[pickledpepperRN]

October 17, 2007
The Real Danger of Socialized Medicine by Niko Karvounis

http://www.healthbeatblog.org/2007/1...al-danger.html

[Elvish]

Very cool article, spacenurse. Thanks for posting it. So many valid points. I too tire of hearing people hearing "universal health care" and automatically playing the socialism card. We are in desperate need of something, 'cause what we got now is real broke.

[CITCAT]

In regard to universal healthcare its no wonder the lobbyist in washington dont want this insurace companies medicalreview boards maybe ama which by the way has a substantial large forum in washington , go tell the homeless the disfrnacished worker at poverty wage socalled minimum wage this when they get the bill go tell the waitress no insurance for you cant do cost too much go tell the woman with cancer who whocant get newest tx because insurance wont coverit oh tell the senior who pays over 150 moth or more so they and there friends get in the car and go to canada for their meds hey the wheezers,geezers,boommers,genxers geny are here how are wegoing to take care of them all Anation who doesnot take care of its own well you fill in the blank god help america cause we are in trouble

[HM2Viking]

That people would like single payer because it works better.

[HM2Viking]

I don't think the international evidence supports his viewpoint.

[MBANurse]

I find it interesting that the article states the VA system is a great example of effective healthcare in the United States, and that servicemembers "love it." As an Army Soldier (68WM6) I find the VA system to be derelict at best.

Sure servicemembers prefer it over "nothing" but who doesn't prefer a dollar over a dime? The next argument that will fly is that it woefully underbudgeted... and you know what it is... but at the same time you can not throw money at problems and expect them to go away. Whenever the government gets involved in, well anything, you can expect 95 cents of every dollar to go to the bureacracy instead of the service.

It would be the same thing with "socialized" "universal" or "single payer" healthcare.

The problem with any system that the government would create (such as Conyers' Medicare for All fiasco) is the the government would then have to pay for it. Early in our Country's history if there was a program to be implemented there would either be cuts in other programs or new taxes to pay for the new progam. Currently; the only way to fund a program is new taxes. Our congress critters and our president do not have the intestinal fortitude needed to cut other programs no matter what a waste they are.

The preamble to the Constitution states "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

If there is any indicator as to what tax dollars should be spent on... it is right there. It says "provide for common defense" and "promote" general welfare. If the founding fathers wanted the US to be all inclusive they would have stated "provide for the general welfare..."

I'll be honest; I believe that insurance companies are out to make a buck; and in the process may short change the public in the care they provide. However; the solution to that problem is not to create what will surely be insurmountable and ineffective government monstrosity; rather it is to educate the public about PREVENTIVE HEALTH CARE and the difficult medical care choices they will have to make.

Both the article that is linked directly from this thread; and the opinion piece that is linked in that article keep doggedly screaming about the semantics of "socialized" medicine. Technically; of course, they are correct. But most Americans; when they think of socialized medicine, think in terms of tax payer funded healthcare. Should we subsidize healthcare for the poor, the lame, the handicapped? What about the lazy, the drunks, the criminals, the druggies or illegal aliens?

The fact is; that all those groups currently recieve government aid in healthcare. Is it neccessarily effective? I doubt it? Is it fair? No, its not... but I remember my Mom telling me that life is in fact not fair; only to have that idea reinforced by her passing away at only 31 years old and I was only 11.

No, life isn't fair. Thats a fact. What all the different euphanisms that are being bandied about in the healthcare debate have in common is the principal of "equality of results" and that my friends requires redistribution of wealth and can only go by the name(s) of socialism/marxism/communism.

The article also states that police, fire and other emergency services aren't "branded" as socialism "even though thats what they are." This argument is also defeated by the preamble of the Constitution... They, in fact, "ensure domestic tranquility."

The linked article also states that there is a decline in the "workhorse" of US Healthcare, the public hospital. They are closing at alarming rates all over the country. There are a number of factors that are contributing to this situation. Illegal aliens that skip the bill; the skyrocketing costs that are associated with medical malpractice (both real and imagined-doctors and nurses), and the fact that the government will not reimburse for many of the diagnostic and elective procedures that patients want to have done; which leaves the hospital holding the bag, a rapidly growing population as well as a rapidly aging one.

I'll be honest again and state that I do not have any better proposal to "fix" the healthcare delivery system in the United States; but I do know that I do not want more government involved and mucking it up even further.

[HM2Viking]

MBA,

Lets build an effective system. THE VA can teach the rest of the system some lessons about quality.

[The] VHA's complete adoption of electronic health records and performance measures have resulted in high-quality, low-cost health care with high patient satisfaction. A recent RAND study found that VHA outperforms all other sectors of American health care across the spectrum of 294 measures of quality in disease prevention and treatment. For six straight years, VHA has led private-sector health care in the independent American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Indeed, the VHA's lead in care quality isn't disputed. A New England Journal of Medicine study from 2003 compared the VHA with fee-for-service Medicare on 11 measures of quality. The VHA came out "significantly better" on every single one. The Annals of Internal Medicine pitted the VHA against an array of managed-care systems to see which offered the best treatment for diabetics. The VHA triumphed in all seven of the tested metrics. The National Committee for Quality Assurance, meanwhile, ranks health plans on 17 different care metrics, from hypertension treatment to adherence to evidence-based treatments.As Phillip Longman, the author of Best Care Anywhere, a book chronicling the VHA's remarkable transformation, explains: "Winning NCQA's seal of approval is the gold standard in the health-care industry. And who do you suppose is the highest ranking health care system? Johns Hopkins? Mayo Clinic? Massachusetts General? Nope. In every single category, the veterans health care system outperforms the highest-rated non-VHA hospitals."

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?arti...lth_of_nations

While the VA system undoubtedly has some poor performers among its hospitals the overall population data achieves pretty darn good results for an older and sicker clientle than is served by the average set of providers in America.

Our for profit system does not perform very well on the world stage. We can and must do better.

I think it would be interesting to match up the VA against the NHS of the UK to see what lessons can be learned.

[anonymurse]

Originally Posted by HM2Viking

THE VA can teach the rest of the system some lessons about quality.

Have you used it? If so, it seems you would have noticed that the quality of care is horrendously uneven; it varies greatly not only by facility but by department within each facility. If not...