National health care pros, cons

Leo Sebelski’s letter (11/1) contains a quote that states, in part, that “people of means come to the U.S. for medical attention.” It’s unfortunate that “people of means” are about the only citizens of this country who can afford its fine health care and private medical insurance.

Oh, wait: Add to the wealthy those who receive medical care due to Medicare and Medicaid, and folks who are employed by and receive medical care or health insurance benefits from some level of government.

My guess is that they figure socialized medicine is pretty much OK.

Buck Walters
California, Mo.

I agree with Leo Sebelski, who observed that nationalized health care in other countries has produced a stream of patients pouring into the U.S. for treatment. Their government-run medical systems are unable to provide timely, good-quality service.

I just returned from abroad, where I visited a friend who is a Public Relations Officer for the British National Health Service (NHS). She happily told me the NHS had improved in the 10 years since I lived in London. “We now have very strict goals to begin treatment within 16 weeks of diagnosis,” she was pleased to announce.

My reply was an outburst: “Sixteen weeks? It should be one week!”

Governments do not run quality medical services.

Amy Brown
Leawood

I have family, both in Canada and Europe, and I can assure you that their health care is better for the people than Americans’ health care. They live longer, and their infant mortality rate is lower.

Why did the English man in Leo Sebelski’s letter wait two years for a back operation? People living in the European Union can go to another European country and have an operation or treatment.

My nephew from the Netherlands had his operation in Belgium, not to avoid waiting, but by choice. My girlfriend from Denmark had her cancer treatment in Germany.

Health care is expensive. It is not free in other countries, either, but everyone has health insurance.

As a rich nation, we can do better.

Maria Baldwin
Kansas City

Comments

[Engineer]

Pub 17
"would you rather die waiting for an operation because the line was too long, or because you couldn't afford it"? The big difference is that if it is a matter of cost the individual can do something about it, if it's a government line nothing can be done. An extremely important difference to me. One of the reasons I made a number of decisions that enabled me to make a large income.

[EKAN]

"As a rich nation, we can do better."

Interesting statement considering that we are the largest debtor nation. I think what she means is that we have some rich people and she feels she deserved it because her mother popped her out within US borders.

Health insurance is very over-rated in my opinion. I would be more than happy to opt for the low priced catastrophic insurance and pocket the difference if my company would offer it. All of America would benefit if everyone paid for simple office visits out of pocket and bought coverage for major diseases/issues. This would reduce demand on the system and prices because people would not be trotting off to the doctor for minor, unnecessary issues.

In other words, we should revert to a more free market approach but we won't do that because it removes power from the annointed few that want to control us.

[Pub 17]

Ah! But now we have a grownup in the White House, who shows some promise of being able to think and compromise. So the possibility at least exists that we can improve on our dismal record of being the number one spender on health care per citizen and the number thirty-somethingth in delivery of health care per citizen. If we decide in advance that we can't possibly improve on perfection, nothing will happen.

[Gary]

Medicare is imploding. Only serious reforms can save it, but is there a policical will to accomplish that? If not, why would universal health care based on a treatment-on-demand model be any less costly than Medicare has proven to be? Face it, the only way to provide truly universal health care it to provide it sparingly.

[Casady]

"write it off". 1,000 pardons!

[Casady]

Very goold points One-sided. Unfortunately, I do not see many efficiencies in the private sector either when it comes to healthcare (i. e. my cost for self + child is $10K this upcoming year just for medical). While I do think the federal government is pretty inept at running most programs, the option for socialized medicine should at least be looked at in a little more detail before we right it off.

[Pub 17]

kcstar-
Oh, goody, you've just come out of Econ 101. Everything's rationed by queue or price, right. So why isn't the U.S. full of French, German and English doctors? Because a) once past a certain level of compensation, there's ABSOLUTELY no demonstration that higher wages elicit higher levels of performance, and b) in a free market medical schema, you've got litigation against malperforming professionals as a countervailing force. Besides, would you rather die waiting for an operation because the line was too long, or because you couldn't afford it?

[Pub 17]

RouGE-Yeah, I want the country defended by professional tough guys who can stand up and walk off if they get in the middle of a firefight they don't like. And Blackwater pays their people SO much less than the inefficient U.S. military, costs would plummet. Get real.

[kcstar_is_one_sided]

Socialized health care works great for those that don't have immediate need. Yes, it will increase the standard of health care for all citizens until you really need it. All health care is rationed, be it by cost or by time. Socialized health care will change the cost rationing to time rationing which will reduce costs because those that really need it will die waiting.

The real issue that gets lost in conversations such as these though is the unintended effects that would be caused by state run health care (which is usually the case when people start playing with the market). For instance, all the real brilliant people who are looking at becoming a doctor will have less monetary incentive to do so and will go into other fields. Because of this, you can expect less advances in medical technology breakthroughs. Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it, but you'll probably get alot more that was unanticipated.

[Rogue]

Actually Cybil, Blackwater does an outstanding job according to some of the guys I have talked to.....too bad it is not practical to privatize because some little leftist weenies would start scraming and peeing their panties about mercs......

[Pub 17]

I like the military, Rouge, maybe we should privatize it.

[Rogue]

Yep, if you like going to the DMV you will love government ran health care.

[T. Hanson]

And once again you can yell all you want about you have a friend of a friend whose cousin had an operation in France and it was found out that guy's roommate had a friend that had the same operation in Spain heard from a guy in Canada that he had to wait 10 weeks to get his tooth looked at.

Or you could just go to the City Union Mission and find the same guy living in the United States that has severe mental issues but has no way for treatment.

Something is broke, let’s start fixing it. Of course those that think everything is fine, just wait in the car.