Beware the dangers of universal health care

Yes, it sounds good. But, be careful what you wish for:

Furthermore, establishing a Health Insurance floor, as any UHC system must inevitably do, will encourage suppliers of Tier 1A care to edge toward Tier 3 care (since Tier 2 will be slowly disappearing.) Since Tier 1 and 1A effectively support the bulk of innovation in Medicine, this movement will further constrict the moneys available for difficult and expensive research. Even those in Tier 1 will suffer by the loss of life saving innovations.
It will all be sold as fulfilling the credo that is almost universally fed to young people in the health care system, that “Health Care is a Right, not a Privilege.” Sadly, the only way to make this privilege a right is to offer almost everyone the same level of care, and that way lies disaster.

Comments

Anonymous
Granted, universal heathcare has both positive and negative consequences. However, basing one’s healthcare options on the goodwill of one’s employer is sheer folly. The lack of universal health care means that insurers use employers as risk mitigators, providing insurers with fairly randomized pools of non-self-selected people, people who have to be healthy enough to work full time.
However, for self-employed people and people who’s employers don’t offer meaningful health insurance (Adecco offered lifetime surgical benefits of $10,000 with lifetime anesthesiologist benefits of $400, or there abouts) it is difficult or impossible to buy individual coverage. Profits for insurers are double on individual policies because the reject people they would insure under group coverage. 90% of people who attempt to get an individual policy are unable to do so.
Universal healthcare might be bad for high end research but it would be good for individuals in the medium term.
Thomas D
So what’s more ‘dangerous’ – universal healthcare, or millions of people having no insurance despite the largest per capita health spending in the world?
Anonymous
Obviously that would depend on which group you fall into. You might as well ask “What’s more dangerous – some people being rich and others poor or income equality”. Depends on whether you’re rich or poor, now doesn’t it.
Anonymous
anon 7:21,
Thankfully not everyone in America is of your midset. its easy to see that for you, it is all about YOU..You couldn’t care less about the other guy.
Anonymous
< <"Health Care is a Right, not a Privilege." Sadly, the only way to make this privilege a right is to offer almost everyone the same level of care, and that way lies disaster>>
I interpret your blog to mean that you are against Health Care as a right not a privilege and that you are against everyone having the same level of care???
Surely you can’t be a real doctor who made a vow ‘above all do no harm’?
Because a real doctor offers the same level of care to all humanity, does not differentiate between income levels, social background, race, religion, etc.
Could you clarify further here such as to whom would you offer a better brand of health care and to whom would you offer a lesser brand of health care?? Would you base your decision on pecuniary considerations??
A real doctor understands that health care is a right and not a privilege – and this you have to think about?
unbelievable!
Real doctors believe that their purpose is to prevent disease whenever they can for prevention is preferable to cure.
Real doctors understand that there is an art to medicine as well as science and that warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeons’ knife or the chemists’ drugs.
Anonymous
>>”. . . Surely you can’t be a real doctor who made a vow ‘above all do no harm’?
>>”Because a real doctor offers the same level of care to all humanity, does not differentiate between income levels, social background, race, religion, etc.”
Where did you ever get those notions of what a “real doctor” is or isn’t. You don’t write as someone in the medical field so I can only conclude you made them up, they are so unrealistic and naive.
Surely you aren’t that simpleminded to equate reasonable attempts at a minimum level of quality with exactly the same level of care for everyone?
Do you think for one minute that you will get a drug that costs $2000 per dose for treatment of a potentially blinding eye disease when it is only marginally better than another drug that costs $50 if you do not have insurance that will pay for either? Doubtful, and you probably shouldn’t expect to either. Similarly, any ethical duty to prevent you from starving–resources allowing–doesn’t entitle you to anything, and certainly doesn’t entitle you to dinner at Morton’s on someone else’s dime.
Do you really think you need the private room, if you aren’t paying for your bill?
And what does having to settle for a semi-private room over a more expensive private room have to do with “doing no harm?” Since when does “doing no harm” have anything to do with luxuries, never mind luxuries for everyone?
