The wonders of socialized medicine

[Alondro]

Ladies and gentlemen (and Charline)...

I present a picture of the inevitable results of a totally socialized medical system.

DOS attack?

As the US has followed Japan's example so far as how to trigger an economic collapse, I suspect we'll also manage to mutilate our medical system in a likewise manner.

[Lysander]

I once heard that medical treatment was administered to those in need of treatment most first, like someone in an emergency situation. I guess that doesn't really apply anymore.   

[Suwako]

Well, It still applies in my country and I am thankful for that, such things should never happen. I think the hospitals in most countries would not have dared doing this because the government would just swing it's bat at everyone who is responsible for the incident. I hope that the people who caused this really get what they have coming.

Though, my country has it's problems I can at least say that our government is too scary for hospitals to even refuse a patient so easily, even with the economic crisis. >.>

[Brunhidden]

arguably the best way to combat situations like this is to let the media sharks tear into the issue- the hospitals will do everything in their power to accommodate everyone for fear that the old lady who died on their doorstep will be on the news

however there are two downsides, tyranny of the media itself exerting its influence, and hospitals trying to quietly dispose of botch jobs

[Cvstos]

From what I can gather from the post, Alondro is trying to imply:

-   That this is typical of socialized medicine. There are two fallacies here, one is argument by selective observation, and that is used in an argument by generalization. He's cherry-picking a particularly bad example to paint socialized medicine with a broad brush. I can do this too, and imply the opposite that Alondro did.
     ---   When my French professor went to France and broke her leg, she was treated well and treated quickly despite being a non-citizen. Her insurance was never billed, and her total cost was $80. Does this mean France has a perfect socialized medicine system? No, it has its problems too.  At the very least it's running deep in the red.

-   That socialized medicine is the cause of this incident. This is a casual reductionism fallacy. Is socialized medicine really the cause here? There's more to the situation than meets the eye!
     ---   Japan has a very old population. There aren't many children being born per couple and there are a lot of senior citizens. Since the elderly typically require more medical care, the Japanese medical system is being strained by a comparatively large portion of the populace needing care more frequently. I do not know if poor pay is a contributing factor (because I don't know how well Japanese doctors get paid), and maybe their specific socialized system is a contributing factor, but the age problem alone would, at the very least, contribute greatly to the condition of the country's medical system.

-   That the United States would be just like this if we switched to socialized medicine. This is one part argument by generalization, one part non-sequitur.  It paints all socialized medicine with a broad brush as before, and assumes from that what a socialized system in the US would be.
    ---   The truth is that not all socialized medicine systems are the same. Some have waiting lists, some do not, some cover everything, some cover a portion, there's a lot of variation out there! No one system is perfect, and each country has their own specific socio-economic and cultural issues that tag along and create different circumstances.

[Brunhidden]

the obvious solutions include ranking the priority of care- obviously someone who was in a traffic accident would be high on the list.

from the ranking system you draw lines- accidents and necessary care for those completely unable to pay would be free. imminent care situations that are needed but not urgent would be very cheap, and lets throw baby delivery in here too to be nice. treatments of irritations and non critical pains such as chiropractic, arthritis medications, lesser depression, and so fourth would be at cost. anything largely unnecessary such as laser eye surgery or cosmetic would be vastly overpriced to lessen the financial blow to some of the easier medical services.

from here you create a new class of doctor, instead of a highly trained and highly paid professional you select much of the easier fields of treatment and have skilled people who have trained for that specific field- like a doctor who only deals in broken bones, has taken perhaps a two year education that while extensive only prepares him for that field. you are left with a multi level medical facility where there are still doctors and surgeons for severe care, diagnosis, and versatility, but you also have lesser doctors who mop up a bulk of the work thus easing pressure off the full doctors without raising costs too much, and of course nurses to keep things running and nurses aides to manhandle patients into beds.

the end result is hard to define- in a country like japan or the USA when the baby boomers retire where you have high levels of elderly it may not drive costs down much but it will certainty provide more efficient care without costing too much more. especially if you can cheaply recruit a corps to deal specifically with joint pains, bowel problems, and hardened arteries. in countries with a more dynamic and younger population such a setup may drastically lower costs as fewer long term care specialists are needed and a larger percentage of the treatments are patch and go for accidents, violence, and work related issues.





setups like this bring to light misconceptions that people often have- confusing socialistic setups with communism, and from there confusing communism with either china or the soviet union.... neither of which were actually communist after the first couple years.

example:
socialism- systems such as food stamps to provide food for free or cheap to those who would otherwise be unable to feed their families

communism- communal farms owned by the state which automatically distribute food equally amongst all citizens

soviet style dictatorship- hello dear peasant, er, i mean comrade. the state has declared it shall acquisition your produce without benefit of providing you compensation. keep up the good work for the motherland and enjoy a fine meal of our national dish dirt soup before returning to work to meet your monthly quota

chinese style capitalistic dictatorship- we own 51% of everything, we don't need to give you a reason for what we do, but will lie to you anyways and arrest anyone not dumb enough to be fooled as a political prisoner. oh yeah, we your friendly government have also sanctioned the building of chemical plants on the river you get drinking water from and it would harm our profits to actually check to see if they dump their waste or meet anything even remotely resembling safety chriteria, reporting said unofficial findings will also end in arrest as a political prisoner. oh, one last thing, the health department says the air today is potentially lethal, so try not to breath so much, have a nice day


it is fully possible to have a socialistic or communist style system setup to provide for the people, the biggest downfall is they're almost always run by the greediest dictators in the known world because the kind of change needed to say 'hey, lets make all the food/fuel/utilities/health care free' can only be done by a man with a gun to your head or about two thousand members of Parliament bickering and passing laws for seventy five years to finally cajole the populace to follow along despite it costing the upper class a portion of their bloodmoney.

