Michael Moore wants socialized medicine in the United States. It would, as his film Sicko suggests, give us a system that better delivers health care to those who need it. Although Moore effectively documents some deficiencies in American health care, his message is undermined by misinformation, inconsistent rhetoric, and a disingenuous agenda. Moore's plan would result in worse, not better, health outcomes for Americans — including the poor and underserved.
As a hand surgeon who treats many traumatic injuries, Moore's portrayal of a patient who amputated his middle fingertip captured my interest. He depicted this uninsured man as required to pay $23,000 to have his finger "saved." Moore lost considerable credibility here. Most hand surgeons would never consider micro-surgically replanting this table saw injury at the finger nail base. Rather, this unfortunate injury would have been comfortably and safely treated — without reattachment of the severed bit of finger — in an office procedure room for $1,000 or less.
In Sicko, Moore consistently equated lack of insurance with inability to obtain care. In Grand Rapids, Mich., where I practice, a sign on the front door of Blodgett hospital, in English and Spanish, indicates patients will not be turned away for lack of ability to pay. This is policy across the United States.
We hear a lot about the nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance. However, approximately half of them are insured six months later with new jobs, suggesting more of a problem with our employer based health care system than with affordability.
Moore harshly criticizes the U.S. government. Yet he is arguing for a centrally controlled allocation of health care resources. Who does he want to run health care in this country? Medical resources are not unlimited. The combination of aging demographics, technological advances and unconstrained consumption within our third party payment system has led to an unsustainable trajectory of ever increasing spending. It is already clear that price controls have created strong disincentives to debt-burdened students considering careers in primary care. Yet Sicko gives market oriented solutions no consideration.
Three individuals with ailments after admirably serving in New York rescue and recovery efforts after September 11, 2001, were transparently used in Sicko to promote Moore's agenda. This manipulation was as revolting as the stories of individuals egregiously denied care by insurance companies. Transported to Cuba, the three 9-11 patients were shown to Cuban doctors who (while cameras were rolling) appeared more than happy to provide care and subsidized prescriptions. This contrasted with a California hospital denying care to a child with a severe infection and a sick, elderly woman dropped off by a taxi in front of a rescue mission while still in her hospital gown. The latter two tragic situations were portrayed as illustrative examples of our domestic medical system.
There is no question we need major improvement in U.S. health care. To use a few outrageous anecdotes to argue for a socialized solution, however, is a non-sequitur. Despite ostensibly compassionate intentions on the part of its backers, greater harm would result from centrally planned and controlled health care. Canada and the United Kingdom provide contemporary models: rationing occurs by decree and delay. Even the Canadian Supreme Court, when ruling against Canada's single-payer law prohibiting private payment for health care in 2006, stated, "access to a waiting list is not access to health care … in some cases patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care … and many patients on non-urgent waiting lists are in pain and cannot fully enjoy any real quality of life."
Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his recent encyclical Deus Caritas Est, "We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principles of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need." Moore and his allies would do well to take this exhortation to heart. We now have unsustainable consumption of medical resources, with third party responsibility for health care expenses. A socialized system would increase state dependency and diminish motivation for charity. Greater government bureaucracy would increase inefficiency and waste compared to doctor-patient "two-party" interaction. Socialized medicine violates the social justice principle of subsidiarity by interfering with the family, churches, charitable clinics, and other intermediate organizations attending to those who are most in need.
The common good would be better served with medical insurance purchased, like other insurance, outside the workplace. Tax law changes could help improve insurance portability and affordability. Insurance industry reform, including measures increasing inter-state competition, could decrease premium cost. Greater competition from patients directly paying premiums would lead to stronger demands for quality and less egregious denials of care. With improved alignment of responsibility for personal health choices and medical care consumption, scarce health care resource allocation would improve. There is significant opportunity for recovery. Market oriented reforms, with compassionate consideration for those without means, deserve far greater consideration than Sicko's deceptive solution.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:22 am
Incredible that Moore did not suspect that Castro might be using him for propaganda purposes. As if all Cubans receive that kind of healthcare.
Looking at Moore, I am reminded that subsidiarity begins with self -taking personal responsibility for one's health. I don't expect other people to give me good health - that is something that I must want for myself enough to put some serious effort into it. (Ironically, it is the government's nutrition recommendations that are most likely to be counter-productive as far as healthy eating is concerned.) Expecting the government to do anything efficiently is naivete (or ignorance) of the highest magnitude.
