Screw health care reform. Socialize it. Seems to work good in other countries. So don’t tell me it don’t work. My girlfriend is English and was completely shocked about the lack of healthcare here.
Where as in America one of the richest countries in the world people in need of health care go without it simply because they can’t afford it.
Some face death.
Screw Bush and his heath care reform; if he really cared about Americans he’d be pushing for universal heath care.
UHC would be a huge help to Business and the working poor. It makes much sense though it has some drawbacks.
A good American HMO appears to offer better services than most socialized healthcare programs. At least the ones that are affordable to the country like Canada’s.
Small businesses strain under the burden of providing healthcare or just do not provide any at all.
Medium and large businesses find health care a very large and hard to control annual expense. It would make the life of all businesses much simpler to remove them from the need to provide health care.
The self-employed, have bad choices to make, extremely expensive health-care cost or betting they will not need much health care.
UHC is a sensible solution. Large Corporation could still choose to offer some sort of additional health care service, but our current health care system is broken and fails 43 million people if I remember my statistic correctly.
Our current system only benefits the rich and the insurance companies.
Jim
Welcome to the Straight Dope, Enjoy your stay. Kick the Tires and decide if you might want to stay.
Welcome to the world of politics, where you should use two questions:
‘will it be popular?’
‘who’s going to pay for it?’
The UK introduced National Health Care in 1948, but soon there were financial consequences:
‘By July 1948, Aneurin Bevan had guided the National Health Service Act safely through Parliament. This legislation provided people in Britain with free diagnosis and treatment of illness, at home or in hospital, as well as dental and ophthalmic services. As Minister of Health, Bevan was now in charge of 2,688 hospitals in England and Wales.
The National Health Service was expensive and in April 1951, the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell, placed a shilling on every prescription and announced that people would have to pay half the cost of dentures and spectacles. As a result of this action, Aneurin Bevan resigned from the government.’
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Lhealth48.htm
The NHS is popular in the UK. (Note that we also have a private health option, where money gets you a faster service and a private room etc.)
There are complaints about waiting lists and ‘postcode lotteries’ (where some wealthier regions provide more access to expensive treatments), but all UK political parties recognise that they dare not tamper with the NHS in case a tidal wave of popular sentiment sweeps them away:
‘A retired doctor who caused one of the biggest upsets of the last general election by toppling a government minister has been re-elected to parliament.
Dr Richard Taylor, who stood as part of a campaign to save his local hospital from closure, held on to his seat in Wyre Forest with 18,739 votes, giving him a 5,250 majority ahead of Conservative candidate Mark Garnier.
Labour, which had won the seat in the 1997 election when David Lock romped home with a near 7,000 majority, finished in third place.’
Now the US has a different view of many things from the UK, and health care is one of them.
I’ll leave American posters to describe things in detail, but from my UK viewpoint it seems that Americans prefer to have less Government schemes than private ones, don’t like the word ‘socialist’ and are content to rely on charity + a ‘safety net’.
Why not?
The American medical profession is iffy. Lots of doctors are for it, but all are very aware that doctors in Canada and the UK, while they make good money, don’t have the sky-high earning potential American doctors have.
The health insurance industry really, really doesn’t want it, and has a lot of political clout.
There are also a lot of very, very rich and powerful people who, even if they have no direct stake in the HII, oppose socialized medicine on ideological grounds.
There are also a lot of not-so-powerful just plain folks who, for complex social and historical reasons, are ideologically in accord with 3.
Most Americans have health insurance and are generally happy with the choices and care they are allowed under the current system. There is a real fear that their level of service will tank if the whole system is overhauled just to capture a minority of people without health insurance.
The government might take an active interest in the “health” of individuals and use the healthcare system as leverage to control behavior.
Yeah, why can’t there be a hybrid health care cost system?
Just like my mum got on a purely N.H.S. basis when she had breast cancer, you mean? 
