The Problems with Medical Systems
By ParaTed2k
@ParaTed2k (22940)
Sheboygan, Wisconsin
June 23, 2009 2:20am CST
From reading posts in other articles about the systems of medicine and how services are paid for in different countries has got me thinking. It is obvious that all of the systems have a lot of problems in common. Even though the goal is equal access to medical services, no system seems capable of attaining it. In fact, it is evident to me that the goal is nothing more than rhetoric in the first place.
Everyone seems to have horror stories about neglect, diseases caused or made worse by the medical community in their countries, delays, rationing and even an apparent caste system in deciding who deserves care and who doesn't.
The problem is, while we pay lip service to the goal of universal care, there is no possibility of providing it. Why? Simple economics. Not necassarily the money part of economics (although there is that), but the actual definition of the word.
Economics: The study of the production and distribution of scarce resources.
If there were unlimited doctors, nurses, techs and administration; with an equally unlimited amount of gadgets, gizmos and "machines that go 'Bing'", then the goal of universal access wouldn't be hard to achieve. However, unless the government is prepared to force enough people into each sector of health care (and the people were willing to allow it), then universal access will always be nothing more than a pipedream.
So, since we aren't willing (at least I hope) to allow the government to force people into professions, let's do what really, really wise folks do...
Let's identify the realities of the problem and work out solutions based on them.
When it comes to health care, reality is almost as hard to come by as the goal itself. Why? Because most people aren't willing to put aside their emotional baggage long enough to have an honest conversation. This is sad because all that heart string tugging is one of the problems that prevents a solution.
I don't know about other counties, but here in the US, we would fix the problem in a few short years.. if we really wanted to.
Most of us already have sufficient private insurance and/or medicare/medicaid. So let's throw out any "solution" that includes people who don't need the help. Out of the people who don't have the above, let's cut out anyone can afford, but chooses not to buy health insurance.
Next, let's turn to civic, religious and private charities. In other words, before we decide to start forcing everyone into the "one size fits all" sort of thing the Federal Government is going to give us, let's first utilize the voluntary assets available.
After we have exhausted all the above resources, then we can have an accurate, and honest assessment of the problem. We will also learn that there is no need for universal, single payer, socialized (or any other buzzword) medicine. The relative few people left will be easy to identify and provide for.
If we aren't willing to do this, we aren't honest about our intentions in the first place.
2 responses
@katran (585)
• United States
23 Jun 09
You are right about one thing: if you are looking for a problem-less system, you are not going to find it. It doesn't matter whether the government runs it or private companies run it or charities and churches run it. No matter what, there will always be problems. That is just the nature of things.
However, if you are trying to say that no country has ever successfully achieved universal health care, that is not true at all. If you are trying to say that no country has ever successfully achieved PERFECT universal health care, all I can say to that is "duh". But I also cannot name a country that has achieved perfect health care in any form - universal or not. The point is not to eliminate problems. That would be impossible. The point is to minimize problems using the most efficient and effective means. And that is where the debate comes in.
The idea of getting religious organizations and charities to help is a good one, and I wish that would work, but unfortunately is it going to take more than that. Only the wealthiest individuals and organizations in the world would have the resources necessary to pay for the medical bills of the millions of Americans who don't have health insurance if they got sick. If a person gets a serious illness that takes more than a couple of days in the hospital to treat, their bills can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now multiply that by 45 million. Even if every charitable organization in the country was FORCED to help with that health care they could never afford it. And how can you force a charity to be charitable anyway?
I think the problem is that people from both sides refuse to be open-minded. They refuse to look at the things that have worked in other countries. They refuse to try to work together. Both parties have pictures in their mind of what they want health care to look like, and neither side will budge. This should not be a partisan issue, in my mind. In fact, I think it is downright despicable that it HAS turned into a partisan issue. We're all like little children. The solutions are right under our noses, but for some reason we seem to think we are too good to look at them.
1 person likes this
@ParaTed2k (22940)
• Sheboygan, Wisconsin
23 Jun 09
If we targeted the problem of out of control expenses instead of pet peaves and pet projects half the problem would be solved. The other half of the problem would then become identifying the people who have no access to healthcare and take care of THAT problem.
What all the systems seem to want to do is come up with some lame "one size fits all" stupidity, which never once even tries to identify the problem. Since fixing the problems has nothing at all to do with why greedy, power hungry oafs want one size fits all crap in the first place.
@thegreatdebater (7316)
• United States
23 Jun 09
Ted, why should the rest of us pust aside our emotional baggage, when you can't do it yourself? The REAL reason that you will never see universal health care is because of the money that is involved in our health care industry. Using your logic our health care system is great and doesn't need to be fixed. Isn't this a perfect example of YOUR personal emotional baggage?
The fact is that we need to reform our health care system. I would really lik to see you look at Obama's plan, and point out what reforms that he wants passed are vital to the system. Tell me why a doctor should perform a test on a patient that he doesn't need to because he needs to make more money, and he know the insurance company will pay for it (and when he brought this up at the AMA conference last week the audience applauded this comment). Please explain to me why we can't make medicare, and medicaid billing easier, and put medical records on-line so doctors can access them when they need to? These are just a few reforms that he wants, and it will save the country billions. Please tell me why we don't need to do this?