September 5th, 2007 at 5:45 am
What would be incredible is if Moore cared that Castro was using him for propaganda purposes. After all, that's exactly how he was using Cuba.
We already have one single-payer system in the US: Veteran's Administration hospitals. Ask some servicemen, current or former, what they think of the VA, and prepare for some anecdotes far nastier than Moore could ever have found where he was looking.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Michael Moore is a communist wannabe and an idiot. Unfortunately, if you ask the avergage American if they want the government to pay for health care, they will reply with a resounding "yes". What they fail to realize is that the government is "we the people". Universal health care will do to our taxes what government run education does. My property tax bill is currently over $7,000 per year, most of which goes to support failing public schools while my own children are home-schooled for a few hundred dollars. The lesson to be learned is this; if you want to screw something up, let the government take it over.
September 5th, 2007 at 7:04 am
Having been in hospital administration prior to my priesthood, I can say that Dr Condit's satement: "There is no question we need major improvement in U.S. health care" rings very true. The often (low/sour) morale of many (obviously, not all) healthcare workers, the depersonalization, cost, politicization, overt discrepency in care (wealthy vs everyone else), for lack of a better word profiteering, and insurance quagmire (re: both providers & patience) makes for a near crisis situation. I have little confidence in many of the players who have a hand in the game (physicians, hospitals corp' administrators, pharmaceuticals, feds, insurers…) so "resort" to prayer - individual and collective conversion….
September 5th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Dr Condit's article and most of the replys to his article make me
September 5th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Chrisjscott, what precisely do you object to?
September 5th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Peace be with You
This was an interesting article. Michael Moore is very much a charactature of a particular political world view used as entertainment, much like Rush Limbaugh. I don't take either of them too seriously. In addressing large social issues it seems we are often presented with two polar choices, either let market forces alone dictate the solution, or turn to a totally regulated system. As previous posters have pointed out, neither appears to work that well. In considering the Catholic teaching of subsidarity, the question should be, does our society believe that all people deserve access to low-cost or free health care, or not? Is it a right belonging to the human person (such as clean, plentiful and inexpensive drinking water) or is it a privlige? I'm not sure America can find a sustaining solution until we find and answer to that question.
P.S crissjscott, I guess this is knuckle-head dribble too, I'm curious as mkochan is, what is an intelligent Catholic opinion from your view?
September 5th, 2007 at 11:07 am
This article by some think-tank, published by a Catholic website, argues against health care for all. Catholics are against health care for poor people?
Would you deny health care to Jesus because he couldn't pay? "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
I hope that most Catholics disagree with this think-tank sponsored author… or else they hate the poor and want them to die.
September 5th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Moore's agenda and solution is the same solution the Bolshevics had to the injustices of the Czar. Fr. francis123 is well aware of these problems. All the Catholic hospitals out there that were doing charity work are now forced to operate in a secular, for profit environment. Healthcare is treated as a product and a commodity and of course it's not. The marketplace can only go so far with it. National healthcare works somewhat in homogenous societies which is not ours. Everything else "national" is a disaster. There's a workable solution out there and we need to pray for it. Demagogues like Moore and possibly one of the previous posters need to be out of the picture.
September 5th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Billo, where does the article argue against health care for all? Please give the specific quote where the author makes that argument.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Have any of the posters here lived under a socialized medical system? It's an eye opening experience.
We lived in Australia for over two years. Their system is a hybrid of socialized medicine + private insurance. You may choose to have the government pay for all your medical care, you may pay for private health insurance to supplement what the government will cover, or you may pay out of pocket directly for services.
I share three observations with you.
#1: I lived in a middle class community, with middle class friends, very similar to the socio-economic situation in which I live in America. I was astounded by how many families had a deceased member. My oldest daughter was in a class of 22 girls, three of whom had a deceased parent. I would hear of deceased siblings with some regularity.
#2: When the government controls health care, it controls what will be treated. For example, ADHD is not a recognized condition. I was told that the government refuses to recognize the condition because once recognized, the government would be forced to fund therapy. What would happen if a new, virulently contagious disease hit the population? Could the government refuse to recognize it?
