Universal Health Care. Would It Ever Work For The United States?

Since there are so many ideas on how to reform out nation’s Health Care system, it is difficult to know what the right course of action is. Most especially when you are on  the outside looking in. One thing we know for sure is an NHS system or a “Single Payer” Universal Health Care system has NEVER worked in other countries.  All one needs to do is open any newspaper and read the thousands of medical horror stories like these or watch documentary films like these or read recent headlines like this that detail the horrible experiences of those who are victims of such systems. Even in the Sweden where most Universal Health Care advocates point as the nearly perfect health care system. Click here to read the truth about the Swedish health care system.

Recently ABC’s 20/20 program did an in depth study of this issue. The result of which clearly outlined the problems with  the U.S. Health Care System, and outlined a clear & concise path regarding what needs to be done on a National scale to truly reform  our Health Care System. If you have not seen the 20/20 episode entitled “Sick in America” with John Stossel. Please take the time to watch both videos. It will take about 45 min of your time but it is well worth it to know what’s really going on and what can be done right now to accomplish REAL reform without spending Trillions of U.S. Tax Payer Dollars. In fact, it will SAVE us money!

A common example used to further the cause of adopting a Single Payer system in the United States is to point out how well it is working in countries such as France and Canada. 20/20 touches on this in the above episode. However, very few have done a more in depth study of Canada’s Single Payer system than documentary film maker Stuart Browning. For even more about what is really going on with the Canadian  health care system please watch his short but very informative documentary videos below. Again, well worth your time.

What’s it like JUST TO SEE A DOCTOR with Canada’s Single Payer System? Watch Steven Crowder’s hidden camera:

Worse yet, a new December 2010 study shows that health care waiting times in Canada have gotten even worse and are costing nearly a BILLION dollars in lost production time. Click here to read December 2010 study.

Still even in light of over overwhelming evidence there are still those who advocate the implementation of a Single Payer Health Care system right here in the United States. Click here to find out why that WOULD NOT WORK!

Certain “progressive” states have already adopted such State Run Health Care Systems. Take a look at what happened to Barbara Wagner who was a victim of the “Oregon Public Health Insurance Plan”. When Government runs ANYTHING it’s all about price containment and not the Health & Welfare of the Patient.

Just LOOK at the damaging affect Government has has on the PRICE and AVAILABILITY of life saving pharmaceuticals!

Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world.  Economists, government officials, insurers and academics alike are beating the drum for a far larger government role in health care.  Much of the public assumes their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex.  However, before turning to government as the solution, some unheralded facts about America’s health care system should be considered, says Scott W. Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor at the Stanford University Medical Center.

Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers:

 

• Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom.
• Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway.
• The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries:

 

• Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease.
• By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians:

 

• Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent).
• Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”

Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom:

 

• Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long — sometimes more than a year — to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer.
• All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada.
• In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.

Source: Scott W. Atlas, “10 Surprising Facts About American Health Care,” National Center for Policy Analysis, Brief Analysis No. 649, 3/24/09 http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17770

Because of how the Single Payer System is designed, citizens of England & Canada have NO WHERE NEAR the choices that we as American citizens do. As a matter of fact, until very recently (2005) it was simply not possible for a Canadian citizen to pay for their own health care or to purchase private medical insurance that would “bump them up the long waiting list” for medical treatments. The reason Canadian citizens now have the right to do so (and it is still limited) is a direct result of long hard battles (many that are still being fought) that have been waged by brave Canadian citizens like Dr. Jacques Chaoulli who took his clients case all the way to the Canadian supreme court and won! Dr. Chaoulli (http://www.healthcoalition.ca/chaoulli.html) and his patient, George Zeliotis, launched their legal challenge to the Canadian government’s monopolized healthcare system after waiting more than a year for hip-replacement surgery.

Canada’s high court found for the plaintiffs and in doing so issued the following statement: “The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public healthcare system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public healthcare. The evidence also demonstrates that the prohibition against private health insurance and its consequence of denying people vital healthcare result in physical and psychological suffering that meets a threshold test of seriousness.” Furthermore, Justice Marie Deschamps said, “Many patients on non-urgent waiting lists are in pain and cannot fully enjoy any real quality of life. The right to life and to personal inviolability is therefore affected by the waiting times.”

Furthermore, the Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute which keeps track of Canadian waiting times for various medical procedures. According to the Fraser Institute’s 14th annual edition of “Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada (2006),” total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed, rose from 17.7 weeks in 2003 to 17.9 weeks in 2006. Depending on which Canadian province you live in, a simple MRI requires a wait between 7 and 33 weeks! Orthopedic surgery could require a wait of 14 weeks for a referral from a general practitioner to the specialist and then another 24 weeks from the specialist to treatment! For even more real life horror stories about Canadian citizens left in the lurch by the Canadian healthcare system read the well researched and fact based Wall Street Journal article entitled “Too Old For Hip Surgery” here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123413701032661445.html?mod=article-outset-box This is what happens when you put government in control of your health care decisions. Doing so in this country, would be nothing short of a train wreck. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply uninformed or “willfully ignorant”.

What has our government done, to convince people to hand over our very health freedoms for it to govern over?

Katrina……..?

Fannie Mae – bailout? (this is a government entity who’s employee’s receive bonuses!) What other government employee receives bonuses for doing their jobs?

Social security – bankrupt ? (robbed for other expenditures)

Medicaid – ? (robbed for other expenditures)

$2 trillion Porkulus bill – ? (and growing)

AIG, GM, Big Banks (via T.A.R.P.) – bail outs, the “Stimulus”, the” OmniBus Spending Bill”, QE1 & QE2 and so much more. Yet no one seems to know where all OUR money went? No committee of oversight in place (even though it was promised by our representatives to be in place immediately).

Since our government “cannot” be sued, how will one be able to be recompensed for its malfeasance or neglect? How will the government, once it tells 300 million people “go see the doctor we will pay all the bills”, be able to control the consequences? By overwhelming our medical profession or breaking it, will come another “grand government solution,” we need more money to fix it”! You are already familiar and have accepted this excuse for too long, and know this to be their power solution. Our government has impoverished our families’ financial freedom to pay our own way, by immoral taxation. Want to know what such a government endeavor will cost the U.S. Tax Payer? Read the April 12, 2009 Wall Street Journal article entitled “The End of Private Health Insurance” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123958544583612437.html?mod=googlenews_wsj  For more information visit: www.TruthAboutObamaCare.com