To Socialize or Not?

To socialize or not? That will be a major question in the 2008 election. . Socialized medicine/universal healthcare is just a fancy term for publicly funded health care that the government operates. Where as, in America we have a single payer health care system that is privately operated. However, the United States already has a partially socialized healthcare system. Medicaid, Medicare, and TRICARE already fit into the definition of socialized medicine. So, really the argument should be, do we expand socialized medicine?

Many can not afford insurance, have pre existing conditions that does not enable them to get insurance, or simply don’t want to spend the extra money on insurance. Many of these groups are proponents of a socialized medicine program. However, I am one of those people that can not afford to buy a health care plan and I am not a proponent of socialized medicine. I also have a child that is handicapped and receives her medical coverage through Medicaid.

So, here is my argument against universal healthcare/publicly funded healthcare/ socialized medicine/ or what ever you wish to call it: In this type of healthcare there are not any service options. If you think HMO’s are rough, then try being assigned a doctor. I want to be able to have options when it comes to choosing a healthcare provider. If I see a doctor and think he is a quack, I want to be free to change that doctor. In all the socialized medicine programs you are either assigned a doctor or given a choice of doctors that are ONLY in a designated area. In my case, my daughters handicap carries us to multiple states and multiple doctors. We went through multiple doctors before we found one that met our needs. Under socialized medicine that would not have been possible.

Secondly, time sensitive illnesses are lost in transition under the socialized medicine programs. Waits to see a general physician under Canada’s system can take months and if you want to see a specialist it is often a two year wait. If you think its bad waiting several weeks to see a doctor, wait until that wait is years. The waiting list to enter a hospital in Canada exceeds 900,000 at any one time, and in the UK it exceeds a million people. Oh, but don’t worry, if you have the means you can just pay under the table to jump ahead in the line!

Third, under the governments finger many of these healthcare facilities are not equipped with the latest technology. Some are not even capable of simple procedures like taking an x-ray. Smaller and local hospitals are simply band aid stations . While larger hospitals have emergency waiting lines of eight to ten hours. The United States spends twenty six times what Russia does on healthcare. Other socialized medicine systems, such as that in Finland, do not have substandard medical care, but have out of pocket expenses for drugs and hospital visits that average over four thousand dollars a year per person.

Forth, Its not really free. It costs $1,200 per year in taxes for EACH Quebec citizen to have access to the public health system. Then, another 1/5 of the cost comes from employers in a wage tax.

Fifth, the income ceilings from socialized medicine placed on health care professionals have lead to severe shortages of doctors, nurses, etc. Work stoppages and strikes by nurses and hospital workers have become a common thing under this system. Thus, the quality of physicians entering the health care system are sub standard and the care you get from these doctors are less than adequate.

In short, American health care is the most expensive, but it is because results produce expense. American heath care is flawed, but breaking it over the back of government control will only turn a flawed system into an inept one. If the United States Government can barely control and operate the socialistic type programs they are already overseeing, how would they ever effectively expand that role to all healthcare? In my opinion, they cant and I pray they wont!