#3: In America, we triage. The sickest patient receives treatment first, whether that's an emergency room or an organ donation list. In countries with socialized medicine, patients are seen on a first-come, first-served basis. In Australia, I saw a woman who was told that her benign brain tumor would kill her in two months and that the waiting list for surgery was two years long. She survived because she was able to pull together the $20,000 necessary to pay for the surgery herself. In Australia's hybrid system she was allowed to do that, but in a single-payer system that might not be allowed.
Many people are not aware that the system which Hillary Clinton proposed in the 1990's contained a section which PROHIBITED doctors from accepting funds directly from a patient. The penalty if they allowed a patient to pay for his own health care? Six months jail time for the doctor.
I'm all for the government helping the poorest among us with medical costs. But the thought of the government controlling and doling out ALL medical care is a frightening prospect.
The 1990's bumper sticker resounds even louder now that I've lived under socialized medicine: IF YOU THINK HEALTH CARE'S EXPENSIVE NOW, WAIT UNTIL IT'S FREE.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Michael Moore may be loose with the facts and may unfairly use individual stories to advance his concept of a socialized healthcare system but let's not forget the BIG problem- are we going to continue to write-off 46 million Americans who are unable to afford health insurance or who or not poor enough to receive Medicaid (welfare) health insurance.
- Shame on "us" if the only people who have access to care are employed (or a dependent of an employed person) whose company is gracious enough to provide health insurance
-Shame on "us" if we provide access to health care for the poorest of the poor but neglect the working poor
-Shame on "us" if prisoners receive better care than a single mom/dad who works 2-3 jobs and can't afford health insurance
-Shame on "us" if we are satified that 15% of our society (46 million) can't afford health insurance (Actually I think I should recommend investing in the "boot strap" industry so we can dispense them to the uninsured. They are going to need pull them up to join the middle class.)
-Shame on "us" for neglicting the basics of health care for the sexy procedures that fix the diseases that basic care could prevent
-Shame on "us" that a cash paying individual has to pay grossly inflated prices while health insurances companies, by and large, receive significant discounts.
Stop trashing socialized medicine and provide a market driven product for all Americans. Make the denomiator ALL Americans, provide a choice in plans, and allow private companies compete.
Some thoughts from a family doctor in Philadelphia.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Interesting discussion. Myself coming from Europe, I could never think that if falling sick me or my children wouln't receive good care, wheter able to pay or not. we have here "in the old world" problems with healthcare (lines; aging people…) but it has never been an option to say that you have to have an insurance of your own or else you will pay some 20 000e for a surgery or get along without treatment! I assume as people seem to get greedier and greedier that time will also come, due "to lack of money" (=rich people get richer and poor, poorer…) but that is not an improvement, on the contrary!
September 5th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
"Right to receive care" is like saying I have a right not to get sick. Who is the source and the guarantor of this right? Let us pray: I look to the gov't from whence comes my health. Can I get an amen?
September 5th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Before I get started, good people can disagree on the methods to achieve health care for large groups of people. Name calling isn't helpful to dialogue and skewing statistics is lying. (The author points out that one of the reasons many people are without health care is not because they are poor but because they are temporarily between jobs.) My husband and I were personally w/o healthcare during the beginning of our marriage because we did a risk analysis and determined we didn't need it. Yet we were figured in the "not insured" population. We could have afforded it but chose not to have it.
Now onto my questions…I don't have many ideas. Does anybody here think there is a difference between routine healthcare to sustain life (heart stents, apendix removal, some cancer treatments, maternity services, immunizations), heroic healthcare to sustain life (ventilators for spinal cord victims), optional healthcare to improve comfort and quality of life (Hip/knee replacements, laser eye surgery, laser brain surgery for epileptics), optional health care for personal choice procedures (reconstructive breast surgery even after breast cancer, tummy tucks).
Does anybody think about who should pay for illnesses caused by personal behavior choices? (antibiotics for smokers with serious bronchitis; lipitor for people with self induced high cholesterol, heart pills for people who still keep eating animal fat and won't lose weight or excercise.)
I think many of these questions need to be asked and answered when millions of people need to have health care. Before anybody gets mad at my potential categorizing of illnesses: that's my point. Who gets to decide what health care is? Who gets priority? What level of health care is "owed" by society to its members?
I still love Winston Churchhill's quote:
"Capitalism is the unequal distribution of wealth: Socialism is the equal distribution of poverty."
September 5th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
YOu can bet that Hillary Clinton would find a private doctor to pay somewhere in the world (as will all the rich…while we're stuck…dead)
For example, she sent Chelsea to "Friends Academy" in DC rather than to the public schools. (that's about the only thing those two ever did of which I approve. One should get the best for their kids instead of being politically correct. The problem is: only THEY get to make personal decisions like that.)
