The people conducting the studies? The President of the University of Michigan? You all live in America, you all know what the country is like. There does seem to be a great deal of evidence that the system fails a significant number of Americans. You all point at my healthcare system and say it limits access, yet I tell you I live in this country and have never had my access to medical care limited. And that's with several long term chronic conditions that I've had my whole life. My family haven't had their access limited. When my niece went into febrile convulsions and the local hospital saved her life, her parents weren't faced with a crippling bill afterwards. Most of my, and my family's and my friends' experiences of healthcare in the UK is positive.

There are exceptions. There is a drug which should be available and isn't and the consequence of which is that a friend of mine is losing her sight (we did eventually manage to persuade her to buy the treatment: she is a political activist, and ex member of parliament, who has campaigned all her life for the values expressed in the NHS. She used her situation to launch a campaign to try and make the drug available under the NHS for people with her condition. As someone who has fought against privatised medicine she did not feel in good conscience she could spend thousands on treatment that most could not afford.) There are a handful of drugs where such problems of access, or getting NICE to approve them are the case. Usually these are fought over for a while and eventually they get adopted. These are the exceptions, but they are numerous enough to make me realise that we have work to do to improve the system. It works for most people most of the time without creating financial hardship.

But you tell me that nobody is ever denied the treatment they need under your system?


Oh, as a side note, Alice was successful in her campaign to get the drug into the NHS. But, it will take a while for the Primary Care Trusts to finish wrangling over the details. There are already people receiving these injections. The campaign took about a year and a half and was related to a fairly new treatment for this condition.

Dana I don't doubt their findings based on their extrapolated data. What I doubt is how they collect their data and then turn it into blanket statements about what actually goes on on the ground and at the door of the hospital.

The problem of the un or under insured is a real one.

Healt care? I don't need no stinkin' healt care!

What's that?

huh?

OH!

Nevermind! :)

Yea, sorry about that, I tried to fix that but apparently you can't edit stuff after a few days. :neutral:

We should separate the care we need and the care we should have?
I'm of an age where they say I should have yearly exams for this and that, regular checks on that and the other... and I have very good health care insurance.
That said, I get medical attention when I have to call an ambulance because I can't crawl to the car.
So where do I fit in the statistics. Do I balance out the, go to the ER for a sliver or the sniffles, but doesn't have insurance? Do I show up in not getting the care I 'should have', because I don't cooperate with the 'should have' program?

People show up at the ER to get help for the Low back pain they have been having for 3 weeks because no doctors office will see them because they have no insurance. The stats are completely wankered.

I can only assume that your healthcare system is not as fucked as it looks from the outside, because you guys don't strike me as a doormat nation. I can only assume that if it was as bad as it looks from over here, you'd have kicked up an almighty stink by now.

This thread started with a characterisation of social medicine, which to my mind, demonised such a system entirely. You would have me accept that the picture that's been painted of your healthcare delivery system is skewed, inaccurate and probably wilfully false. Okay, I'll accept that as a possibility. I would suggest to you that your picture of socialised medicine is likewise skewed, inaccurate and wilfully false.

Both of those premises are possible. Both have truth and falsehoods. The fact is that we cannot take a system that works well in a country the size of Southern Calif and easily dump into one that is 50 times the size and expect it to work as nicely.

Why not?

My experience has been that the systems are not compatible.

Let me give you a broad example. During many years in the military I had the pleasure of doing a few US/UK exchanges. The ability to get things done in the UK military was amazing, logical, easy. Sgt Chappy just calls up his bud over in mainland UK and things happen. In the US we have layers and layers of systems that we have to go through to get the same things done. Why? Because it is HUGE. We have more tanks at one post in Germany than all of the tanks in the UK. Our heath care system is entrenched in years of doing things a certain way. We can't do anything on the cheap here, nothing. To many hands in the pot. To many special interest groups with to much to lose. And just like in the UK military things are much easier to do when the layers are not there to get in the way of change. Costs are everything. How much tax do you guys pay to maintain your health care system? Our tax system is not set up the same way. We have to change much to fix our health care system. I am not sure that our system of how we lobby in Congress lends it self to the change we would need to make to fix health care, and so far ALL of the political electorees have refused to change that. There are so many pieces.

*Nods* Okay. Good answer.

Trying to come up with a list of bits that would need change or in some way being affected by a change to a socialized system:

Tax system
Pharmacy Corps interests
HMO's interests
Insurance interests
Congress funding by special interests
Doctors Lobby
National Hospital organizations
Medicare
Mediciad
State sponsored insurance programs
Private insurance corps and role with employeers
Retired persons organizations
Trauma Care networks
Issues with illegal aliens
Unions

That works out to 1 in 16,381 Americans.

OMG BROKEN SYSTEM EVERYBODY PANIC

got one o' them new fangled calculaters to gimme a % on that? Just for a lil perspective.

I wonder how many of those people, "lack preventive services, a timely diagnosis or appropriate care", by choice or ignorance?

I think that the whole idea of a NHS in America is going to fail because we here have a huge sense of entitlement and there is no system anywhere here that "gives away" anything that isn't fraught with abuse.


Make heath care "free" and everyone will flood doctor's offices with the slightest complaint.

The only way I can see this happen is to nationalise the entire health care system. Make all doctors employees of the government. Set salaries for them. Provide government malpractice insurance as a perk. Regulate care standards. Make all pharmacies (and pharmacists (chemists to the Brits)) part of the new system so that payments can be controlled and tracked. Controls and limits set by beaurocrats. Fiefdoms and political power can be set by congressional decree.

