The prevalent idea of the omnipotent power of the free market has the majority of Americans willing to accept the system of healthcare available today. However, the implications of the lack of Universal Health care are wide and far reaching.
Due to the lack of Universal Health Care in the States, many people are known to die from diseases that could have been treated if diagnosed early on. Those who are most likely to benefit from Universal Health Care are also the least likely to be informed on this subject, even though in recent years many programs and articles have been published on the topic.
For one, America’s state educational system has not fostered a life-long desire for learning in most citizens. Programs of entertainment are much more preferable than serious topic programs. This is why Clinton, Obama and McCain have all been guests on entertainment programs such as Saturday Night Live. Their campaigns are based on thorough analysis of popular American behavior, and they have all apparently concluded that popular American behavior includes such programs.
Universal Health Care not only helps improve health care for the entire population, it gets rid of a lot of red tape that make hospital visits long and torturous. Surgery in Taiwan, for example, rarely has long waiting lists up to a month. MRI examinations are done the same day the doctor requests it.
Universal Health Care also makes the collection of health data throughout a population more accurate because both rich businessmen and underpaid farmers can go to the hospital for cheap, regular check-ups for liver disease (that is prevalent among Asians) and other maladies. So when a professor mentioned that Spinal muscular atrophy is even more prevalent among rich families in the States, I could not help but wonder whether the prevalence was truly due to genetic concentration or perhaps the greater population was not diagnosed? Since the symptoms of SMA are pretty distinctive, this may be a farfetched theory. However, there are many diseases for which symptoms are not as distinctive. Universal Health Care allows all citizens in the program to see a doctor as frequently as they choose. Though this increases the workload of doctors, it also increases their patients and the number and variety of cases that become experience in diagnosing patients. On one hand, doctors in Taiwan can rarely both do research and practice because they have too many patients to deal with. However, on the other hand, doctors in Taiwan have great hands on practice and sharply honed diagnosis skills due to the large amount of patients they face throughout their career.
Update:
I can see why Universal Health Care might be more difficult to implement in present day United States.
1. Because the government will be the insurance company, it is expected that there will be tighter regulations on profit in the drug industry (unless members in the government want the UHC to fail).
2. The insurance industry will lose a large piece of the pie.
So we have two major industries, known to contribute heavily to political parties, that are unlikely to support this policy.
3. Hospitals will have to reform their system entirely to deal with a higher influx of patients. It is likely that hospitals will have to speed up their process of admittance and shorten the time patients have in consultation. The first will be easy to do since a government system will create only one administration to submit the bills to. This will bring down administrative costs. The second has not been known to lower the quality of Taiwan's health care.
4. Doctors will likely have to work full time instead of doing both practice and research.
So it won't be easy on Hospital Administration and Doctors to adjust in the short term.
Note that I'm writing this article entirely from the perspective of Taiwan's Universal Health Care. I cannot speak for other (such as Greece's) means of implementing this policy, as I am unfamiliar with their policy and effects on society.
Knowing that most of the people reading this article have probably never visited a clinic in Taiwan, I'll give a brief narrative of a recent visit there:
I had a deep scratch on my knee due to a fall on the road. At first I just applied our average first aid kit disinfectant and bandaid to cover it up, but two days later it was very warm, red, and oozing yellow liquid. I casually mentioned this to my mom and she told me to go see a doctor. She gave me 100 NT (about 3 US dollars) and told me to visit the clinic near my school.
I went to the clinic after class and gave the receptionist my smart card (every Taiwanese citizen enrolled in Universal Health Insurance has this) and 100 NT, she told me to wait until my name was called.
I waited 15 minutes and flipped through a magazine they had there. Just as I was honing in on a juicy cosmopolitan article on how to flirt (a skill which I seriously lack) my name was called. I went into the doctor's office. He said what seems to be the problem. I showed him my red, oozing knee. He prodded it, asked how it happened, told me it was infected, gave me a tetanus shot after informing me that I had to pay 50 NT for it (the government would pay for the rest), cleaned my wound and applied a layer of artificial skin so it would heal pretty and also suck up the ooze, told me that I had to change the dressing whenever the artificial skin turned white (meaning it had its fill of the the ooze), told me that he'd prescribed antibiotics, and sent me out. I went to the reception desk and paid another 50 NT (my dinner money!!!!! No dinner that day!), got my antibiotics (one after each meal for four days), got my smart card, and left.
This is just a minor wound. I do not have any recent big cases to mention. Sorry. But I'd like to say that if it cost a lot of money to see the doctor, it would be unlikely that I would go to the doctor just for a warm red oozing knee, I'd probably wait until the redness spread, which is never a good idea. But I didn't realize that until I watched Grey's Anatomy recently.
References:
1.Taiwan Takes Fast Track to Universal Health Care (An overview of Taiwan's UHC)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89651916
2.Does Universal Health Insurance make Health Care Unaffordable? Lessons from Taiwan (In depth essay on the economical and public impacts of the policy)
http://www.nhi.gov.tw/webdata/AttachFiles/Attach_8819_1_77-88.pdf
3.A 10-Year Experience with Universal Health Insurance in Taiwan: Measuring Changes in Health and Health Disparity
(Short on the impact UHI has on health gap)
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/148/4/258
Very well written. I have one question for now. How do you figure that Universal Health Care will allow all citizens in the program to see a doctor as frequently as they choose? I am pretty sure, although I base this on nothing written, that the UHC system will be much like what our current health insurers offer except that it will be for everyone and not just those whom can afford it.