September 5th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Less perhaps a couple (obviously), an interesting and thoughtful discussion on a complex matter. Naturally, any discussion regarding "sickness & health" and the best way(s) to ensure the common good is truly being served therein needs some form of contextual setting…. Perhaps it's too broad, who knows, but I often think of the age-old wisdom of Fr Benedict Groeschel, CFR, who repeatedly says (paraphrasing), "…. when we die, just make sure we all know well that it will be MT 25:31f that will determine our fate… You cannot get around it!!" Perhaps spoken like the die-hard Capuchin he is, but I think it provides some perspective if not context…. +++
September 5th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
In the market place bad money drives out good money. So it is with healthcare, bad healthcare would drive out good healthcare. Nat'l healthcare is bad healthcare. However, the marketplace is ultimatley not the best and only determinant of the cost of healthcare. The price structure of healthcare is in someways rigged. There is an intermediary, the providers are few and the consumer has no way to find out what the real cost should be. If you're self employed you find out quickly that the cost of healthcare will be more than your mortgage. Is that what it should be? I don't know, but I do know that something's not right. Everything else in this economy is quite affordable or one can very well do without it. Not so with healthcare.
September 5th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
I do not have any suggestions for fixing the health care system in the US but I do have one thought about universal health care. Under some kind of universal health care system I could see a day when all pregnant women are required to have all the genetics tests offered now (the tests I have turned down with all four pregnancies) and, if any of the results are positive, then be required to abort the baby or not have the pregnancy/birth costs covered. I could see older people and the disabled being euthanized to keep down costs. The government will be deciding who's life is worth living. Is that what we really want?
The thought of any person dying because they can't afford treatment is horrific, especially in this rich country of ours. But we'd better be careful about how we fix this problem.
September 5th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Think back to our founding fathers. There was no health care insurance then. It is not a responsibility of the government to provide it. Therefore it is a private responsibility.
There is no virtue if the government helps the poor. Individuals practice virtue.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Very interesting reading. The article and all the comments. But what i see as the biggest threat is Michael Moore himself. He has an ability to be the "spin doctor" to distort and manipulate facts to support his agenda. I don't think Moore really wants a national health care system. This is another one of his films to attract attention to him. I would not be surprised if we don't see him running for political office n a few years. And all of Hollywood will support him.
Can anyone say Governor Moore without gagging?
September 5th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Very interesting article and comments. Just wanted to share my expierence. About 13 years ago, we had 6 children ten & under, no insurance & expecting # 7. We put money aside for the birth & used a midwife for the delivery. (best delivery expierence)(3 yrs. later with #8 & insuranced, I begged our insurance to let me go to a midwife, but they wouldn't let me, go figure) For the kids immunization I went to a clinic and received them free. When the kids were sick, it only cost about $10 per visit. Well,when our daughter,#7, was two weeks old, she came down with RS virus & was hospitalized for a week at the children hospital intesive care. We were not turned away because we didn't have any health insurance. Their concern were for my daughter & received excelent care. Since my husband was employed we didn't qualify for any assistance & the hospital worked with us. It took us 10 years to pay the bill, and we teased our daughter that she was finially ours after the ten years. So when I hear that others don't have any insurance I know how they feel, I also know that there is care for them out there.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
The notion that the USA health care system is in crisis or near-crisis is a myth intended to promote big government by those with a political agenda, such as Michael Moore, and those misguided souls that Dr. Condit describes so well, like francis123.
When all else fails, go to the facts. Pick a few reliable sources, such as the Congressional Budget Office, The Census Bureau, and even a left-wing, Liberal but highly respected source such as the Kaiser Family Foundation. Here are the facts they agree upon.
46,577,000 people living in America do not have health-care insurance. Of those 10,000,000 are not US citizens. Another 8,300,000 million make between $50,000 and $75,000 a year but elect not to have health insurance. Another 8,740,000 make more than $75,000 a year but elect not to have health insurance.
The Census Bureau says that 10,500,000 are "between jobs" and will have employer provided health care insurance within 90 to 120 days. That leaves 9,037,000 American citizens who want health care insurance but cannot afford it - a far cry from Moores claim of 50,000,000, and a far cry from francis123 "near crisis".
