# Universal health care and the poor **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 7, 2005, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016 "2005-08-07T19:20:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/21 "2005-08-08T02:29:46Z")
> [@Jonathan Chance](#): > > I’ve got to gig you on one thing Sam. Your mother HAD the option of purchasing LASIK if desired. A short plane ride and she could have had it done in a day or two. I had it done on Jan 2, 2001 and it took less than two weeks and $2500 to get it done. She didn’t need LASIK. She needed laser surgery to stop the bleeding in her eye. I brought up LASIK to point out the difference between a state-funded procedure and a similar procedure provided by the private market. The same could be said for dentists. Dental care is completely private in Canada. If I have a toothache, I can get in to see my dentist within hours, and I’ve never, ever had to wait more than a couple of weeks for a dental appointment. Dental care is extremely good here, too. > [@](#): > > 1. I agree with the argument that if some form of NHS (Canadian model or English model) is so terrible then it would have been done away with some time ago. Really? Everything that is terrible is done away with? By that logic, you must not think the government does anything bad, because “if it were so terrible, it would have been done away with.” Does this logic hold for the things that government does that you don’t agree with? Perhaps NHS is a bad idea but politically popular because people want a free lunch. Perhaps it stays enacted because various special interests have more clout than the average citizen. Perhaps it remains popular because people have simply swallowed the propaganda of the proponents. Take farm subsidies. In New Zealand, farm subsidies were a way of life. Every aspect of farming was heavily subsidized, and the conventional wisdom was that New Zealand’s special circumstances made subsidies mandatory to keep the industry alive. But then the government went broke, and was forced to eliminate them. Twenty years later, New Zealand farming is healthier than it has ever been, the environment is cleaner, and New Zealand meat is better than it ever was. So there was a bad government program that was wildly popular. > [@](#): > > 1. I devoutly believe that some form of NHS will be in place in the United States within 20 years. Whether this is good or bad from your political point of view is utterly irrelevant. Utterly. As healthcare continues to become more expensive both to employers and individuals the political demand for something to rein in health care costs will become one of the decisive issues of congressional campaigns. At some point shortly it will become ‘don’t want the government to provide health care then you lose’ in terms of congressional races. Funny, the trend in countries with socialized medicine is to move back towards the free market. Canada is facing enormous pressure to allow private treatment. Other countries are experimenting various market-based reforms to solve their waiting list probems. Perhaps in the end we will all wind up with something in the middle. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/22 "2005-08-08T02:38:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, considering how efficiently Social Security, the DMV, and other gov’t “services” are run, I shudder to think what would happen if they got their noses in my health care. Actually, Social Security is run pretty efficiently. Serves tens of millions of people, with an administrative cost of about 1%. Right now I’ve got an odd pain in my neck that intensifies with exertion; I’m wondering if it might be a thrombosis or an aneurism or something colorful like that. Since, like tens of millions of other Americans, I work for a living but have no health care benefits, I’m hesitant to risk spending all my savings by seeking medical care. But, thank Christ, at least I don’t have the burden of helping to pay for a single-payer national system that would guarantee me coverage. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/23 "2005-08-08T02:39:06Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > **I’m curious-what is the average wait time in the U.S. for these procedures if one is poor and has no insurance?** What might the average wait time be if all government health programs were stopped? Well, being employed with full coverage, I’m not sure how long the wait would be, but in North Dakota alone women without means have access to [GYN](http://www.hersource.com/breast/03/3d/cdcproviders.cfm) services at no cost. And we’re just a hick Red-State backwater. The services are there for the poor. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/24 "2005-08-08T02:50:45Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Now compare that to something like LASIK surgery, which is the same kind of procedure but done in private faciities for profit. You can get in for an evaluation for LASIK here within a week or two, get the surgery the next week, and be done, for maybe $1500. If that kind of option was available to my mother, she would have taken it and paid the $1500 even though it’s a lot of money for her. That’s a lot better than two years of blindness. I don’t think thats a very good comparison. LASIK is a relatively simple procedure while cutting open an eye and stopping bleeding seems to be a pretty complicated one. I also don’t think comparing Canada’s system directly with the United States system is a fair one becuase Canada spends less than half of what the US does per person. According to **pokey’s** site even with that spending discrepency Canadians are about as satisfied with their health care as the US. How much better do you think Canadian’s health care system would be if their budget was