Keep the Clintons Out of my Gurney!
Why Socialized Medicine Should Make You Sick
Andrew Breza
4/10/07 | Nation
The Washington Post recently broke the story of deplorable conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center where our wounded warriors returning from fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq were receiving poor treatment. Perhaps the most sickening scandal of the Bush administration, it is also largely a scandal of the ineptitude of bureaucracy and government in general. General Accounting Office and Veteran Affairs reports show that these problems are widespread and not limited to Walter Reed. These failures underscore a much larger point: the federal government should not run healthcare systems. The more programs the government creates in this field the more bureaucratic and administrative failures there will continue to be.
All of the leading Democratic candidates for the presidency have stated that they support so-called “universal access to health care.” Spewing the statistic that there are 45 million Americans without health insurance, they advocate offering taxpayer-funded health care to fill yet another supposed failure of the free market that must be corrected by federal government takeover.
The truth, as is often the case when dealing with campaign rhetoric, is far different. To begin with, there are already government programs addressing health care, but only for the most at-risk groups. In the words of President Bush, “When it comes to health care, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled and poor children. For all other Americans, private health insurance is the best way to meet their needs.” According to the Cato Institute, over one third of uninsured Americans are already eligible for government care but choose not to pursue it. If people are not already utilizing existing government programs, the answer is not the creation of more government programs.
Pharmaceutical companies invest massive resources in research and development every year. The market demands new drugs to cure diseases. It is market forces that keep new drugs coming down the pipeline, not the government. By making health a government entity, socialized medicine risks this heritage of innovation.
In his 2007 State of the Union address, President Bush proposed issuing tax cuts to help citizens pay for healthcare: “For Americans who now purchase health insurance on their own, this proposal would mean a substantial tax savings: $4,500 for a family of four making $60,000 a year. And for the millions of other Americans who have no health insurance at all, this deduction would help put a basic private health insurance plan within their reach.” His proposal would use tax incentives, a favorite tactic among fiscal conservatives, to allow people to choose which insurance plans are right for them. It is this choice of provider that makes this plan especially appealing to the consumer.
In a January speech, Barack Obama declared victory on behalf of his party on the issue of socialized medicine: “The emergence of new and bold proposals from across the spectrum has effectively ended the debate over whether or not we should have universal health care in this country.” Really? Does anyone recall the principles of free markets being so casually dismissed by the nation as a whole? In reality, universal healthcare has been roundly rejected by the American people several times over the past few decades. Presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton famously failed in her attempts to institute her expansive healthcare reform plan, dubbed “Hillarycare,” years ago though she is convinced she will succeed this time around.
So far, John Edwards is the only Democratic candidate to admit that he plans to raise taxes to pay for this system. Of course it is natural to expect tax increases from Democrats regardless of campaign statements, but in this case they are trying to create a massive new bureaucracy that expects American citizens to pay for the consequences of other people’s health choices. There is no way that this program can possibly be run cheaply.
Even with taxes, socialized medicine programs do not have the resources to provide patients with an adequate standard of care. As a result, patients end up on waiting lists that last months for things that can be done very quickly in the United States.
England’s government run medical system, the National Health Service (NHS), covers all health care “from the cradle to the grave,” managing everything from general practitioner patients to the ambulance that takes these patients to the emergency room when their conditions worsen due to delays in care. This program is the closest to the type Democrats might pass, as a citizen can choose to be privately insured in addition to the government policy.
In 2004 the BBC reported the following average expected wait times for surgeries: “8 months for cataract surgery, 11 months for a hip replacement, 12 months for a knee replacement, 5 months to repair a slipped disc, [and] 5 months for a hernia repair.”
Waitlists are a universal feature of universal healthcare. From Canada to England and everywhere else socialized medicine has sunk its teeth, there are incredible wait times for virtually all procedures. Surgeries are not the only proceedures that suffer from inexcusable delays. Simple diagnostic testing like CT scans and MRIs often take months. As these tests become recommended for more conditions this problem will only grow worse.
The NHS made an honest effort to correct these delays, setting standards for hospital wait times. Surprisingly, some hospitals experienced significant decreases in delays. That is, until the government forced them to start delaying again. That’s right, the same agency that established the goals reversed them because the NHS simply could not afford to maintain that level of patient care under its tax-supported budget and began penalizing agencies for seeing too many patients. Now hospitals are required to delay patient care by months or risk losing funding.
Imagine your grandmother having to wait nearly a year before her government healthcare plan finally paid to replace her hip. Imagine having to endure months of worrying before having an MRI to find out if your condition is life threatening and worsening by the day or merely benign.
