Obamacare- Bad medicine
A little known fact is that Obamacare, or something similar to it, has already been tried in the U.S. Socialized healthcare is common in Europe, and Canada has a similar system as well, but in the U.S., individual states have tried their own versions, and failed. Miserably. Not only did the socialized plan drive up costs, it increased waiting-lists and diminished the quality of care.
This all goes back to the Democrats not realizing that the problem isn’t the lack of insurance, it is the cost of the care. The cost of the care is not only due to the demand, but due to the extremely high cost of medical malpractice insurance. Fix the malpractice debacle, and you fix the healthcare system. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that treatments cost thousands of dollars when doctors have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for malpractice insurance.
Americans are beginning to see through Obama’s plan, realizing that it would do more harm than good, increasing costs, racking up the deficit, and not solving the problem. Just 23% of Americans believe that Obamacare would reduce costs. A Gallup poll showed how two-thirds of Americans think Congress doesn’t have a sufficient knowledge of healthcare. Only around one-fourth of Americans think Congress has a good grasp on healthcare issues.
I have already shown how you may not be able to keep your private insurer, that you will be forced to have a “qualified” plan as defined by the government, that the healthy will be subsidizing the cost of the unhealthy, and that it would greatly increase the deficit. On top of that, European and Canadian style healthcare have created long waits, improper care, and put more debt on the backs of their citizens. Obamacare is no different. We will have long lines, shoddy care, and a huge cost to go with it. Why buy failure?
Obama tried, and failed, to get the legislation passed before the August recess. This is because he knows that the more people who understand his plan, the less support it will receive. This is one of the biggest problems I have with certain politicians today. They don’t care whether people support them or not, they want their way, regardless of how devastating their actions may be. It is the kind of Chicago politics that makes the political realm so slimy. I can only hope that once I am a public servant, that my actions can help clean up some of this mess. If you would like to see an example, just watch the following video.
Just curious: How is medical malpractice handled in Canada and those European countries with socialized medicine? How do the costs of medical malpractice insurance in those countries compare with the costs in the United States? Are they higher, lower, or the same?
In countries with socialized medicine, are medical malpractice suits limited only to pain/suffering and loss of income? That would seem logical, since any medical costs resulting from the malpractice (say, for corrective surgery or physical rehabilitation) are themselves covered under the socialized medicine.
And in those countries with really big “safety nets,” like the Scandinavian countries, that provide fairly generous disability benefits, do victims of medical malpractice even receive loss-of-income damages?
Perhaps you could do a post on medical malpractice insurance, claims, and awards in Canada and Scandinavia. That would be interesting.
The price in Europe for malpractice insurance has been increasing for some time, just as it has in the U.S. Much of the problem is because the medical standards people expect to be met are hard to meet with a socialized healthcare system. With limited funds, less doctors, and long waits, the people tend to get pissed at those closest to them and take them to court, aka they sue the doctors for not providing adequate care. Our country seems to have just increased the responsibility of healthcare providers, enabling dissatisfied recipients of care to sue and, more often than not, win.
“In countries with socialized medicine, are medical malpractice suits limited only to pain/suffering and loss of income?”
They differ, as they use a few different models (english, german, and french, then a few less prevalent ones). The differences tend to be in standard of care. Example: A doctor doesn’t inquire about a patient’s symptoms of *insert disease here*, as the doctor was treating the patient for another ailment. Is that doctor now liable because he/she didn’t inquire further about the symptoms? Or is that doctor not liable because he/she was not asked? In some European countries (like Germany, where malpractice is out of control), the doctor, or hospital, would be liable. In other countries, namely the UK, the doctor nor hospital wouldn’t be liable.
“And in those countries with really big “safety nets,” like the Scandinavian countries, that provide fairly generous disability benefits, do victims of medical malpractice even receive loss-of-income damages?”
The scandanavian system, as I understand it, is different. Hospitals contract insurance for both themselves and their patients, so when something goes wrong, both the patient and the hospital turn to the insurance company for compensation.