doubled **Sam Stone**? [http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/hea\_spe\_per\_per&int=-1&id=OECD](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/hea_spe_per_per&int=-1&id=OECD) ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/25 "2005-08-08T03:10:06Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > > [@ivylass](#): > > > > No, of course not. But it seems private businesses can get their buildings constructed much faster than gov’t entities can > > Cite? The NY Sun & USA Today ran this report about 3 weeks ago. [url=Trump says he’ll renovate the U.N. quicker, cheaper] > [@](#): > > …The U.N. has estimated that renovation of the…39-story Secretariat tower and the General Assembly building, will **cost $1.2 billion** (and be completed in **2010** /2011). The United States has offered the U.N. a 30-year loan for that amount. Trump said that U.N. officials’ lack of expertise could make the price tag balloon to $3 billion. He said **it should cost no more than $700 million** (and could be completed in **2007** ). Sure, the man’s a pompous blow-hard - but I’d wager his $3,000,000,000 / 2011 estimate isn’t that far off. Before you discount him as a cocky, self-serving grand-stander, read about the Wollman skating rink in NYC’s Central Park; where the city wasted spend $13 million ($7 million over budget) over 6 years doing the reconstruction and then discovered they’d needed 2 more years and an additional $3 million to complete the job. Trump stepped in & completed the job in less than 4 months & came in $750,000 under budget. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/26 "2005-08-08T03:41:32Z")
If my health care needs are guaranteed to be met by the government and paid for by the people who are earning the wages, why should I keep working? What’s to prevent me from quitting my job and just living off welfare and National Health? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/27 "2005-08-08T04:02:40Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > In any event, I don’t want the gov’t involved in my health care. I’m sorry, but you are a fool, a damned fool, if you think the government isn’t involved in your health care already. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/28 "2005-08-08T04:43:24Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > If my health care needs are guaranteed to be met by the government and paid for by the people who are earning the wages, why should I keep working? What’s to prevent me from quitting my job and just living off welfare and National Health? The same reason millions of Canadians get up and go to work everyday? Personal satisfaction, a better life than welfare can provide and a desire to be productive? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/29 "2005-08-08T05:25:47Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > Well, considering how efficiently Social Security, the DMV, and other gov’t “services” are run, I shudder to think what would happen if they got their noses in my health care. > > For God’s sake, it takes two years to built a courthouse or a school administration building, but it takes three months to build a fast food restaurant. I don’t want to have to rely on the gov’t for my health care. You might want to move to Canada, then. We actually spend LESS government money on health care than the USA. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/30 "2005-08-08T06:40:46Z")
**Moderator’s Note:** Although it may have been in response to a remark made in a Pit thread, I really don’t see anything here that merits this thread being in the Pit. So I’m stealing it. (I’ll also update the title.) ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/31 "2005-08-08T09:28:36Z")
[Interesting figures](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/hea_hea_car_fun_pub_per_cap), if 5 years old now (but has anything changed really?). So, the US _already_ spends more then “socialised” Canada and Europe (except Germany & Iceland), and yet you can still go [bankrupt for calling an ambulance](http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1077230,00.html). I believe that this is partly due to the vast cost of the bureaucracy required to _decide who does and doesn’t get help_, when simply assuming that _everyone_ gets help actually makes this easier to plan and budget for. (Incidentally, Canada’s system is almost unique in that it _forbids_ the private option. In Europe and everywhere else, if you’ve paid your universal dues you can pay _again_ for private care if the waiting lists seem unbearable - an eminently reasonable arrangement IMO.) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/32 "2005-08-08T09:37:32Z")
Yeah, why buy one when you can get two for twice the price? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/33 "2005-08-08T09:39:25Z")
In the case of teh US, you **are** pying twice the price and not even getting one _at all_. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/34 "2005-08-08T09:46:42Z")
Well, I can’t argue with you there. I pay out the ying-yang for drive-by examinations from PAs. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/35 "2005-08-08T13:00:55Z")
Canadian here. Years ago I was offered a job in Hawaii. The company would cover my health care but not my wife’s. :rolleyes: My stepmother, on fixed income, recently has had cataract surgery, knee replacement and last week a mammogram. We both live in the boonies by the way. She has no complaints about the health care even though she’s a bit of a whiner. To weeks ago I had a catscan. It took three days after the requisition. I pay $112 USD per month to cover my family’s healthcare. What do you pay? ---
