Stossel on socialized medicine: We need Wisconsin to take the fall

Let them go forward with their socialized medicine experiment, and see what happens:

That’s why America needs “Healthy Wisconsin.” The fall of the Soviet Union deprived us of the biggest example of how socialism works. We need laboratories of failure to demonstrate what socialism is like. All we have now is Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, the U.S. Post Office, and state motor-vehicle departments.
It’s not enough. Wisconsin can show the other 49 states what “universal” coverage is like.
I feel bad for the people in Wisconsin. They already suffer from little job creation, and the Packers aren’t winning, but it’s better to experiment with one state than all of America.

Comments

Anonymous
When it fails, they will claim that it failed because everyone in US wasn’t doing it.
Evan
What, exactly, is so bad about the US postal service? They are a private business and not part of the US government, so I think the analogy is silly, but seriously … they seem to do a fine job.
Can someone tell me what the huge complaint about them is?
Anonymous
“What, exactly, is so bad about the US postal service?”
Are you kidding? It’s socialized! And, thus thus evil.
I’m surprised that KevinMD doesn’t burst in to flames every time he accepts a Medicare payment…seeing has how he is against socialized medicine. If he hates it so much he should stop accepting it.
Anonymous
My post office stinks. Long waits anytime I have to there and they regularly lose my mail (especially it seems important bills.)
Anonymous
Hey guys, I was wondering if anyone has good academic articles or reliable news sources articles on these three topics and why they are not good indicators of health industry:
1. Infant Mortality
2. Life Expectancy
3. 47 million uninsured
I get sick of trying to explain this to people only to have them say let me see the article. I have seen the articles, but I just don’t know who wrote them and when anymore.
Anonymous
“I’m struck by how many hate the current semi-free-market system America has now. I say “semi” because it’s not a free market when about half the health-care bill is funded by government. But it’s still better than socialism. It allows for innovation like the creation of better drugs, pain-relieving joint replacements, artificial hearts, LASIK eye surgery, and who-knows-what-else that may reduce pain and extend my life.”
Hmmm. I’m not sure the drug company I work for would stop innovating or stop producing drugs under a universal healthcare system.
Anonymous
What if they don’t have the money to innovate because the government insists on paying them dirt cheap prices for their current products? Would they still have as much money for PHDs?
The marketing costs won’t go away. It will just be shifted from the public and doctors to lobbying congress and federal formularies.
Chris
1. Infant Mortality
While I wish I had concrete studies to refute this, I have heard many reputable sources that seem to think that much of the reason that we lag behind other countries in this metric is the way we record births. Basically, that we count many babies as being born (but die very shortly after birth) that would not be counted in other nations. But again, I’d love to see hard studies showing that this is true or otherwise.
2. Life Expectancy
I have seen studies that indicate that once you exclude violent (car crashes, gunshot wounds, etc) deaths, the US life expectancy is as good or better than most Western European life expectancies with the same events removed from them.
3. 47 million uninsured
Another pretty much bogus number. Sure, at any one time there may be 47 million uninsured. But so what? Of those, how many _choose_ to be uninsured but could afford life insurance if they wanted it? Please, we already have plenty of systems in this country to provide life insurance for those that are too poor to purchase it themselves. How many of those same people that don’t have life insurance still go on yearly vacations, still have cell phones, cable tv, nice late model cars? There are many problems with are current health system in this country, but the uninsured aren’t it.
Marty G., RN-PICU
My point remains, and it has not been swayed, that the best ‘fix’ for our system it to get government LESS involved in health care, not more involved. While true that other countries have higher lifespans and lower infant mortality, I am not sure if it is comparing apples to apples. In what other countries do they birth a baby at 22 or 23 weeks gestation and use all available means to save the baby? The chances of this baby surviving are quite small, but it’s chances are getting better and better everyday. So here, we can keep this ‘micro-preemie’ alive for days to weeks and as we keep them alive longer, their chances of living a full life increase. Once we get them to their full gestational age (when they should have been born), they have a very good chance of living a normal life. So, a number of these babies do not make it this far despite our best efforts. Do they then become an infant mortality? Most other countries, I think, would not put forth the effort and would count it as a miscarriage, not an infant mortality. This doesn’t seem, to me, to be a fair comparison.
Now, consider the children born here with many congenital conditions. I will use an example I know, congenital cardiac defects. Many of these children are full term babies. We do many, many surgeries on these children to repair their defects. These are open-heart surgeries on infants and not without significant risks. A common defect, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, requires a minimum of 3 open heart surgeries by the age of 2. Some of these surgeries are performed in very few places around the world except for the US. People from all over the world come here for treatment for just this reason. These children have lifelong issues because of their condition. The statistics are just being developed as the very first babies to have this series of operations are just now in their 20′s. Of course, a good number of these children have not made it past their teens for a number of reasons. So, when they succumb to their condition as children, these then impact our life-expectancy numbers. Add to this mix the vast number of experimental surgeries being performed everyday, most only here.
