Sick & Tired: How America's Health System Fails Patients

Idiomatic,

Medicare, medicaid, state medical insurance for children and the V.A. total upwards of 60% of all medical care dollars spent in the United States. Hayek first, and then Friedman and others after, understood that there is a tipping point, where even if the government does not totally control a sector, by controlling a large share of a sector and then regulating the hell out of the rest, one can no longer call that sector private. Government interference into the Doctor/patient relationship has destroyed the medical system in the United States. It is a de facto government controlled system yet those clamoring for a "public option," or a full-on single payer, government system ignore this and do not acknowledge the damage done, dollars wasted and lives lost by the current government involvement.

To compare spending in the socialist democracies who have a single payer system with the essentially government run system in the United States is not an apples to apples comparison. I have many left leaning friends who proclaim, "The Europeans and Canada spend less as a percentage of their GDP than we do on medical care," as if it is an "Aha, Gotcha!" There are few ways to decrease medical care spending - reimburse Doctors at a lower rate, which has had terrible consequences all over the world, deny coverage for things that are done routinely and expected in the United States. Additionally, Americans are willing to approve extraordinary treatment for elderly parents. I would love to read about how many seniors in their 70s and 80s in Canada and Europe get knee or hip replacements, or invasive, elective open heart procedures.

The rightness or wrongness or practicality of running up a $500,000.00 to $1,000,000.00 medical bill to prolong one's Mother's life for months or a couple of years, or to receive new hips and knees at age 75 or 80 is an important moral and ethical discussion one must have, but in single payer systems, the patient has NO say in these matters. They will die on the waiting list.

We also have an estimated 12 - 25 MILLION persons in our country illegally who need medical care and have bankrupted many public hospitals in urban areas. This too must be discussed, but is ignored by the political class and most Americans struggle with the ethical dilemma involved.

Bottom line - who will pay? The financial implosion of many European nations' fiscal situation due to a slow economy and lavish welfare and medical benefits makes it clear that a country cannot have a growing economy, a strong, private sector work force, investment from abroad and most importantly, social cohesion, when the nation spends $2.00 for every $1.00 it brings in. Something has to give. Today, sadly, the lives of Greek citizens were given in violent uprisings. As columnist Mark Steyn has rightly said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is not big enough to get you to give any of it back." Margaret Thatcher wisely and prophetically said decades ago, "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money."

Maybe you should read about the broken window fallacy?

The question regarding private healthcare systems that work is invalid. Germany is actually the OLDEST universal healthcare system in the world, going back to 1883!

There is a dual public-private system in Germany today with 88% of people using the public healthcare system. As well you are only allowed to switch to the private healthcare system if you have wages above 50,000Euros/yr, this means that only the rich can use the private system at all. The BASIS of healthcare in Germany however is public and certainly it is manditory. The whole question is a leading one and it is flawed.

And in fact the U.S. is the only first world country that has a private only health care system. Or what one might call mostly private (medicare and medicaid are tax funded). So there isn't even a comparison to be had as the U.S. is by quite a large margin THE most privatized 1st world nation on the earth.

there really is no such thing as wasted money, when YOU 'waste' your money, you're really giving someone ELSE a chance to put it to good use! and maybe you should blame the treasury for continuously injecting more money into the system, effectively stealing value from YOUR dollars.

I have never personally met anyone who was correctly diagnosed or treated in our local hospital. In every case, friends, family members, neighbors and coworkers were put through weeks or even months of expensive tests that were often repeated 3 or 4 times. In every case, the patient either eventually recovered on their own or when next to death, were rushed to far away hospitals by concerned family members. I am sure the remoteness of the area helps this hospital to continue while serving no patients and is set up solely to milk payments out of insurance companies.

Great video clip, we are just touching on the tip of an iceberg of outright fraud & criminality akin to the NAZI's and in fact linked directly: http://MercuryJustice.org

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