>>”a real doctor offers the same level of care to all humanity . . . “
Wrong.
A “real doctor” doesn’t have to offer anything to anyone except the minimum standard of care expected to his patients, those who have chosen to see him who he also has also agreed to see.
And how exactly does the “do no harm,” (which you abstract from the ancient Oath of Hippocrates, the reciting of which is sometimes in some places a tradition, not an obligation, BTW) have any bearing on the ridiculous notion of health care as a right?
You have listed “income group” and “race” and “religion” together as if they were somehow comparable categories. That is deeply flawed thinking, unless you imagine that “income” represents some sort of substitute caste system no different from a real caste system.
>>”Could you clarify further here such as to whom would you offer a better brand of health care and to whom would you offer a lesser brand of health care??”
If you pay nothing, you should not expect more than the essentials, and that as a privilege, not a right. What you get as “essential” will depend on available resources, not on your personal wishes or preferences.
>>” Would you base your decision on pecuniary considerations??”
If services above the bare essentials have to be paid for, then yes. There isn’t a fairer or more category-blind method for choosing, unfortunately. Otherwise, you introduce bias or the rule of the mob to your decision making, no matter how benign you think good government can make that process.
>>”A real doctor understands that health care is a right and not a privilege – and this you have to think about?”
No, this *you* have to think about. So far, all you have done is made unfounded assertions based on nothing more than your beliefs, coming from where one can only guess. Sorry, but that does not mean your thoughts obtain here.
>>”unbelievable!”
I was thinking the same about your ideas.
>>”Real doctors believe that their purpose is to prevent disease whenever they can for prevention is preferable to cure. “
Another bald and unsubstantiated assertion from someone who does not seem to actually be a doctor. And just because you write it does not make it true. So it is perhaps your fantasy, a wish, but nothing more.
>>”Real doctors understand that there is an art to medicine as well as science and that warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeons’ knife or the chemists’ drugs.”
Your opinion. Reality differs. And what does that have to do with the dangers of universal health care anyway?
You have presumed the moral high ground in your post, unreasonably and thoughtlessly, I think. Be careful others don’t take your air of open-mouthed astonishment for slack-jawed stupidity.
Anonymous
Would it be possible to adopt some of the practices that exist in Canada and Germany for example? While this would create universal health care, in those countries medical research on the high end has not been shown to stagnate.
I also think that in general, it would be better to reform the health insurance industry, and the way that people get it. While this is completely my own opinion, I believe that health insurance should be a not for profit industry. This would stop some of the ridiculous things that have happened to the values of these companies, as some of the stock prices have doubled or even tripled in the past two years. I believe that there is a way to give insurance to everyone, and while some people may have to pay more for it, everyone will be able to be covered. This will reduce the insurance abuses that have taken place, where they are denying care to those who need it.
There are only two roles that I think the government should have in this process:
1) To regulate the insurance industry, and make sure that it upholds some standard of care, and that it is not over charging on the rates.
2) To help subsidize the payment for those who cannot make enough money for themselves. These people should only get critical care though (anything to prevent someone from becoming disabled say, or something similar) as they are not paying themselves.
Insurance companies now are like casinos, where they are the house. If 50% of people are going to have to have an operation that costs $20,000 in the next year, everyone pays more than $10,000 to get covered for that. This insures the profitability of the company. This has also led, as I said before, to the making of obscene profits. While there is nothing wrong with doctors and others in the health care industry making money, and it is even a good thing, as it allows people to dedicate themselves to the profession and the advancement of medicine, there is a limit. The primary purpose is the help people. That is not what the health insurance industry in the US is doing. It is doing everything in its power to avoid paying for the medical expenses of others. While this is natural for a for profit company, this is not something that belongs in health care.

Beware the dangers of universal health care

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