This bleak vision for America’s future is completely unacceptable and downright inhumane to those it purports to help. Instead of offering choices of coverage, it forces vulnerable Americans into the worst available healthcare provider: the federal government.
Andrew Breza is a sophomore majoring in human services.
All of the leading Democratic candidates for the presidency have stated that they support so-called “universal access to health care.” Spewing the statistic that there are 45 million Americans without health insurance, they advocate offering taxpayer-funded health care to fill yet another supposed failure of the free market that must be corrected by federal government takeover.
The truth, as is often the case when dealing with campaign rhetoric, is far different. To begin with, there are already government programs addressing health care, but only for the most at-risk groups. In the words of President Bush, “When it comes to health care, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled and poor children. For all other Americans, private health insurance is the best way to meet their needs.” According to the Cato Institute, over one third of uninsured Americans are already eligible for government care but choose not to pursue it. If people are not already utilizing existing government programs, the answer is not the creation of more government programs.
Pharmaceutical companies invest massive resources in research and development every year. The market demands new drugs to cure diseases. It is market forces that keep new drugs coming down the pipeline, not the government. By making health a government entity, socialized medicine risks this heritage of innovation.
In his 2007 State of the Union address, President Bush proposed issuing tax cuts to help citizens pay for healthcare: “For Americans who now purchase health insurance on their own, this proposal would mean a substantial tax savings: $4,500 for a family of four making $60,000 a year. And for the millions of other Americans who have no health insurance at all, this deduction would help put a basic private health insurance plan within their reach.” His proposal would use tax incentives, a favorite tactic among fiscal conservatives, to allow people to choose which insurance plans are right for them. It is this choice of provider that makes this plan especially appealing to the consumer.
In a January speech, Barack Obama declared victory on behalf of his party on the issue of socialized medicine: “The emergence of new and bold proposals from across the spectrum has effectively ended the debate over whether or not we should have universal health care in this country.” Really? Does anyone recall the principles of free markets being so casually dismissed by the nation as a whole? In reality, universal healthcare has been roundly rejected by the American people several times over the past few decades. Presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton famously failed in her attempts to institute her expansive healthcare reform plan, dubbed “Hillarycare,” years ago though she is convinced she will succeed this time around.
So far, John Edwards is the only Democratic candidate to admit that he plans to raise taxes to pay for this system. Of course it is natural to expect tax increases from Democrats regardless of campaign statements, but in this case they are trying to create a massive new bureaucracy that expects American citizens to pay for the consequences of other people’s health choices. There is no way that this program can possibly be run cheaply.
Even with taxes, socialized medicine programs do not have the resources to provide patients with an adequate standard of care. As a result, patients end up on waiting lists that last months for things that can be done very quickly in the United States.
England’s government run medical system, the National Health Service (NHS), covers all health care “from the cradle to the grave,” managing everything from general practitioner patients to the ambulance that takes these patients to the emergency room when their conditions worsen due to delays in care. This program is the closest to the type Democrats might pass, as a citizen can choose to be privately insured in addition to the government policy.
In 2004 the BBC reported the following average expected wait times for surgeries: “8 months for cataract surgery, 11 months for a hip replacement, 12 months for a knee replacement, 5 months to repair a slipped disc, [and] 5 months for a hernia repair.”
Waitlists are a universal feature of universal healthcare. From Canada to England and everywhere else socialized medicine has sunk its teeth, there are incredible wait times for virtually all procedures. Surgeries are not the only proceedures that suffer from inexcusable delays. Simple diagnostic testing like CT scans and MRIs often take months. As these tests become recommended for more conditions this problem will only grow worse.
The NHS made an honest effort to correct these delays, setting standards for hospital wait times. Surprisingly, some hospitals experienced significant decreases in delays. That is, until the government forced them to start delaying again. That’s right, the same agency that established the goals reversed them because the NHS simply could not afford to maintain that level of patient care under its tax-supported budget and began penalizing agencies for seeing too many patients. Now hospitals are required to delay patient care by months or risk losing funding.
Imagine your grandmother having to wait nearly a year before her government healthcare plan finally paid to replace her hip. Imagine having to endure months of worrying before having an MRI to find out if your condition is life threatening and worsening by the day or merely benign.
This bleak vision for America’s future is completely unacceptable and downright inhumane to those it purports to help. Instead of offering choices of coverage, it forces vulnerable Americans into the worst available healthcare provider: the federal government.
Andrew Breza is a sophomore majoring in human services.
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