Based on these examples, I believe I have shown where using these stats in any argument are not telling the whole story. I do know what I am talking about as I am a practicing RN in the specialty of Pediatric Critical Care.
Anonymous
“Hey guys, I was wondering if anyone has good academic articles or reliable news sources articles on these three topics and why they are not good indicators of health industry:
1. Infant Mortality
2. Life Expectancy
3. 47 million uninsured
I get sick of trying to explain this to people only to have them say let me see the article. I have seen the articles, but I just don’t know who wrote them and when anymore”
Maybe the reason you have to explain yourself so often is because you are wrong.
Has it, perhaps, occurred to you that the US healthcare system is sub-optimal in a way that profit-driven insurance companies are institutionally incapable of dealing with. Just a thought…
Anonymous
John Stossel used to be a consumer reporter. Now he is an anti-consmumer, anti-government pro-corporatisim libertarian with an axe to grind–as if consumers didn’t have enough of an up hill battle without Stossel gunning for them.
Anonymous
“Maybe the reason you have to explain yourself so often is because you are wrong.
Has it, perhaps, occurred to you that the US healthcare system is sub-optimal in a way that profit-driven insurance companies are institutionally incapable of dealing with. Just a thought…”
NO. The reason I have to explain myself is that the public can be manipulated using statistics. A person can make statistics say whatever they want to say.
Just because the mob thinks something is true does not make it true.
Universal healthcare people are so dense. I wonder if they know who will be administering universal healthcare if it comes about. Let’s see here, will the government just get rid of about 5 major US companies or will it just use them to administer the program so they can continue making profits for the economy.
Anonymous
“Just because the mob thinks something is true does not make it true.”
In the case of KevinMD, the mob is the anti-socialized medicine crowd…
Anonymous
oh I don’t know. It seems there are more healthcare haters on here than anything trying to rid the world of the physician oligarchy that stands repress our freedoms!
Anonymous
The Dinka people of Sudan are taller than the Japanese. Manute Bol for example.
I guess that means the healthcare system of Sudan is superior to the Japanese system.
Or maybe it means that human height is determined by genetics and is not related to a healthcare system.
I’ll leave it up to you to decide.
People keep trying to compare healthcare systems by measures that have little to do with healthcare.
Not total lifespan in a population, but outcome of disease. Speaking of total lifespan, that’s where the Japanese would be superior to the Dinka people, so do you measure a healthcare system by average population height or by total lifespan? Actually…..neither.
How about, when you have a disease, where is the best place to have it cured? Not total lifespan, but when you have cancer, where is the best place to get it treated and hopefully cured? Not infant mortality (and YES, different countries count it differently), but if you have a 26-week preemie, where do you have the best survival?
I don’t know about you, but those are the stats that interest me. When I’m sick, I want to get better.
Anonymous
Here’s a few articles on how those numbers can be massaged.
http://fn.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/88/3/F199
How an infant mortality vs stillbirth can be counted differently in different places.
http://society.guardian.co.uk/nhsperformance/story/0,8150,1528452,00.html
http://www.channel4.com/health/microsites/B/borntoosoon/will.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/womenfamily.html?in_article_id=355778&in_page_id=1799
“The UK has some of the worst perinatal and infant mortality rates in Western Europe, even accounting for statistical differences between countries.”………“Tory health spokeman Andrew Lansley said: “The Bliss report highlights an alarming postcode lottery for infant mortality rates.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/womenfamily.html?in_article_id=350651&in_page_id=1799
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4434778.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4728747.stm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1427445,00.html
“In the Netherlands, doctors will not treat babies born at less than 25 weeks’ gestation………..Here, a large number of babies who would go on to have a very full quality of life would not make it under the Dutch policy.”
Or try: Lives at Risk: Single-Payer National Health Insurance Around the World
by John C. Goodman (Author), Gerald L. Musgrave (Author)
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (August 28, 2004)
ISBN-10: 0742541525
ISBN-13: 978-0742541528
I THINK the infant mortality thing is also discussed here as well:
The Tyranny of Numbers: Mismeasurement and Misrule (Aei Studies, 528) (Hardcover)
by Nicholas Eberstadt (Author)
Publisher: American Enterprise Institute Press (June 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0844737631
ISBN-13: 978-0844737638
Bruce
The original post was about the “Healthy Wisconsin” proposal. A little perspective here…
Wisconsin’s legislative control changed at the last election from Republican-held to split, and the Democrats now control the Senate. The “Healthy Wisconsin” plan passed the Senate on a party line vote. It will never pass the Assembly.
I am a physician who cares for a fair number of uninsured and grossly underinsured people. There are elements of the plan that many in Medicine, business, and the public would probably embrace. Given the rancor in the state house, the possibility of real change is slim to none.
Mr. Stossel was a bit histrionic. For a balanced editorial, please see the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel link at http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=645287.