So what are we to believe as the number of American citizens that want health care insurance but are unable to pay for it?
The Census Bureau says some 9,000,000, the Congressional Budget Office puts the number at between 9,000,000 and 10,000,000. The very liberal Kaiser Family Foundation puts the number between 8,200,000 and 13,900,000. When Kaiser excludes children between 18 and 24 because many are in college and are carried on their parents insurance, their low number is just about the same as Census and CBO.
I understand Dr. Condit to say that the employer-based health care system should be improved to provide coverage for the 9,000,000 US citizens that want health-care coverage but are not employed and cannot afford it. Most states now do exactly that with Workemen's Compensation Insurance (whereby the insured pay into an apportioned pool for the uninsured), and it works very well. We are unable to get the left-wing, liberal, socialist politicians to support that concept because what they really want is national healtcare paid for from the general tax fund and operated by the national government - that is the taxes you pay on your Form 1040 each year.
I am searching all over the place to find a recent ruling I read by the Canadian Supreme Court saying that "Healthcare postponed is not healthcare provided", in response to the increasing complaints by Canadians about having to wait so long to get an appointment with a doctor. Maybe one of the CE readers can help me find it.
September 5th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Danny, danny, danny,… Question: Your number of uninsured that would in fact point to a "near crisis"??? It's not 50 million human beings and it's not 10 million human beings so what number do you find acceptable? What number of uninsured becomes a "near crisis." Just curious… As for Kaiser, calling them liberal as you do is being kind - kudos to you, I certainly would not be able to be as kind to label a corporation so blatantly and aggressively anti-life & anti-family as merely "liberal." I worked out in Northern California (Oakland, home base of Kaiser) at a major medical center during the onset of the DRG's for Medicare (which the health insurance industry - yes, industry - took note and began to adapt themselves) in the early 1980's. I sat in many a meeting with hospital administrators and health insurance industrialists - let me tell you, the focus was not on "patient care & comfort and their helpful & fair access to healthcare" (unless it came in the context of either parties (provider/insurer) exposure to potential lawsuits - pricy attorney's attended the meetings, too, to keep their clients exposure "manageable."). Though I was young and only had an undergrad in Accounting from Michigan State and an MBA from Cal' State, it was pretty obvious what the main emphasis was on $$$$…. In all reality, the "near crisis" started long ago - much earlier than the Kaiser numbers were drawn up, looked at, drawn up again, looked at, drawn up, spun, and then published - respected as they are…. Now, as a priest, I tangibly see - more often than I care to recount - the "fruit" of my days back in California…. Where, in fact, the health care field basically became an "industry." One example: Last month a woman who (sadly) drove herself to the hospital ER (ambulances are a bit pricy, roughly $400-$500 and not always covered; or, only partially covered) and, after waiting literally 7 hours (with courteous queries treated with contempt and irritation) she was finally told she'd have to check-in to the hospital for "observation." Even though the tests that were taken were negative, the physician wanted to cover her butt (malpractice insurance being what it is for the physicians portion alone - not mentioning the hospital's portion) and keep her there overnight (not before she waited in a hallway for about an hour before an orderly brashly wheeled her to her room). She basically slept there, then was quickly told to leave - the "due dilligence" was done and she needed to move out. The bed-occupancy ratio coupled with the potential reimbursement (est DRG) dictated: "discharge!!" The discharge took place, coldly, and with, of course, a perscription for a $45 bottle of "multi-vitamins." To think, she wasn't even one of those poor 10-50 million souls who don't have insurance. Maybe she is the fortunate one… Without trying to sound too cynical, danny, read my earlier post (7am); there is a bit of a crisis at hand, how about at least trying to be part of a thoughtful discussion on the matter. regards, fr francis +++ (MT 25 - the whole chapter).
September 5th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
I have forgotten which "ancient" philosopher, from Greece (?), said: "a democracy can only stand until its citizens realize they can vote themselves a dole from the public fund."
If my memory is correct, this was from BC, in the height of Greecian civilization. (Aristotle, maybe?)
At any rate, it sure seems to ring true.
September 5th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Plisto - I'm interested in your comments, since I've heard other Europeans (Spanish citizens) speak very highly of the health care they receive. Do you not have the problems seen in Canada, with long waits for health care? My father received immediate treatment for prostate cancer in the US, while a relative in Canada had to wait months for treatment for the same illness. Is this not a problem in Europe? How are the taxes in your country compared to the taxes here? Can someone pay directly for care if they are not happy with the care provided by the government system? I'm interested because it sounds as though it works better in European countries than in Canada.