I swear she was straight to the hospital before she had time to draw breath. * Yeah, all right, I realise not everyone’s story is like that but, well, I suppose it’s just that I sometimes worry that U.S. people, being aware that people enjoy a good grumble about the N.H.S., might be at risk of thinking it’s all really dreadful, whereas it’s a bit more the case that, it’s like the weather, in that having a good grumble about it is a national hobby. 
Oh, and public transport probably belongs in that category too.
Good post, though, Glee - I think you hit the nail on the head here
. Indeed, I’m inclined to think, admittedly from a basis of not much knowledge at all, that any plan to set up an N.H.S.-type service in the States could quickly be scuppered merely by those against it muttering the word “socialized” often enough, and letting people imagine statues of Lenin on every street corner or something. O the horror! Or, you know, the sky would fall.
I’m not sure what you have in mind there. Seriously, I’m not. Do you mean forcibly sending “troublesome” people to locked mental hospitals, or do you mean withholding health care from anyone the government doesn’t like? (To be fair, it’s sort of past my bedtime, so I’m probably just being a bit dim.)
I am not talking about any one thing in particular. Additional restrictions on smoking, drinking, and fast foods may be easier if people and the government see a direct connection between some people’s behavior and how much in medical resources and raw cash are required to support that after the fact. Those are just some examples. This connection already exists of course but the connection becomes more clear if a nanny state decides to take a special interest in people’s behavior under the guise of protecting the new system.
I didn’t make up this argument and I don’t know what the long-term effects would be. Maybe we would just get tax deductions for gym memberships or something.
This is also anectdotal: I attended the World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto in 2003. At one panel discussion (forget the actual topic, but the question wasn’t irrelevant), I asked the panelists (Canadian SF writers and editors) if there was any downside to the Canadian health care system. I was expecting a heated argument, but they all said, one after the other, “No.” “No.” “No.” The room was big and crowded and nobody raised a dissenting voice.
Has this happened in other countries? That’s something I’ve never seen anyone comment on.
From what I’ve read, in the nanny-state nations of Europe, restaurants don’t even have no-smoking sections. And they drink at least as much alcohol as we do and the state doesn’t seem to interfere.
As a Canadian, I’ve noticed in the US when someone needs surgery and has the money to pay for it, they get it and fast. Remember when Bill Clinton had a heart problem? He was being operated on the very next day. If he had been Canadian, he’d still be waiting today.
Money is a huge incentive for doctors. Try to convince them that they can only see so many patients in a day and they can only be paid what the government is willing to give them. Because that’s how it is in a socialized system. There is never a (monetary) reward for hard work, just a limit to how much a doctor can make. So where is the incentive to work hard? There is no incentive and IMHO that’s why we have such long waiting lists up here.
Don’t get me wrong, I like socialized health care as much as any other Canadian but the system does have its drawbacks.
I have absolutely excellent health insurance right now, and the last thing I want is to be paying just as much for shittier healt insurance.
As for health care, there’s no lack in the USA. We’ve got all kinds of health care. Hospitals are everywhere, there are millions of doctors, and there’s a pharmacy in just about every town. The thing is that someone has to pay for that health care, and right now I pay for really good insurance so that I can get the best.
I like having that choice.
Because someone like me who pays for the health insurance they want and are happy with (and I went with the highest cost option I could because it’s got the best coverage. It’s a matter of priorities, and I chose to not have digital cable and get a less expensive car.) and see absolutely no reason to have their taxes increased to pay for more health insurance that provides less service and that they will never use.
I’m paying for, and getting, exactly what I want right now. I’m happy with what I pay and the service I get. What incentive do I have to go in on the socialist system where I pay for yours too?
Well, on the one hand, I (and a fairly high percentage of Americans) feel that there’s something intrinsically ‘unfair’ about me - I don’t smoke, don’t eat fast food, am in the appropriate weight range for my height, I exercise, I don’t drink to excess (very often…!), and am generally in excellent health - being forced to subsidize the health care costs of people who don’t have such healthy habits.