I think my next post will be on cap and tax, as it might be put on the back burner. Then maybe something on the town hall protests. Then something on conservatism v. liberalism. Then something on Constitutional rights. I shouldn’t promise anything though, I seem to be failing on putting up new posts
Derek, I already know that you are right and I am wrong…just take this to heart…
Let’s suppose you are sick…you are dying…you need to make a claim with your insurance agency in order to pay for the health care that you need to maintain your physical well being. You’re now 60 years old, have had cancer twice before, and this is your third claim. You knew this situation was close to inevitable (since the cancer you had rarely disappears forever) and that you have been a pinch away from being dropped by your private insurer for half a decade. Now, you went to a public university back in the day (partially funded by state and national governments :p ) and you’ve built a successful upper-middle class career and, relatively, have a lot of money saved up. But, you’re sick again. You file a claim with your private insurance agency, aka a profit seeking business. This business looks at your claim, thinks “hmm, this human being is a financial commodity that is going to cost us more money than we can make from it.” Your insurance agency drops your coverage, you lose your claim. You are forced to use all of your equity, your house, your cars, your retirement funds, everything, to hold on to your life. Your staunch republican heart is torn. The entire basis of your political philosophy has come and bit you in the ass in the worst possible way. You’re f***** our insurance agency drops your coverage, you lose your claim. .
Now let’s play another game. Rewind the story, but this time you have to college education (like most Americans) and you are struggling to get by week by week (like most Americans). You have minimum or no health coverage at all. I’m pretty sure you can see where this game is going…you were always f*****.
How can one justify associating profit with someone’s health? Simply because it is possible to do so? I think not. The Christian voice inside your heart must tug you in the opposite direction Derek. Before you begin to argue that privatized insurance is a system worth supporting OVER a socialized system, you must first justify how you can associate profit with the health of a human being. I find this impossible to do without putting an explicit price on the life of a human being.
“Your insurance agency drops your coverage, you lose your claim. ”
News flash: you don’t have insurance. Almost all insurance plans will have catastrophic illness coverage, and if you didn’t buy one with it, then you are incredibly stupid. They can’t drop you for that if you have catastrophic illness coverage.
“You are forced to use all of your equity,”
No, there is medicare/medicaid, nonprofits, and lawyers.
“You have minimum or no health coverage at all”
Minimum: you’re good.
no health coverage: there’s medicare/medicaid, nonprofits, or they can simply go to a public hospital. We already have universal healthcare.
“The Christian voice inside your heart must tug you in the opposite direction Derek.”
Jesus never promoted anything about the government FORCING people to pay a crap ton for people who we already pay for anyway. He called on us to care for the sick, not have our government force us. Where’s the love if there is no choice. Besides, you want government, the most inefficient creation ever, to run healthcare? They’d be better off dumping a few billion dollars a year into charities rather than wasting trillions over the next decade.
“you must first justify how you can associate profit with the health of a human being.”
Because without insurance companies, we’d all be screwed. Insurance is a makeshift gamble. Everyone buys in, but only few people ever use much more than they pay in. AKA when something crappy happens to you, you are still safe because the insurance company is there.
Since human health can never justify a profit, I’m assuming you think doctors shouldn’t get paid? Medicine should be free?
These doctors and scientists should simply donate it to everyone, not asking for anything in return?
You fail to realize that every single person in the US has healthcare. Not insurance, healthcare. Personally, I think that if they don’t buy insurance and they don’t have a lifelong illness (aka since birth or before 21), they should have to start fishing for nonprofits.
I will gladly help the sick, but I will do it of my own accord. Government run care would diminish the quality of care and reduce the number of people who’d have access, as shown by every state/country that has tried government run care. I suppose you’d rather have more people without care and have those who have it receive worse care? That’s real Christian, Justin.
your entire response is based on your belief that “Government run care would diminish the quality of care and reduce the number of people who’d have access”…prove it?
“prove it?”
Britain, France, Canada, Mass. ect. All have tried, all have failed. Government run healthcare leads to worse care as government can never be as efficient as the free market. Under Obamacare, you would have rationed care. The WSJ noted that even France, which has a mixed private and public healthcare system uses rations in an effort to keep costs low (by low, I mean extremely high, just not extremely insanely high). The care we receive in the U.S. under our current healthcare system is greater than anywhere in the world. How about a list?
1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.
3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.
4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.
5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.
6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom.
7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.
8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians.
9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain.
10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.
Ever wonder why people from all over the world come here for medical treatment? Often times they can receive “free” treatment in their countries but they decide to come here and shell out extra dough to receive treatment. Americans are 3X more likely to receive a prostate cancer test and 6X more likely to have a colonoscopy.
Our healthcare system is in good health, as are we. Abroad however, you have elderly citizens left to rot in nursing homes, lower cancer screening, fewer immunizations, and more expensive care.
Lest I mention the fact that the healthcare proposal is blatantly unconstitutional.
Thanks for your insight… Nice article.
“Our healthcare system is in good health, as are we. Abroad however, you have elderly citizens left to rot in nursing homes, lower cancer screening, fewer immunizations, and more expensive care.”
