KevinMD Wants A Response
My response:
- The most heavenly social program is hell underfunded.
- Blind faith? When have any single-payer folks ever said we blindly support single-payer and appropriate government appropriations (say that three times fast)? Will health care reform be easy? Pass one law and everything magically gets fixed? The wool’s not pulled that tightly over my eyes. Fixing the health care system isn’t going to be easy, and it isn’t going to be cheap. It will take years of planning, tons of effort, and lots of discussion. But of course it can happen.
Why do I think we need to do it? Because of the mess. The mess of billions of dollars wasted on duplicated tests and administrative overhead. The mess that millions of people in the richest nation in the world decide between eating and buying their medications (which would often prevent doctor and ED visits in the first place), or that many honestly consider waiting out an appendicitis because they lack insurance and know their financial lives will be ruined by a $50,000 hospital bill. The mess that fragmented care complicates care so greatly. The mess that other countries can apparently do it–and for cheaper–and we apparently can’t. I could go on.
Why do I think we can do it? Because we’re America, god damn it. We’re the land of opportunity. Innovation. Creativity.
We invented the car. We flew at Kitty Hawk. Electricity. The telephone! We created a system of railroads across a gigantic country. And then later, we made gigantic highways to cover it even better. We can do whatever the hell we want with this country–that’s the beauty of it! And you’re honestly telling me we don’t have it in us to fix our own health care system? To take better care of ourselves? That it’s not possible? Of course it is! (I sometimes wonder what our health care system would be like today if our leaders back in 2001 fought so strongly for fixing our health care system the way they fought so strongly to fund and go to war. A trillion bucks could go a long way.)
Do I think the government funds things correctly currently? Often, no. Does that mean that it can’t in the future? Of course not. Do I think it’ll take a massive, gigantic change to our government and culture to fix things? Absolutely, just like it will take a massive, gigantic change to fix our health care system. People always bitch and moan about “the government,” but what is the government but its citizens?
And by the way, I’ve never gotten an answer from you HSA supporters as to how in the hell they’re going to make a dent in our health care expenditures.
All those inventions you cited were created by private citizens in a capitalist system, not by the big government in a socialist system.
What has Cuba invented? Socialism is evil and stifles productivity.
I’m not sure, but Canada’s sure been busy. Britain and the US both share the prize for coming up with the CT scanner.
wait. what?
the car may have been invented by private citizens but it would still be sitting in your driveway if not for (government funded) highways. the airplane may well have been invented by two men but they would currently be crashing into each other constantly if not for (government funded) air traffic control. admittedly i don’t know the details, but i find it obnoxiously impossible to believe the government didn’t fund and promote the use of electricity and phone lines. hell, the government did as much for the internet.
what does cuba have to do with the US anyway? since when is the united states a third world country on par with the lack of education and employment as cuba?
Yes, the most heavenly program is hell underfunded. That’s right, graham. You can’t take the underfunded piece out of the equation and then go off on government programs.
and ditto on what rachel says. totally. it’s funny how quick we forget the govt provided, taxpayer provided things that got most of us to our points of “innovation”.
Plzzzzz….Everyone pllezzzzzzz GET IT that Healthcare for ALL is NOT socialized medicine. Healthcare for all, a’ la’ SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM is just that – a single payer system. Healthcare providers (MD and others)remain private – their own bosses. Healthcare institutions which are private do convert to non-profit status. We have ONE system, ONE insurance, if you will, to deal with.For anyone who hasn’t, please take the time to read some of the excellent single payer site info – including Graham’s link above.
Hmm. By the way, Graham, did you notice that the Google Ads running on your blog often share the farce website “Voice for the Uninsured” (the front website of the AMA on the uninsured — basically another way to say they’re acknowledging the issue when they’re really not even trying to make any kind of dent in the situation). The link is QUITE contrary to the work of your blog.
Alas, I guess that’s a function of the google ads — finding ads that have similar words to words you use in your blog.
May be a bit OT, but who invented the car. http://www.wikipedia.org “automobile”.
[...] Graham isn’t as disingenuous as Klein, but he never really addresses the question either. Instead, he gives us the John Wayne treatment: Why do I think we can do it? Because we’re America god damn it. We’re the land of opportunity. Innovation. Creativity. [...]