September 5th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Fr. francis123, I'm glad you gave danny penance. He obviously never dealt with the state Workman's Comp. people, they are fleecing the small business person. They take in and don't pay. One of the reasons why contractors are using illegals. Sure we have pretty good employer funded plans but that train will soon run out of track. Here's the scenario: The hospital is for profit, it wants the most money for the least healthcare. I or the employer pay the insurer and we want the most healthcare for the least $. Market forces seemingly at work, but hold on, the insurer, also for profit, who doesn't care about me or the hospital is being paid to negotiate a fair deal. Then there are state regulations and guidelines. Good people can make bad systems work but the system is majorly flawed. The gov't on the other hand will become Dr. Kavorkian. I say fix what we have because it's doable.
September 5th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
fjindra: It was a Scottish philosopher in the 1700's - can't remember his name either. It rings true for me as well.
Franny, franny, franny. Understanding the size of the problem is helpful (actually essential) in designing a solution to the problem. You will kill a lot more than the flea with a shotgun, and best not attack that elephant with a fly-swatter. The 9 to 10 million uninsured Americans described in my previous post is one measure of the size of the problem, and has no meaning as to what is or is not acceptable in terms of suffering. When was suffering in any amount ever acceptable?
It does have meaning in terms of the kinds and amounts of private (not public) resources that we have available to remedy the problem - and we have a bunch. When we understand that we are talking about providing adequate health-care to less than 3% of our total population that has slipped through the cracks of our employer-based health care system, we can ask ourselves - What do we have in our system that can be used to remedy that? - and remedy it we must. Our economic system that advocates private ownership of all income-producing wealth has produced the worlds one and only $13 trillion economy - and counting, and the same private capital, employer-based health care system can solve this problem - without going socialist. Don't knock profit as you seem to do. Our private capital system has made us the wealthiest and most productive society ever. It can be used to solve the health care problem, which can be solved at the federal level, or at the state level. I personally prefer the state level.
I used the example of state provided Workers Compensation Insurance as the general concept. WCI is to compensate workers unable to work due to job-related injury, much less complicated than health care. Nevertheless, all employers with a certain number of employees must provide legislated levels of Workers Comp purchased from private insurance companies. All employers with less than the certain number of employees must contribute a fixed amount for each employee into a state-wide pool, paid to the same private insurance companies and managed by the same private insurance companies. No public funding. No government management. This has been going on for at least the last 40 years in all states, and it works just fine. This kind of thing could be adapted.
The anecdotal horror-stories you describe do little to solve the problem. I am sure your story is true, and I have no doubt there are many, many others just as horrible and just as true. The solutions through private investment are at hand - the problem is to get past the politics that want to use the problem to promote a much larger end-game - to Promote Big Government.
September 6th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Goral: I spent many years as an employer battling with Workers Comp. It is unfair to say that Workers Comp people are fleecing anyone because they take money in but don't pay out. All laws governing WCI are passed by the state legislature and are enforceable in any state court. All decisions by WCI can be appealed to any state court and can be appealed all the way up to the State Supreme Court. Reversals of WCI decisions by state appeal courts are common in my state - have been for years. What you suggest would involve some sort of conspiracy among a lot of judges, a lot of lawyers, and a lot of politicians - never happened. Your comment was a little cavalier.
I am sure your comments about fleecing people are heard far more with automobile insurance payouts - and are probably justified to the same degree.
"The hospital is for profit. It want's the most money for the least health care". You really don't believe that. What do you and franny123 have against profit? Permit me to suggest a different hospital mission statement. "The hospital wants to offer the community it serves the best possible product at the lowest possible cost so as to provide the best return to its risk-taking investors." No company, profit or non-profit, offering "the least" product, can expect to be around for very long.
