Universal Healthcare
During Bill Clinton's first term in the presidency, Hillary Clinton pushed for universal healthcare (dubbed Hillarycare by the media). It was resoundingly voted down in Congress. Now Mrs. Clinton is running for president and we're hearing talk of this again.
Every time the idea pops up we hear talk of how wonderful the Canadian system works, how much smaller European countries have government run healthcare, but here in the U.S. 45 percent of our population is uninsured. 45% is a deceptive figure because only about 15% have no medical insurance because of cost. That other 30% can afford it but choose not to. Even if you're uninsured, like all the illegals currently residing here, you can go to the emergency room and get treated.
In Canada you can count on long waits. Over twelve percent will wait more than a year for medical procedures - thirty percent for over seven months for treatment. Canadians that can afford it have insurance policies that are good in the U.S. and come across the border for their medical treatment. When government regulates the medical profession, they regulate the practitioner's income too. After eight to twelve years in medical school you can count on making less than a bricklayer in some areas. It doesn't exactly encourage people to go through all that schooling to become doctors, so you wind up with a shortage of medical professionals and medical facilities.
Free Health Care? It ain't free.
Government never runs anything as efficiently and cost-conscious as private industry that must make a profit to keep the doors open. By the very nature of government, it never will. That simply means government run healthcare will cost more and be less efficient. It isn't even as cheap as healthcare here. Forty percent of every earned dollar in Canada goes to national healthcare. In other words, if your health insurance here cost you forty percent of everything you earned, you would be on an equal footing with Canadians, except our medical facilities are the best in the world, and you don't have to wait for months. Like someone said, "if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free".
Every time the idea pops up we hear talk of how wonderful the Canadian system works, how much smaller European countries have government run healthcare, but here in the U.S. 45 percent of our population is uninsured. 45% is a deceptive figure because only about 15% have no medical insurance because of cost. That other 30% can afford it but choose not to. Even if you're uninsured, like all the illegals currently residing here, you can go to the emergency room and get treated.
In Canada you can count on long waits. Over twelve percent will wait more than a year for medical procedures - thirty percent for over seven months for treatment. Canadians that can afford it have insurance policies that are good in the U.S. and come across the border for their medical treatment. When government regulates the medical profession, they regulate the practitioner's income too. After eight to twelve years in medical school you can count on making less than a bricklayer in some areas. It doesn't exactly encourage people to go through all that schooling to become doctors, so you wind up with a shortage of medical professionals and medical facilities.
Free Health Care? It ain't free.
Government never runs anything as efficiently and cost-conscious as private industry that must make a profit to keep the doors open. By the very nature of government, it never will. That simply means government run healthcare will cost more and be less efficient. It isn't even as cheap as healthcare here. Forty percent of every earned dollar in Canada goes to national healthcare. In other words, if your health insurance here cost you forty percent of everything you earned, you would be on an equal footing with Canadians, except our medical facilities are the best in the world, and you don't have to wait for months. Like someone said, "if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free".
posted by Fish-2 at 8:56 PM
4 Comments:
You are "one of those cold hearted right wingers" (your words) like me. 40% of every earned dollar in Canada for rationed healthcare versus approx 10% of a middle-class income of $40,000 in the US to buy 80% coverage (which is what I have.) 100% coverage costs about 20% or $700 a month.
The data out there is confusing at best. At http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm the US spends far more per captita than any other country. Recently learned of a fellow who had to wait a month to get in for urology tests here in the US. And he had insurance. Having dealt with my insurer on occasion, I have to wonder about private insurers being cheaper and more efficient...
That's it exactly Patrick. All one has to do is look at all the places it's been tried and see what a failure it is, to understand the government's involvement is always a disaster.
BB, individual out of pocket expense for insurance and medicines are lower in this country by far, than any of the nations that have national health coverage. Here it comes out of our pocket for premiums, medicine, doctor visits, etc. There it comes out of your pocket in the form of taxes. At least people with some money in other countries can come to the U.S. for treatment. If we nationalize medical coverage here where will we go? Mexico?
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