**Author:** ![zenith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zenith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zenith)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/36 "2005-08-08T13:57:38Z")
> [@grienspace](#): > > Canadian here. > > I pay $112 USD per month to cover my family’s healthcare. > > What do you pay? What a bargain! I pay $93 every 2 weeks for insurance and put $1000/year into a flex account to cover deductibles and copays. I also spent many hours on the phone arguing about several of my wife’s cancer bills that Blue Cross tried not to pay. Bring on National Health! ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/37 "2005-08-08T14:03:05Z")
I’ ---
**Author:** ![JustAnotherGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@JustAnotherGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustAnotherGeek)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/38 "2005-08-08T14:03:21Z")
My whole argument against socialized medicine stems from 1.) many people want more while paying less, and 2.) I don’t trust our government’s efficiency. As for 1.) I’m not accusing anyone in particular, but rather most of us in general. It’s way too common a human trait to want more for less. For instance, look at the problem we are facing with drug costs. Most people I talk to have no idea why drugs cost what they do. Fewer people understand that the pharmaceutical industry makes around 80% of their profit in the US and UK. They simply (and understandably) want the drugs to save their life at a lower cost. The problem I see with socializing the cost of drugs in this country is that we would be putting a financial stranglehold on the R&D of new products. And, from what I know about the UK’s system, their health system makes some pretty tough choices about who gets the treatment (to keep costs down). I have heard of two cases where medicine was intentionally withheld from stroke patients. (I heard about these cases from a doctor involved, btw.) ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/39 "2005-08-08T14:27:55Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I’m not John, but if you are interested in a scholarly look at his viewpoint, see this article from the Cato Institute … That cite seems very dishonest to me and has the reek of a partisan hackjob about it. In the first paragraph, they make a general claim that single-payer national health care systems would have an “enormous” cost, and to back up this assertion _they give a single example of a proposed system_ and then provide a series of _absolute_ figures detailing how much that single system would cost. That’s dishonest for a couple of different reasons: First, you can’t use a single single-payer system example to claim that _all_ single-payer systems are going to be enormously expensive, especially when single-payer systems that are cheaper then our own current system exist (e.g., Canada’s). Second, presumably they’re using the word “enormous” in a relative sense, that is, they mean the cost would be “enormous” compared to other health care systems. If that’s so, then the absolute figures they give are meaningless–the immediately relevant data would be how the cost of the proposed system differs from our current health care spending: a true single payer health care system would eliminate insurance and HMO beuracracies, eliminate medicare, medicaid, streamline billing and administrative overhead at hospitals, and private insurance costs. Fairly discussing the costs of a proposed health care system involves a much more exhaustive analysis then simple “OMG!!! YOU’LL HAVE TO PAY MORE TAXES! TAXES ARE THE SUXORZZZ!” scaremongering. The second paragraph is just as bad; they’ve simply gone through the available statistics and cherry-picked the scarriest sounding examples without regard to how medically necessary they are. One of the positive characteristics of a single-payer system is that it can control health care spending by prioritizing services; given a limited budged, it makes sense that things needing urgent attention should be treated quickly and things that don’t need urgent attention can wait. Saying that heart surgery can be an 8-month wait sounds pretty scary, but _if the patient can wait 8 months for the surgery_ how big of an emergency can it be? What’s so bad about waiting 2.5 months for a mammogram? It’s a screening procedure that’s required every so many years; not an emergency. There’s also a wonderful example of misleading with statistics: they say that the danger of dying on the waiting list exceeds the danger of dying on the operating table. So what? That means nothing, unless you know something about the danger of dying on the operating table: if the chance of dying on the operating table is pretty small, the the chance of dying on the waiting list is also pretty small. And if the alternative to having a pretty small chance of dying on a waiting list is _not having any surgery at all_ or waiting until your condition is a life-threatening emergency, getting treated, and then going bankrupt, that pretty small risk would look pretty good, wouldn’t it? I wanted to look into this issue more, but cited a WSJ article instead of a primary source, so it’s hard to figure out how if their figure is even legitimate. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016/40 "2005-08-08T14:29:51Z")
> [@JustAnotherGeek](#): > > The problem I see with socializing the cost of drugs in this country is that we would be putting a financial stranglehold on the R&D of new products. Not really. The only thing a free market does for drug R&D is entice companies to research and develop the most profitable drugs, rather then the drugs that could save the most lives. So rather then new antibiotics or vaccines, we’ll get new (and expensive) treatments for discolored toe nails. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/universal-health-care-and-the-poor/316016.md?page=3)