These are exciting times for all of us given the increasing interest in healthcare during a presidential election. One key theme in the transformation of our medical system has been whether universal healthcare is something we want, something we can afford, and something we want to make happen.
When people think of universal healthcare, they often look at the rosy view – that every person should have access to healthcare. This is an ideological change from the previous view that healthcare was a privilege and a fringe benefit. For those of you who don’t know, the health insurance industry really came about for the need for companies to recruit great workers. Many of these potential workers were war veterans and needed medical care. Thus, medical “benefits” was indeed a fringe benefit that was only previously afforded by the elite or those with good jobs. Interestingly, if you think about it, every one has “access” to medical care these days. There are no barriers from anybody walking into a doctor’s office or a hospital. Whether you can pay for it is a different story. Thus when we say “access to care” we really mean “care that is paid for by someone else”!
In this day and age, many people are viewing healthcare as a right. Thus, in other words, people expect to receive medical care that is paid for by someone else; simply because you exist in this world, you have the right for healthcare. That “someone else” happens to be the government, which passes on the cost to every person in the United States via some tax somewhere.
But one of the consequences of universal care, which I view as somewhat of a socialist concept, is that all care will be the same. In other countries where universal care is in place, you do not get a “choice” to go to the doctor you think is better than the other. What you get is the right to see the doctor who you see.
We Americans are truly a spoiled lot when it comes to consumerism – the medical industry is not spared. We want to go to the best doctor possible. We want choice, and we will pay for choice. If there is a special procedure, we want it done. What we do not realize is that those choices and tiers of medicine are only availed through a profit-driven capitalist medical industry. Where do we think all of those drug and device discoveries are coming from? From the company that spent billions of dollars researching it and who sells it at a handsome profit and whose stock is listed in the public markets!
Are we ready to give up choice to establish a “standard” of care from which no patient receives anything different? I really don’t think so. I really think we love the idea of “fairness,” but when it comes to ourselves and our bodies and our health, we want the best even if it is what others cannot afford.
Related posts:
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- Health Insurance: The Greatest Flaw in Our Healthcare System
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- Consumerism in the U.S. Healthcare System: Why We All End Up Paying for the Most Expensive Treatments
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Did you see the Bunk study stating 2/3 of doctors in America want National Health Care. The doctors who did this study also conducted one in 2002 and found that the majority of doctors did not want national health care, the problem with this is that the 2 question surveys drastically differ in there 2nd question. I found this article, 60% of Physicians Surveyed Oppose Switching to a National Health Care Plan, It’s worth a read.
Fantastic post. In all the news stories I read, where it is taken as a given that Socialised Medicine is the inevitable goal for any society, that it is ‘for the best’ and a ‘human right’, I am glad to know there are some people who see this for what it is: the granting of ‘rights’ to some, at the expense of everyone else.
“Where do we think all of those drug and device discoveries are coming from? From the company that spent billions of dollars researching it and who sells it at a handsome profit and whose stock is listed in the public markets!”
EXACTLY! God damn it. I don’t see what is so hard to grasp about this concept. It’s just as a very small derivative of the whole Socialist-money paradox – that money exists because of free trade, and it becomes impossible to calculate the cost of things without a profit motive.
A tremendous post. Keep it up.
I love the smell of “libertarian” in the air. Of course government intervention increases prices eventually. I predict (you heard it here first) that the “health care bubble” must pop sooner or later. depression=sooner – stagflation=later
This is an incredible synopsis of the views (and financing) behind universal health care! Also a clear explanation of the “no free lunch” concept that we lose sight of in health care. There’s certainly a lot of waste in the drug and insurance industry, but we have no way of knowing it because we’re never faced with the real price of patient care.
We’re the leaders in R&D and like you said, a lot of our cutting-edge tests and procedures (MRI, for one) result from this. The gov’t is already paying for a large portion through Medicare (and will be in the hole soon). Adding another 47 million to the mix just doesn’t seem financially feasible.
If not through increased taxes – which I don’t believe the american public will agree to – productive change has to come from the core of what represents medicine; the r’ship between the doctor and the patient.
Did you see the Bunk study stating 2/3 of doctors in America want National Health Care. The doctors who did this study also conducted one in 2002 and found that the majority of doctors did not want national health care, the problem with this is that the 2 question surveys drastically differ in there 2nd question. I found this article, 60% of Physicians Surveyed Oppose Switching to a National Health Care Plan, It’s worth a read.
For an excellent explanation of why health care is not a right, see Leonard Peikoff’s article by that name here:
http://westandfirm.org/docs/Peikoff-01.html