Here’s an article from the Washington Post by T.R. Reid called “5 Myths About Health Care Around the World”. It should be required reading for every right winger who is afraid of single-payer or a public option, or of placing severe regulations on health insurers.
Reid tackles five common myths:
1. It’s all socialized medicine out there. It would not bother me in the least if it was, as socialized medicine does a better job than for-profit, but let’s be rigid in our definition: Great Britain has a socialized system, as do our own veterans. Every other industrialized democracy has some form of single payer or public/private hybrid.
2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices and long lines. Generally speaking, not true. Other countries generally allow choice of doctor and hospital, and wait times for emergency and serious conditions are virtually nonexistent. But waiting lists are a problem in Canada, generally in Ontario and Quebec provinces, for some reason. But other countries often outperform our own in the area of wait times.
Which reminds me – my Dad was undergoing treatment for a wide range of maladies in his final days. One doctor asked if he was a veteran, which he was, and suggested we go to VA for our medicines. I thought “Oh God – here we go – long wait, crappy care.” In fact, we got in in less than a week, had a very good doctor, and got our prescriptions filled free of cost. It was a pleasant surprise to find them to be so professional and efficient.
3. Foreign health systems are bloated, inefficient bureaucracies. Actually, nothing like ours. All other systems are less bureaucratic and inefficient than us.
4. Cost controls stifle innovation. Interesting conundrum – cost controls often drive innovation. Example:
In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)
In addition, there are many innovations in use here developed elsewhere, artificial knees and hips, for example.
5. Health insurance has to be cruel. Indeed, American health insurers are cruel, and even have “death panels”, which they call by other names. In other countries, health insurance companies must operate on a non-profit basis for basic care, and are not allowed to turn away or rescind applicants. In return for these restrictions, they are given a guaranteed clientele, as coverage is mandatory, and subsidies for those who cannot afford care.
Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has “the finest health care” in the world. We don’t. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.
Given our remarkable medical assets — the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research — the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health-care administration from the other industrialized democracies.
A little humility would go a long way here, along with some willingness by right wingers to get out and see the rest of the world. That could dispel most of the mythology,and free us up to fix our own system.
PS: Here is a film done for PBS by Reid called Sick Around the World.
Piece of Mindful 