So you believe our system does not need to be improved? How come our system ranks behind these other countries? What I would like to know is… If you could run the system would you change it? If so, what elements? Thanks
“So you believe our system does not need to be improved? ”
I think it can be easily improved, so we should take those steps. Always move towards perfection. However, just because it isn’t perfect doesn’t necessarily mean it is bad.
“How come our system ranks behind these other countries?”
There were a number of categories that the countries were ranked on, they included: health level (25%), health distribution (25%), financial fairness (25%), and responsiveness (25%).
Health level is simply life expectancy, which may relate to healthcare, but there are certainly many other factors. Americans are obese, inactive, and far more at risk to die in accidents than citizens of other nations. So while healthcare may play a role in determining life expectancy, we cannot rely on it without first taking into considerations the many other factors that determine life expectancy. The US still ranked fairly high, but this is still an error in the overall ranking.
Financial fairness is % of household income spent on healthcare. The flaw with this grade is that the study did not take into account additional taxes used to pay for socialized healthcare in countries with a government sponsored system. Had this been taken into account, many countries would have had considerably higher costs. Note that this too doesn’t necessarily mean better or worse care. Just because someone pay 1% of their household income on healthcare doesn’t mean that healthcare is good and just because someone spends 10% of their household income on healthcare doesn’t mean their healthcare is bad.
Responsiveness is basically the only aspect of the ranking that is directly correlated to the quality of care as it is the speed of care as well as choice of doctors. The US was ranked #1 in responsiveness.
Distribution is any inequality in the previous rankings. i.e someone has quick access to care but someone else has a long wait but both live in the same country. This too doesn’t reflect the quality of care. Most people can have quick access to healthcare that is high quality while a few do not in the US, thus giving us a low ranking, compared to a country that has quick access to really terrible care all around, thus giving them a higher ranking. That or the country has slow access to crappy care, yet they still get a higher ranking.
So in a very long answer, that is why the US is ranked below other countries.
I would enact legislation to prevent lawsuits that are frivolous as they jack up the price of malpractice insurance and thus healthcare costs. Doctors have to charge a large sum when they have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in medical malpractice insurance. Same goes for the insurance of pharmaceutical companies. I would also allow insurance companies to compete across state lines as it would create more competition and lower prices. These measures would make insurance and healthcare far more affordable. The rest is up to promoting charities that provide free medical care for those who cannot afford it.
Of course, the economic measures I would take would end up increasing the effectiveness of these actions, as households would have more disposable income.
fellow citizens
Neither system is perfect , I dont understnd all the rhetoric about socialized medicine .Its here its called medicaid ,medicare and it does a wondefull job paying for us poorest citizens .and I see no problem for thoes who wish to pay for a insurance or even paying for the healthcare out of thir pocket if they can afford it . But We need a safety net for those who dont have that luxury.so not to be thrown into poverty and never again be able to get out of it .Because once your sick seldom do you recover the time lost to prosper.Were in a time where there is a big difference in wages between workers ,its not like 40 years ago where $2.50 was anaverage wage and $4.00 was a very good wage .the difference in wages now is average $10.00 and $40.00 a high wage. you can see the proportional difference is 4x bigger ,combine that with a bigger population there is no way we can continue on the same way of living as we used to.We have to have change for the good of everyone .The time to act is now because anation of unhealthy people is a terrible place to be and you cant demand great care if you dont recognize bad care.So expect change for a better nation
“and it does a wondefull job paying for us poorest citizens ”
Except it costs more and more each year, 10X what we originally thought it would cost, and it denies twice as many claims as any insurance agency. The Federal Government would be better off giving low income families a $4K tax credit to buy private insurance, not that it would work.
“But We need a safety net for those who dont have that luxury”
Right. We make healthcare cheaper by undertaking commonsense reforms like TORT reform and eliminating the barriers that prohibit insurance companies from competing over state lines. Then you can go to a charity or nonprofit for any additional care for which you cannot afford. That takes care of it.
“its not like 40 years ago where $2.50 was anaverage wage and $4.00 was a very good wage”
Medicare was created over 40 years ago.
“the proportional difference is 4x bigge”
No, by your numbers it would be 2.5X bigger. 10/4 = 2.5, not 4.
“We have to have change for the good of everyone ”
But it only benefits a small subset of the population, drawing evermore on the greater portion. This is not a change better of everyone. Medicare costs more and more each day, and eventually it will cost more than 20% of our GDP. How much is too much?
“because anation of unhealthy people is a terrible place to be and you cant demand great care if you dont recognize bad care.”
Good thing we are relatively healthy, minus six in ten of us being fat. Also, lucky thing we are rated #1 in quality of care by the WHO.