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Edited on Mon Oct-06-08 09:42 PM by KevinJ
Actually, we've got pretty good insurance, as far as insurance goes, although every year the premiums go up, the coverages go down, the co-pays increase, as do the restrictions on who I can and cannot see. I'm happy for you that you've had some positive experiences with our medical system, but it sounds so out of keeping with what I hear from others, as well as what my own experience over the years has been, it makes me wonder where you live. I know some states have more generous state laws with respect to health care than do others, and, probably most importantly, some areas simply have better ratios of physicians to patients. Admittedly, here in New Orleans, the ratio of physicians to patients is particularly bad, but, to be honest, I've had similar problems in other parts of the country with more advantageous ratios.
I appreciate your post though, as I'm always curious to better understand people who have an instinctive distrust of government handling things like their health care. My father is similarly suspicious of government administration of such things and I always wonder why. I mean, government may or may not be particularly efficient, but consider the alternative: the private sector thrives when it maximizes profits. You don't maximize profits by lowering rates and increasing services; you maximize profits by doing just the opposite, i.e., increasing rates and lowering services. There's nothing politically subjective about that statement, it depends upon no ideology, it's a mathematical fact that the more you pay out and the less you take in, the less money you have at the end of the day for yourself. But it follows logically from that fact that private companies have an inherent, inescapable motive to do the opposite of what is in your best interests as a consumer. So how can anyone be surprised that health insurance companies will consistently try to make do with less, try to get out of having to pay claims, try to impose constraints upon what kinds of treatments and medications patients can receive? They're in the business of making money, that's what they do, what else would anyone expect them to do? To my way of thinking, then, government administration has a huge advantage over the private sector as, unlike the private sector, their salaries are fixed, they receive no stock options, they consequently have no profit motive to try to cheat me out of costly but essential health care services.
Again, I concede that government may not be the most efficient administrator, but, even on that score, I think public health care has a huge advantage over private health care, because they don't waste as much time squabbling over what is and is not covered and by whom. In the US, fully half of the cost of our health care system has nothing to do with providing patient health care, but rather is purely administrative cost, in other words, all of the forms that have to be filled out to receive coverage, all of the backing and forthing between the health care providers and the insurance companies over who's going to pay how much for what, claims adjusters striving to find ways out of having to pay claims (they get paid bonuses for denying claims, you know), correspondence between the insurance companies and patients regarding disputed claims, attorneys filing and defending against suits for wrongfully denied claims, the list goes on and on and on. Jeez, and people think government is a mass of red tape? Man, government is small potatoes next to the willfully-created red tape jungle generated by the health insurance industry to thwart and obfuscate patients from getting their hands on even a penny more than is absolutely necessary. In contrast, in Europe, all of that time and money and effort is saved because everything's covered by the government, end of story. They consequently have a whole lot more money left over to spend on patient care, having not blown all of their money on bickering over who's going to pay for it.
I think the public character of health care in Europe smoothes out a number of other wrinkles as well. For instance, medical education is publicly paid for, so medical school graduates don't have to worry about how they're going to pay off the quarter mil in student loans they had to take out in order to obtain their educations. Lower financial burdens plus less stress having to contend with all of the red tape and hassle we have here and the undue influence of private insurance companies constantly trying to backseat drive makes being a physician a more attractive profession. Consequently, more people are willing to become physicians; consequently, there are more physicians available per capita to treat patients; consequently, you don't have to wait as long for appointments, don't have to wait in waiting rooms to see your physician, and your physician is free to spend more time talking with you and thinking about your case rather than freaking out about them 50 other patients they still have yet to see today. Similarly, because medical education is free, physicians don't have the heavy debts to pay back, and consequently there is no justification for the sky-high salaries doctors make in this country. Sure, the government paid a couple hundred grand educating their physician, but, as a consequence, they don't have to pay them $500K a year for the next 40 years. That's a big savings.
All of this makes logical sense to me and it coincides with what I experienced living in Europe and seeking medical care there. Every time I went to see a physician, I just wandered in off the street, presented myself to a receptionist, explained my condition, and - every time - within five minutes, I was sitting in front of a physician discussing and receiving treatment for the problem. And it never cost me a penny, even though I was a foreigner. So this is where my experience and reasoning takes me. Yet plainly your experience and reasoning leads you to an opposite conclusion. That's cool, I don't for an instant imagine myself to always be right, but it makes me curious to know what your experience and thinking is to have led you to a different conclusion. Care to share?
ed. sp.
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