September 6th, 2007 at 12:38 am
danni, danni, danni,… I'm only critiquing, more or less, unfettered capitalism - in a particular "industry" at that; not knocking "profit" as you seem to so fear. My "fear" is that often the only small "fetter" to the blind, wounded, unfettered capitalist is the obviously imperfect intervention of "big brother" - yes, even with all its ideologs, politicos, and agendas…. Some, not necessarily you, tend to get awfully defensive when one hints at the less than pristine most ambitious "goals" of the self-serving industrialist…. Too often the only rebuttal in the legitimate argument is the worn-out innuendos suggesting that all government is "big and bad"; and, to critique the capitalist automatically puts one in the "misguided," socialist, marxist, moore, castro, et al… camp. Not so. Not so. I'd say one can critique capitalism and actually be squarely in the JPII camp… And, from what I've heard, maybe even in line with some portions of B16's next encyclical. Who can tell?? Anyway, indeed, as you say so very well, "remedy it ("the crisis"??) we must."
September 6th, 2007 at 5:35 am
SharG: I don't know about canada, never been there or in the USA. What I do know, from my experience, is that at least until nowadays this government-based system works pretty well. Yes, sometimes with illnesses not threating your life, you have to wait a few months. However, if able to pay, you can go to a private clinic. Children and mothers-to-be get treated immediately, if the condition requires (as in my case, I went to hospital the same day even though the symptoms were not really bad). Now for example my elder daughter's friend appears to have epilepsia. The family is really poor. She gets all the same care, as would rich people's children, and the mother doesn't have to be in debt for the rest of her life!
September 6th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Danny, profits are fine by me. I need them to stay in business. The market forces supposedly are working fine in the gas industry also. Well, the price differentiation has not been more than 2% all over town for years. I have a choice to drive around and save 2 cents on a gallon. In healthcare I can't even do that. Business school models of how the system works are impressive but in the real world there are big problems which market forces tend to adjust and repair in the long run. But as the economist John Maynard Keyenes said: "In the long run we're all dead". In the healthcare "industry" that prospect may be realized sooner. I will reitterate that Hillary's North Korean Village is not the solution.
September 6th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
For any single person in need of care who cannot afford it, there is a crisis. But it is a crisis for that person, not for the entire society. Perhaps his family should condsider it a crisis and help him, perhaps his neighbors, perhaps if he goes to his community hospital and simply asks for care he will get it.
One of the great definitional problems I see here is that "uninsured" is made to equal "without access to care." Nothing could be further from the truth.
O the other hand, if many people are going without any medical care — that could indeed be a crisis for the society, but no one has demonstrated that this is the case.
September 7th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
francis123. I understand, and to some degree share your concerns. I am not so much afraid of big brother as I am convinced that taxation of income above the 40% level stagnates economic growth and eventually results in a significant lowering of the GDP. Every country that provides national health care from the public fund has tax rates above 55%, and some are as high as 70%. There is a very consistent relationship over the past ten years between tax rates and GNP growth. We are fortunate in having that data from the various EU countries and we should pay attention to it.
There are only two economic "ideas": Capitalism to the right, and Communism to the left. Every other economic system in the world is a compromise along the horizontal bar between those two ideas, and each such system is normally described as some form or degree of socialism. The USA is capitalistic only in the sense that it is more to the right on that horizontal bar than any other major economic system. Which means that the USA has compromised less than the others the idea of private captial (private ownership of income producing and non-income producing wealth). The USA, and all of the countries in the EU, are models of the Keynesian philosphy (the government permits private ownership of wealth, but confiscates (taxes) and redistributes the income from such wealth to the benefit of the common good). To the degree that countries confiscate that income, they are said to be more or less "socialist".
According to the OMB, the USA now taxes all forms of income at about 32% of a $13 trillion economy and a GDP growth rate of 3.6%. With the exception of Ireland and Denmark, EU countries providing national health care all tax above 55% and each has had an average GDP growth of less than 2% per year over the past seven years. Countries like France and Germany have had years where the economy came close to deflating and the GNP growth was close to zero.
It is no small development, swept under the rug by the national health care proponents, that France is now threatening to pull out of the EU Central Bank unless that Bank grants France extraordinary control over the EU currency (the Euro). Germany is in slightly better shape, but far from healthy. High tax rates - caused partially by the costs of national health care - have been killing their economies.
Nothing is for nothing, and the cost of providing adequate health care for 10 million American citizens must be paid somehow by someone - and it will come out of that $13 trillion one way or another. I have read economists (a lot smarter than me) that say that if the cost is legislated by the state or federal government to be borne through our employer based health care system (similar to Workmans Comp) it could still have a chilling impact on GDP growth. Maybe so. Nevertheless, I would still feel more comfortable allowing private capital to adjust to that burden than having the federal government adjust to it. The politicans would have the same never-ending solution. Raise Taxes.