[Valynth]

The problem with socialized/communized stuffs:  define equal to the point at which all in the population agree that it is such.

That, however, only exists where an "equal" is artificially enforced on the populace by the government.  Typically, this results either making everyone equally poor (utilizing despotism and/or propaganda) or making everyone equally rich (rampant spending resulting in hyperinflation and/or massive debt that will take generations to pay off, but grows faster than the ability to pay it with each generation).  The failure to do either, however, results in severe sarcity of the item/service.

The problem I have with socialized medicine, is that it is FAR from an equal coverage.  The rich still get better stuff, and the poor still get relatively little, but the places that have it either fall into the above, or don't have enough of a populace-to-doctor disporportion for people to start abusing the system while using herd cover to avoid notice and ussually higher bills.

[Yugo]

He didn't die because the man couldn't pay or because the system is socialized, so before you make assumptions and get up on your soapbox about how terrible socializing medicine is, think about something else.

In a medical emergency, or when rationing out E.R. rooms (because you can't magically create a new room full of equipment and highly trained medical staff at need), a hospital or group of paramedics will use a system called triage. This is what Brunhidden is getting at. In triage, you prioritize care based on three or four categories, depending on the country or system. For example:

The deceased.
Those requiring rapid transport to a hospital. (Collapsed lung, heart attack, etc.)
Those with minor injuries whose transport/care can be delayed. (Minor lacerations, child with broken arm, and so on)
Those deemed as beyond hope. (Multiple trauma)

This man would've been in the rapid transport category. Could clearly be saved, but only in the case of immediate care. The only reason he should be rejected is if there are enough other people in the same category whose care could not be delayed. Considering the amount of elderly in Japan, this is quite possible.

[Alondro]

Socialized medicine is propped up by those who claim it will give superior care to everyone.  The truth, though, is that the care is quite expensive due to beauraucracy and ends up being less efficient and less thorough than private medical insurance-based systems. 

The Canadian Experience

By the way, who in the US wants to pay more taxes for universal health care?  Those who prop us the French system fail to mention that the tax to pay for it takes an additional 7.5% of each worker's income (The total tax burden is roughly 43% of GDP; the USA is currently at about 27%).

The US government is too far in debt now to even think of handling it.  After all, the bailout package is going to add almost another trillion dollars to the debt.  We'll already be close to the breaking throught new debt ceiling that was set after the first bailout!

Every penny of the cost will have to come from new taxes or higher existing taxes.

Plus, take into account the mass retirement coming soon and the disproportionate numbers of Baby Boomer elderly within a decade.  Social Security is already bankrupt.  Who will pay for that too?

The tax burden will be overwhelming.

And finally, think about how the government does business.  Do you actually trust the US government to lower the cost of anything?  Everything they do costs far more than it should thanks to cronies all with their hands in the pockets.  Just look what they've done to Medicare.  A US national health system would be the biggest pot in the history of the country, and every conniving leech in government will have their hands deep in it.  As they always do, they'll find a way to milk it for their personal gain while the average worker ends up with less.

Socializing any more than we already are will be a disaster. 

Stay tuned for my next topic:  How the Card Check Rule will turn the US of A into the USSR of A.   

[Tezkat]

Socialized medicine is propped up by those who claim it will give superior care to everyone.  The truth, though, is that the care is quite expensive due to beauraucracy and ends up being less efficient and less thorough than private medical insurance-based systems. 

The Canadian Experience

Heh... way to pick an article that's several decades out of date to support your argument. There's currently a mix of public and private health insurers and providers in Canada. Probably at the time the article was written, too--which the author conveniently chose to ignore. Also... Quebec? Really? The province that considers itself a sovereign nation and doesn't even use the same legal system as the rest of the country must be a perfect representative sample...


Let me tell you about my Canadian experience...

There are three private clinics within a few blocks of where I live. All accept my government health insurance card for essential services. I have never waited more than an hour or so to see a physician as a walk-in at any of them.

I don't go to the emergency room for problems that aren't serious. For problems that are serious, they do see you quickly. For instance, some years back I showed up in the emergency room with a nasty stomach flu and severe dehydration. Then I started throwing up in the waiting room. And was promptly whisked off for evaluation. It's called triage--puking your guts out in front of the nurses is considered more serious than sniffles, so you move to the front of the queue unless the guy ahead of you is bleeding all over the place.

My mom's internist gave her his home phone number. She occasionally calls him up to phone in an after-hours drug prescription. She has a neurodegenerative disease and probably wouldn't even be able to get health insurance in the USA.


Is the current American system really that much better?

My dad spent several years as a department chief at the Detroit Medical Center. The DMC hospital network loses more than a billion dollars per annum on services provided to uninsured and underinsured patients (on total revenues of around $2 billion--you do the math). Who do you think is footing the bill for that?

A well-implemented government monopsony on essential health care services makes good financial sense. It's not as if all the uninsured/underinsured have the good sense to die off and remove themselves from the population. The bias against early (i.e. cheaper) intervention and the fact that the system has to deal with them eventually anyway significantly raises costs for everyone.

[Darkmoon]

Alondro, you need to watch your tone. There were three topics today, that were pointed out to me, where your opening "salvo" is an arrogantly phrase attack on whatever it is you don't agree with.

Seeing as how you've been banned in the past for doing exactly what you're doing, one would think you'd have learned by now. This is a warning, and I can't guarantee it won't turn into a full-fledged ban by the time the admins are done talking.