"Free" Health Care
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| Wed, 07-21-2004 - 8:58am |
Free health care
Walter E. Williams
July 21, 2004
Let's start out by not quibbling with America's socialists' false claim that health-care service is a human right that people should have regardless of whether they can pay for it or not and that it should be free. Before we buy into this socialist agenda, we might check out just what happens when health-care services are "free." Let's look at our neighbor to the north -- Canada.
The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver, B.C.-based think tank, has done yeoman's work keeping track of Canada's socialized health-care system. It has just come out with its 13th annual waiting-list survey. It shows that the average time a patient waited between referral from a general practitioner to treatment rose from 16.5 weeks in 2001-02 to 17.7 weeks in 2003. Saskatchewan had the longest average waiting time of nearly 30 weeks, while Ontario had the shortest, 14 weeks.
Waiting lists also exist for diagnostic procedures such as computer tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound. Depending on what province and the particular diagnostic procedure, the waiting times can range from two to 24 weeks.
As reported in a December 2003 story by Kerri Houston for the Frontiers of Freedom Institute titled "Access Denied: Canada's Healthcare System Turns Patients Into Victims," in some instances, patients die on the waiting list because they become too sick to tolerate a procedure. Houston says that hip-replacement patients often end up non-ambulatory while waiting an average of 20 weeks for the procedure, and that's after having waited 13 weeks just to see the specialist. The wait to get diagnostic scans followed by the wait for the radiologist to read them just might explain why Cleveland, Ohio, has become Canada's hip-replacement center.
Adding to Canada's medical problems is the exodus of doctors. According to a March 2003 story in Canada News (www.canoe.ca), about 10,000 doctors left Canada during the 1990s. Compounding the exodus of doctors is the drop in medical school graduates. According to Houston, Ontario has chosen to turn to nurses to replace its bolting doctors. It's "creating" 369 new positions for nurse practitioners to take up the slack for the doctor shortage.
Some patients avoided long waits for medical services by paying for private treatment. In 2003, the government of British Columbia enacted Bill 82, an "Amendment to Strengthen Legislation and Protect Patients." On its face, Bill 82 is to "protect patients from inadvertent billing errors." That's on its face. But according to a January 2004 article written by Nadeem Esmail for the Fraser Institute's Forum and titled "Oh to Be a Prisoner," Bill 82 would disallow anyone from paying the clinical fees for private surgery, where previously only the patients themselves were forbidden from doing so. The bill also gives the government the power to levy fines of up to $20,000 on physicians who accept these fees or allow such a practice to occur. That means it is now against Canadian law to opt out of the Canadian health-care system and pay for your own surgery.
Health care can have a zero price to the user, but that doesn't mean it's free or has a zero cost. The problem with a good or service having a zero price is that demand is going to exceed supply. When price isn't allowed to make demand equal supply, other measures must be taken. One way to distribute the demand over a given supply is through queuing -- making people wait. Another way is to have a medical czar who decides who is eligible, under what conditions, for a particular procedure -- for example, no hip replacement or renal dialysis for people over 70 or no heart transplants for smokers.
I'm wondering just how many Americans would like Canada's long waiting lists, medical czars deciding what treatments we get and an exodus of doctors.

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< $400 a month is about right, and it isn't too much to pay for healthcare. The problem in the US isn't lack of healthcare, it's that healthcare costs money and many don't like paying what it costs.
Too many seem to think health care is something magic that springs from the ground... it doesn't. For someone to get free, low cost or subsidized health care, someone else has to pay for it. All you can do is transfer the costs. You can transfer costs to taxpayers, to providers, or to other sources, but at the end of the day there is no free, there is no cheap, there is no really low cost health care... there are only ways to make others pay for it.>
My question for you is this: Do you think that the "state of mental health care is a mess" because of lack of understanding in the general community? Or do you think it is something deeply rooted in the folds of politics as is medical insurance, and the likes? I am curious to know, because I agree that it is a mess, and I will go so far as to add that I meet a great deal of Doctors in your field that do not seem to have any desire to use any of the vast education they have had. I care for and attend visits with juvenile clients who are receiving medical help for some serious medical conditions. I am at wondering what factors are concerned in situations such as class 2 meds, and what goes in to the prescribing or not prescribing of them. Is there pressure from insurance companies as there is in a physical aspect to prescribe a certian type of med? such as Concerta or Ritalin vs. AMphetimine salts? I have been curious about this for some time, and is what are the consequences when a person has an adverse reaction to meds? Is it all trial and error, many people have told me that it is, but I think that that is unethical and so it cannot be that way, so there must be another explanation.
thanks for taking the time if you can to inform me on this.
For people like him, there are very few real choices, didn't I mention his age & lack of education? Sure he's free, he's also free to stay in the same job for 20 years and in the end rely on you, the taxpayer, to pick up the tab for his care. It's already all happened, he stayed there, he got sick, he lost his job, he got medicaid, you have already paid the bill. You seem to think this is fine, leave the system the way it is. Why do you feel the taxpayers should pay his bills? Why are you & I more responsible for his medical care than his employer?
< It isn't the job of government to require EVERY employer in the US to provide health care to every employee. If he doesn't get paid enough, if he doesn't like the benefits... QUIT, find a better job. Freedom is about making choices. Perhaps your friend would prefer to make $16,000 a year and have health coverage. Many of the details about coverage vary tremendously state to state. You seem to feel the solution is to make the employer pay for this persons insurance, it isn't free and you are making a ton of assumptions about what the employer can and will do.>
Problem solved :-)
Isn't America a wonderful place :-)
Problem solved :-)
Isn't America a wonderful place :-)>
I wasn't talking about Kerry, I was raising a point here myself. I was suggesting that we do something different from what we are currently doing, for example require companies to participate in group health care plans, so the rest of us don't end up paying the bills.
Still haven't answered my question, is it OK by you that we are footing the bills for this guy? Why are you & I more responsible for his health care than his employer? Sounds like socialism to me.
To truemobile, I guess your income is higher than 22K per year? Oh, but this man didn't have his job anymore, so he didn't even have the 22K coming in.
< I haven't really heard any solutions from your candidate that are substantially different then what already is...I'd have told the guy if it costs $400 then it costs $400, and that "praying he doesn't get sick" isn't a way out of his problem. But that's too harsh for some here...>
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