Oh I guess I have another one. Why should my tax dollars taken from my hard earned pay check and from a job that I struggled to achieve pay for some less eager person's medical problem? I do not mean to seem rude about this but the other day I was noticing that the number of unemployment closely matches those without medical insurance.
I totally agree that our current system is in dire need of reform, I am just not sure that Universal Healthcare is the answer.
~T
A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins. ~Benjamin Franklin
It already is. You're just paying for the problem when it costs thousands of dollars, as opposed to when it only costs maybe a few hundred.
~C
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I don't agree with your analysis of the benefits of universal healthcare, primarily because I have personal examples contrary to your own. In Greece, which employs socialized medicine, patients cannot simply walk into a doctor's office for their prescription, a physical, or just a checkup when they have a minor cold. They need their government-issued medical ledgers, and are only allotted a certain number of doctor's visits a year. Obviously, this is a huge impediment to receiving speedy and effective care, and also represents the government overstepping its bounds and placing unnecessary restrictions over citizens' lives.
Additionally, Greeks pay much higher income and sales taxes than Americans, partially to fund their health care system. These extra taxes amount to thousands of dollars a year. For the vast majority of people, the true market value of their doctor's visits will be worth far less. That is not an effective, or fair, trade-off.
Universal health care would only increase bureaucratic barriers and "red tape" in medicine. During the 1970s, Congress voted to more closely regulate the health care industry. The result? The HMO, which has turned into the modern American health care system disaster. Now, for reasons beyond me, lawmakers are advocating increasing governmental regulation, plunging us deeper into the problem, when they should be rectifying their mistake and repealing the HMO.
Universal health care, especially in a nation of 300 million people, looks pretty on paper, but would not be able to stand up to the reality of the situation.
Strangely, Taiwan's UHC works remarkably well. I'm not familiar with Greece's system, so I must say from what you've said it sounds like a failed system. Taiwan's Universal Health Insurance has decreased the red tape, has no limits on the amount of hospital visits you make (though if you go for like 50 times a month, which is ridiculous, the government will pay you a visit), and for many people, it's well worth the money, even though the government runs the system at a deficit.
According to the reports I've added, UHC in Taiwan has not significantly increased medical spending but significantly decreased the health gap between rich and poor. Pretty on paper? I think not.
The 300 million people, of course, was referring to the United States, which has a more (medically) diverse and much larger population than Taiwan. Any attempt by this government to regulate the doctor's visits and medical bills of 300 million people would require a massive new bureaucracy, and bureaucracy equals red tape. For the 22 million citizens of Taiwan, government sponsored health care is neither as large nor difficult an undertaking, which would probably explain why it is effective there.
Basically, for a country as large as the US, universal healthcare is a logistical nightmare- impossible to implement efficiently.
Why Greece's system is so ineffective I cannot say, especially since I don't know any specific details about how it works.
23 million as of July 23rd this year. :)
Don't forget America has an advantage - the States system. Is it so impossible to implement the system through the States? That way, States can also do minor adjustments according to their health demographic. Very flexible. People who travel out of their own States will simply abide by the other state's UHI policies. This has potential. Again. Don't dismiss the possibility out of hand. If Taiwan can do it, why can't America?
I have serious doubts that our government can pull it off. It may be done beautifully in some nations and gastly in others. As far as America goes, it is hard for anyone in the government to take responsiblity for an action because of our system of checks and balances and the chances that Universal Health Care would go horribly wrong in the hands of our government are extremely high. As someone else said, I don't think it is the answer. An answer with less government involvement would be better, but I haven't researched the topic enough to suggest anything specific.
Try researching more on the topic and see if it's possible, don't reject it directly. Policy matters, so if it fails for some countries, try to see the difference in policies adopted by these countries and the policies adopted by countries who've succeeded.
god IS A MYTH as OLD as MAN
Health care should be a universal right for all people regardless of wealth!
Crying because one of your so called hard earned dollars might ease the pain and suffering of one less fortunate is insensitive to the extreme!
Maybe the states should spend a couple billion less on bombs and a couple more on health care!
When all the taxes an average Canadian citizen pays (and that includes health premium taxes) are taken into account, the dollar amount may surpass 50% of that citizen's income. Universal health care can be a dangerous trade off- do you choose poverty or illness? Additionally, most citizens will not require medical treatment that is worth anything near what they pay in extra taxes.
There needs to be a balance between taxation and government regulation of the health (or health insurance) industry.
And yes, the US should spend a couple billion dollars less on its military.
Taxes have not significantly increased due to the UHI policy. In fact, even if we were to account for the deficit in the UHI policy in Taiwan, the increase would not even reach 5% of our income.
Besides, our government's policy is that those who have more income pay more, and vice versa. The disabled and those living in remote areas with little access to medical care are exempt from paying.
It's not a question of poverty or illness. It's more a question of should illness = poverty?
god IS a MYTH as OLDas MAN
Have you ever been to the states? Have you ever had the need to visit a hospital in the states?
A short visit to the emergency ward can cost from 3000$ to .....well the skies the limit!
Long term care? Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Long and short of it is: Canadians dont pay anywhere near that for a year of premiums!
Yes, Canada is heavily taxed but its not due to our universal health care! It comes from being the second largest country on earth with the lowest population per area in the world! 32-35 million people is all we have and those taxes provide roads, health care, schooling and much much more.
If you are replying to a specific comment, it would help if you hit the reply link at the bottom of the post. It helps everyone understand who you are replying to. Thank you :)
~C
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