Postbulletin.com: If you want great care, don't put government in charge - Wed, Aug 8, 2007

Postbulletin.com: If you want great care, don't put government in charge - Wed, Aug 8, 2007


An op-ed from Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, which is funded in part by the pharmaceutical industry and medical industry, http://www.galen.org/.


Let's take this apart line-by-line:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- No one denies that America's health sector faces problems. Costs continue to rise, and 45 million people lack insurance. Even worse, many politicians think they've discovered the cure in a single-payer system.
But that remedy would be worse than the disease. The government-dominated health systems of Europe and Canada are struggling with serious cost pressures, inefficient bureaucracies and unmet demands for more advanced medical care.


And of course, we have none of that here. I beleive her first sentence is about cost-pressures and unmet demands for care here in the US. She forgets by the time she got to the end of her thought, I guess. Perhaps she was trying to parse "advanced" medical care. If you want basic medical care and can't afford it, that's not our problem. And if she would like to get into a contest regarding inefficient bureaucracies and hold up private health insurance as the better system, she is truly clueless. The ignorance boggles the mind.

For the privilege of their supposedly "free" care, other countries pay much higher taxes. In 2005, taxes consumed 41 percent of GDP in Canada, 42 percent in Britain, and 51 percent in France, compared to 32 percent in the United States.


Yes, the $10-15K or so it costs to insure a family is sooo much better than higher taxes. Why do these people always ignore the cost of health insurance to employers, employees, the self-employed, the un-insured, the under-insured, etc.? Do they realize that cost to individuals becomes subsumed into taxes or some other finance mechanism? I pay less for insurance (or my employer can pay me more salary), and I pay some higher tax rate. I can live with this. And, depending upon your income, 10-20% higher taxes is a great bargain compared to $10K or more for insurance.

Single-payer systems invariably involve rationing. What good is free care if the government denies access to it?


Yes, clearly much better to have private insurers or economic circumstances ration it.
What good is the most advanced high tech medical care in the world if you can't get it?


About 1 million people in the U.K. are on waiting lists for hospital care, including surgeries. And 200,000 more are waiting just to get on the waiting list.
Cancer patients in Britain have resorted to waging public relations campaigns because their government won't pay for new medications for breast and kidney cancer.


Our waiting lists are nicely trimmed by leaving 1/6 of the population out of eligibility to even get into the queue. And if there were alarming statistics indicating a significant differnce in mortality in our favor in more than a few tiny niches, this might actually matter!! And if you can't afford any medication at all beyond the $4 Wal-mart list, tough break, loser!

In Canada, the situation is no better. Long waiting lines lead to restricted access to care. There were 45 inpatient surgical procedures per 1,000 Canadians in 2003, compared to 88 in the United States. Canadians received only one-third as many MRI exams and half as many CT scans.


Again, if we could point to better outcomes, and if we didn't ration so heavily by economics, this might be important. It is a minor concern, and if we were somehow limited in our choice of single-payer to either the Canadian system or nothing, it would only be slightly greater than a minor concern.

Meanwhile, patients in Sweden have been sent to veterinarians for diagnostic tests so the government could reduce waiting lists.


Same.


Proponents of a single-payer system argue that the United States would be different -- that we could get all the money we need to finance universal health insurance by eliminating profit in the private health sector.
But that's like trying to cure a disease with arsenic. Socializing our health-care system would mean that one-sixth of our economy would operate under different economic rules, with the government setting prices, allocating resources and deciding what medical care would be available to whom and when.


Seems to work everywhere else, apart from some issues that we should address as we move forward. But, as with all these pieces, invoking the socialism bogeyman is de rigeur. Because we all know how awful Medicare turned out. Those poor elderly bastards!

There is a better way.
We should embrace competition, not stifle it. We should reward innovators, risk-takers and entrepreneurs for providing faster, better, more affordable health care. And we should recognize that progress depends upon innovation and profit. The U.S. market already is pointing the way by responding to consumer demands for more convenient, more affordable health services.



Yes, this has worked out so well, hasn't it?


Health plans increasingly are offering programs to help patients better manage chronic diseases like diabetes and heart problems that account for roughly 75 percent to 80 percent of our medical payments. The result: dramatic gains in lowering costs and improving healthy outcomes.
Small clinics are springing up in retail stores around the country, providing customers with easy access to nurses who treat common ailments like ear infections and poison ivy. These clinics cost less than a visit to the doctor or emergency room.


And yet, we still lag behind those poor suckers in almost every other country in the western world. They just don't appreciate the sublime beauty of our system.

Competition is leading to more affordable prescription drugs.

And the new Medicare drug benefit shows how competition can lower costs and provide better benefits.
When the Part D program started in 2003, Congress estimated the drug benefit would cost beneficiaries an average of $37 a month. But because private drug plans compete to deliver the Medicare benefit, prices have been far lower than predicted. The average monthly cost of the standard benefit is just $22.


Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Coming in below cost is unprecedented for a government program -


and for non-government programs as well [DUH!]


- and it shows the government can lower prices by encouraging competition. It's virtually the opposite of a single-payer system, in which governments shut out the private sector.
Rather than regressing to the failing systems of Europe -


Uh, they're only "failing" directly depending upon the degree of underfunding. And, oh, yeah, they're not failing: they're doing bette than we are!!!


- with waiting lines and rationing -- we must develop our own unique solution. Ultimately, that means embracing the truly American qualities of innovation and competition.

How embarrassing for her. But I'm sure she's paid well for it.

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