I think it’s interesting that KevinMD is most concerned about how he’s going to get paid and Graham is most concerned about how people are actually going to get healthcare. KevinMD should have went for the MBA instead of the MD, in my opinion.
Furthermore, I’d rather trust the government–which may possibly be concerned with the health of its citizens–than private insurance, whose primary goal is to take in the most profits while dispensing as little healthcare as possible.
Dude….firstly….What is apparent to the rest of the world is how Americans think that they’re the best at everything and that they invented everything. Case in Point. Karl Benz is accredited as the father of the modern Automobile. And he was from what is now know as Germany.
That’s that Self-Righteous BULLSHIT right there…..and that’s why the RICHEST country in the world has so many healthcare issues!
Check your facts before you make statements.
Ironically, even though we’re riddled with our very own Healthcare issues and waiting lists problems in rural medicine here in South Africa, it would seem that you could treated here faster than you would in the US and the UK, with all your Managed Healthcare Bullshit. So much so, the private sector have cottoned on to this and offer HealthCare Safaris for foreingers on a waiting list for elective surgery!. Get that inguinal hernia sorted out while you’re on holiday! Recuperate at a Game Lodge!
re: Yaseen,
Eigentlich mein Herr, the first automobile was built by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (1725-1804), a French inventor. Karl Benz was simply the first one to build a working fossil-fuel engine and mount it on a car-frame.
And even though the car may not have been invented in America, it wasn’t until Ford’s Model-T and his revolutionary idea of affordability that it went from being a fancy play-thing of the rich to a widely accessible commodity to “every-day” Americans.
And i think that’s maybe the point Graham’s trying to make– accessibility.
Yes, a lot of “American” things are not ‘American’ at all. But we have always been in the unique position of being able to accept the best of all worlds and IMPROVE upon them.
How much is really being spent on health care in this country, compared to the +$534 billion being spend every year in military equipment and defense? (and that’s coming from an official CIA source).
America’s problem is, and has always been, not so much that things CAN’T be done but that they WON’T be done.
i think there is a lot of temper and generalizations coming from both sides, even though i’m sure both sides mean well.
Oh, and one more thing. i know i’m gonna open up a whole can of worms here, but SOMEONE has got to say it.
People seem to be over-using the word “socialism” like it’s some sort of campaign slogan.
i’m sure everyone knows this but, there IS a difference between modern social democracy (and no, Cuba is NOT a social democracy) and old-fashioned Marxist-Leninist Socialism/Communism. And yes, the two are incompatible.
Asking the United States to convert to Marxism-Leninism is ridiculous. It’s like asking the UK to lose the Establishment. It’s simply not part of our identity. This country cannot run with the means of production entirely in the hands of the government.
But much like Britain went over time from being an autocratic monarchy to becoming a more democratic (i’d love to say “constitutional monarchy”, but alas you have no Constitution…) system of government, so too can the United States gradually become a more inclusive society and at least try to address some of the complications arising from a strictly capital incentive system.
Stop making outrageous statements. Vouching for a single-payer system is not part of some half-baked proletariat revolution to bring America into the hands of “Uncle Lenin.”
Democracy is not a synonym for capitalism. And if you’re somehow self-convinced that they are one and the same… well, i don’t even know how to TALK to you.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.”
-Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara
One advantage of the single payer system that Graham advocates, is that under such a system no physician could refuse to accept a Medicare patient because everyone would be in the same category. As the cost of running the Medicare system has gone up, the reimbursement has gone down. This has gone so far that at lest 40% of the primary care physicians, in Oregon, will no longer accept new Medicare patients. A year ago, I tried to get an appointment with a former associate but the clinic he is now with, will not accept a new Medicare patient.
I am no longer involved in active patient care so I am not concerned about “being paid.” I am just concerned about access to health care.
Using Medicare as an example, I have no illusions that a government sponsored single payer universal system would be any different. My internist receives about 50% of what he charges whenever I see him.
I agree that our current system has major problems, but I don’t think the American population is ready to pay the increased taxes that would be necessary to fund the system Graham proposes. I think the “reduced” administrative costs would quickly be consumed by the flood of unmet medical problems that patients would bring into such a system.
Dr. Thompson, do you mean to say that there simply isn’t enough health care to go around in the U.S. and that it’s up to the poor to bear the burden of rationed health care?