I just don't see this happening. Not yet anyway.

The same arguments were made against the NHS. Indeed, for a little while that was the case: then the novelty wore off and people settled down to not wanting to go to their doctors unless they absolutely had to.


Pharmacies are private businesses. They claim back the costs from the NHS when they present the prescriptions they've processed. They also sell medicines. There are times when a medicine is cheaper to get over the counter, or indeed, is simply something you wouldn't need to go to a doctor for. Pharmacies are usually thriving businesses.

Oh, yeah. I love going to the doctor's.

You aren't the problem, it's the same people that just love to chat with telephone solicitors that will jam the Doctors office on a regular basis.

There are lots of people who love to go to the doctor's. It's the attention, for some people it's the only time anyone gives a damn about whether they live or die, so they crave it. Imagine, you work your 8 hour shift in basically the same shitty little dead end job you've had for the last 20 years. You know you have no chance for advancement because you don't have the skills to move up the ladder, and you know that others also know this. The most exciting thing in your life is the occasional gathering of people in your neighborhood around a little grill while you ponder the fact that you'll be doing this until you experience the joy of moving into a retirement house. Then one day you enter a magical realm where people, very knowledgeable, powerful people, spend all their time talking with you and paying attention to how you're feeling. They care about how you're doing and express sympathy for your pain,when you haven't been getting these attentions from other people in your life.

Shallow, self absorbed, whiny, bossy, or even just stupid people start indulging themselves even when nothing is really wrong.

There are also people who honestly think that every little bump, scrape, and ache they experience deserves the attention of an M.D, but I'm lumping these people in under 'all of the above'.

I spent this summer interning in an ER, I've seen the type.

There are lots of people who already have 'free' health care from the government in some form, or from their employer...I wonder how many of them do that.

edit: oh--missed 9th's post.

Free health care would bring the working class to the doctors a lot more since they do a lot of physical work and don't have the best health insurance so they won't go to the doctor unless they have too.

Hell I have free health care. Just give your rich uncle a few years, maybe the best ones, of your life. BTW. It's better than it was a few years ago. IMHO.

If the best years of your life are your early-mid twenties, then honestly, your life sucks.

Better than it being in high school.

That is true.

Personally, I wish I could go to my doctor more often. I need regular care and I never get it. Not because I have no health coverage, but because I have so little free time these days. Three days a month? BLEH! I spend half of it sleeping and the rest preparing to leave again.

Two hours for a doctor visit? On the assumption that I can get a convenient appointment? Not happening.

Sorry to come back into the thread so late ... I had to go out of town. Shouldn't have posted and then left, but ... some familiarity with the geography of the region would be helpful. Calgary IS the referral center for half the province of Alberta (which is huge). It's the equivalent of Montreal in Quebec. If there aren't 4 neonatal ICU beds in Calgary, there's a big problem. The problem is that the federal and provincial governments don't fund the facilities, technology, and services that current populations require.

The tax burden in Canada is extremely high (maybe not comparable to the UK, but much higher than in the U.S.), and there isn't a lot more room to meet costs that way. The other way of containing costs in a single-payer system is to limit access. There are many studies and reports on Canadian Medicare that make this statement; it's not an opinion. The Canadian system is unique among government-funded health care systems in that Canada is the only country that outlaws the provision of private medical services. The UK, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, and every other country I've read about that has taxpayer-funded health care allow parallel private systems. The private systems take the pressure off the public ones and allow innovation and competition.

The U.S. already has government-funded health insurance, as some others have noted - it has Medicare and Medicaid. It also has a private insurance system. While I think increased government oversight of private health insurance would be a good idea (to prevent cherry-picking and unilateral dropping of insurance, which looks to me like breach of contract), I think a private system is necessary to prevent what's happened in Canada. Canada is starting to think so, too - in spite of the Canada Health Act (the law that makes it a crime to provide health care privately), private clinics are finding loopholes and springing up more and more. In response, governments are de-listing more and more services and procedures, and allowing them to be picked up by private clinics. Unfortunately, this means that some important services go completely uninsured (eg. physiotherapy for most people; eye exams except in children; and dental services have never been covered).

I grew up in the Canadian system, have been a patient in it, and trained and worked in it as a physician. The most important thing to know about a single-payer system is that insurance for all does not translate into access to health care for all. People in the U.S. may have (sometimes voluntary) gaps in insurance coverage, but laws such as EMTALA provide for evaluation and needed care; people in Canada have access to insurance (though there are gaps and limits there too), but their access to care is limited, and there is no EMTALA.

Thanks orthodoc, good perspective. That's also what my Canadian kin have been saying, but without your background expertise.

Thanks for fixing that quote, Bruce. I used the 'quote' button but couldn't get it to look right. Probably something to do with my neo-luddite inadequacies. :p

Obviously over educated.... or used to letting the nurses handle the details.

Uh huh ... let the nurses handle the details, yep, that'll be the day. :rolleyes:

The insurance companies employ them to fend off claims, it is already happening.


Thanks for your insight orthodoc.

Yep, you're a real Doctor.... and my Mom's got a earfull for you.

Not me.

That wasn't a jab at nurses, I'm just too OCD to let anyone else handle the details. Delegating ... not my strong suit. :headshake

Talking about Doctors not listening to the floor nurses observations (with a couple glasses of wine), Is the only time I ever heard her say fuck.

No, not you, Merc. You slipped in there while I was composing. Welcome back.