On the other hand, I (…and a frighteningly small percentage of Americans) freely recognize that I am paying more than enough for inefficiencies in the system that I could probably subsidize all of those people and still come out ahead, if there were some way to streamline the process. At the very least, some fairly drastic reform seems appropriate, even if complete socialization tickles me wrong on an ideological basis.
(On the proverbial third hand, moving from debate to anecdote, the issue of lower income potential has DEFINITELY come up when talking with my Canadian med-student-in-America girlfriend and where she wants to eventually end up working. Even though she is conceptually a lot more comfortable with universal health care than I am, she definitely recognizes the issue.)
Either way, this is not (in America, at least) the one-sided issue that many might seem to think, and it’s not the one-sided free-markets-are-perfect issue that the other side would scream about. There are certainly worse places to start than the Massachusetts or California plans, and any start is probably a good one.
And that’s super. For you. So what about the people who don’t have that choice?
Apparently they can eat cake. 
Catsix are you self-insured or taking the best plan your company offers? You might want to talk to some families that are self insured about how incredible expensive health plans are.
I have good health care coverage and I have had good health care coverage my entire adult life. I have nothing to gain with the UHC system.
I just see the huge benefit to small business and their employees. As a good “Republican” I know that what is good for small business is good for America. As a good “Social Liberal Moderate”, I find the minority of approximately 43 million Americans having no recourse to medical care except Emergency Room visits to be quite sad in what is suppose to be the greatest country on Earth.
BTW: My stats appear to be dated. According to this report, the uninsured now number 46.6 million as of 2005.
Jim
It certainly hasn’t here. Some provinces are now banning smoking in restaurants and bars and the like, or did so recently, but that seems to be following the trend coming out of the US started by California and such. Nobody even raises the public health dollars as an argument when that issue is being discussed, either, it’s all just about second-hand smoke etc. Remember this is still a democracy. Forced gym memberships or bans on hamburgers would be about as popular here as they would be anywhere. That such laws might result in infinitesimally lower taxes would never strike people as a reason to pass them.
“The art of the possible.”
Anything that gets done has to at least be palatable to each of the major players, or it will not happen.
Insurance companies cannot just be dealt out. But they can be regulated … as long as it keeps the playing field even between competitors and gives them something in return.
Many of us docs would accept a plan against our personal self-interest if it provided a greater good. But organized medicine? No way. Single payor, giving the other side of the bargaining table all the power to unilaterally set prices, nagonnahappen.
Romney and Schwarzenegger each have part of the answer, Blagovich some too, and Bush made a baby step proposal as well. Put it together as such and it might just happen:
[ul]
[li]An individual mandate of coverage with documentation appended to tax returns. The uninsured cost us all.[/li][li]Decreased reliance on employer sponsored plans. Eliminate the payroll subsidy ($200 billion/yr) and replace it with a graded subsidy based on income level. Those mandated to purchase must be able to afford it. This accomplishes many other goals, not the least of which is decreasing fragmentation of care caused by company changes in coverage and panels of docs.[/li][li]Regulation of the insurance industry eliminating cherry-picking. One price per plan all comers pre-existing condition or not, Megacorp or Joe Blow. Alternatively an effective and efficient means of pooling individuals for group purchasing at discounts. Those mandated have to have plans priced fairly for individual purchase and be able to find coverage.[]Expansion of SCHIP programming to provide an adequate safety net for the poor and opening it up for voluntary individual sign-up at a reasonable cost.[]And yes, tort reform. Gotta throw us docs something! :)[/li][/ul]
It stands a chance because it provides for healthcare coverage for all, reduces overhead at insurance companies, and keeps everybody still in the game to compete on price and product. Big Business gets the healthcare albatross off their neck. Doctors can still quit any particular payor.
Done.
Isn’t that pretty close to some European models?