"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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As best I can determine, it costs about $5,440 per american for healthcare (not premium, actual healthcare cost). With a lifespan of only $68 years this means the cost would be $370,000 per person. 40% is consumed in the last 6 months of life or $148,000. The top 10% of the population consume about $2,590,000 per person over their lifetime. (From http://www.vthca.org/otto/healthcare%20funding%20June.htm )
A voluntary subsidized plan of the type you seem to be describing would encourage people at the high end of healthcare cost, they would do this as it's in their interest. The cost could be millions per individual to the program while they pay only hundreds for benefits. The insurance pool would become polluted with opportunists, and the premiums would inflate dramatically. This is a recipe for disaster.
My tax dollars are paying for federal employees, paying for the tax subsidies, and providing the large pool that DOES contribute to lower premiums. And I should somehow feel guilty for simply wanting to buy an insurance plan from the pool that I helped to create?
Why does health care cost so much? Because it's a for profit, stockholder driven industry. These same stockholders then turn around and convince you that YOU are the reason they have to take YOUR job overseas. YOU want too much. Never mind the fact that we're competing with countries that provide health insurance to the people. They make profit on YOUR health care AND make profit on the cheaper wages other countries can supply because the corporation doesn't have to provide health care. We will never be able to compete with countries whose workers don't have to worry about health care. Health care is approaching 20% of our GDP. For administrators and paperwork to keep YOU from using the health care so stockholders can reap the rewards.
As long as people like you insist on insurance driven health care, people like me are going to insist on a fair and affordable method of accessing it. For EVERY American. We have a right to live.
Where were you able to find these figures & percentages, I'd like to review all that too.
< The federal employee plans are subsidized by the government. >
If people don't know the facts on the economy, they should educate themselves.
$400 or so per month as a premium for a healthy young individual is about what healthcare costs, as you get older and as you become less healthy it costs more. $400 a month is a bargain.
Houses cost alot, so do many new cars, it's not cheap to get a hotel in NYC these days... does Kerry have a plan to subsidize all this too? Just because something isn't as cheap as we would like it to be, doesn't mean it isn't worth buying or having. Some of the best things in life are indeed expensive. Your "it costs too much" would justify everything from white collar crime to deadbeat dads... what you are saying is it costs more than you'd like it to cost... which is entirely something else. Also with regard to higher premiums, look at Mr. Edwards and his friends who probably represent some fraction of the premiums you dislike paying.
A. The average premium is a program-wide average of the enrollment charges for all individuals who are eligible to receive a Government contribution, with separate determinations for self only and for self-and-family enrollments. For 2002, the biweekly average premium amounts are $135.61 for self-only and $309.66 for self-and-family coverage. Accordingly, the maximum biweekly Government contribution is $97.68 for self and $223.41 for family.
The above from http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/qa/premiums.asp#2
On average it would appear 72% or so of federal employee monthly premiums are paid for by the taxpayer. Ouch! Note this is the most recent year I could find, as best I can determine numbers are up about 23% or so.
Renee ~~~
Renee ~~~
Congressmen often get free junkets wherever they want, large personal staffs, comped mail, paid over $100,000+ per year, they can vote directly for bills and have reserved seating down in the well of either the House or Senate... using the logic you've just applied to insurance... wouldn't it make sense for all the ameneties of congress to be available to us all?
Welcome hollyuno!
<<When anyone feels that they can't earn what they have rightfully worked for, then the exodus of docters from Canada makes perfect sense.>>
Absolutely!
Renee ~~~
Renee ~~~
Whoo-boy! If only all employers could find such loyal dedicated employees who work for peanuts for decades without a thought to promotions, raises, cost of living increases, their health or retirement, I'm sure they'd be able to keep sooooo much more profit all for THEMSELVES!!!
No matter how much this guy's employer is raking in, he or she could, no doubt, do better by writing a book & going on the lecture circuit explaining to everyone how to turn their employees into mindless slaves.
Renee ~~~
Renee ~~~
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