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A modest proposal and passing thought.
May. 20th, 2009 12:52 pmReforming health care.
So far we've been dancing around, trying to paper up the cracks in the system, when the real problem (in my opinion) is structural. Basing health insurance off your job requires that everybody have jobs and all jobs offer insurance, and neither of those things is even remotely so.
I kind of like the idea of single payer health care. Canada and Britain do it, if I understand right, and neither of them is blowing up, burning down, and sinking into the swamp. I've heard that if you have a knee injury in Britain you may wait a year or more to see an orthopedic surgeon, and I agree that's kind of a long time. But at the same time, sick people can see a doctor--without going to the emergency room (which I think they call the "casualty ward") and without having to get a second mortgage on the house.
Whereas here we have old people sitting in the hospital parking lot, weeping, because they know they're having a stroke and minutes can make the difference between being paralyzed for life and recovering more-or-less okay, but they're terrified that if they go into the emergency room, they'll lose their house.
Maybe some people are comfortable with that, but I'm not.
What if we had single payer health care? I understand that maybe we can't afford to insure everybody to full access to 2009 (and future) medical advances at public expense. Some kinds of hormone treatments or new drugs or tests are very expensive. But maybe we could afford to insure everybody to, say, 1975 levels of medical care? Or 1980? 1985? Plus those advances that made care cheaper; for example I bet arthroscopic knee surgery is cheaper than the old fashioned kind.
Yes, people who were rich might be able to afford better insurance or pay for more advanced care out of their own pockets, so in effect I guess it would be a two-tier health care system. But wouldn't 1975-level care be a lot better than nothing? And wouldn't it be cheaper to fund than, for lack of a better term, "full care?"
So far we've been dancing around, trying to paper up the cracks in the system, when the real problem (in my opinion) is structural. Basing health insurance off your job requires that everybody have jobs and all jobs offer insurance, and neither of those things is even remotely so.
I kind of like the idea of single payer health care. Canada and Britain do it, if I understand right, and neither of them is blowing up, burning down, and sinking into the swamp. I've heard that if you have a knee injury in Britain you may wait a year or more to see an orthopedic surgeon, and I agree that's kind of a long time. But at the same time, sick people can see a doctor--without going to the emergency room (which I think they call the "casualty ward") and without having to get a second mortgage on the house.
Whereas here we have old people sitting in the hospital parking lot, weeping, because they know they're having a stroke and minutes can make the difference between being paralyzed for life and recovering more-or-less okay, but they're terrified that if they go into the emergency room, they'll lose their house.
Maybe some people are comfortable with that, but I'm not.
What if we had single payer health care? I understand that maybe we can't afford to insure everybody to full access to 2009 (and future) medical advances at public expense. Some kinds of hormone treatments or new drugs or tests are very expensive. But maybe we could afford to insure everybody to, say, 1975 levels of medical care? Or 1980? 1985? Plus those advances that made care cheaper; for example I bet arthroscopic knee surgery is cheaper than the old fashioned kind.
Yes, people who were rich might be able to afford better insurance or pay for more advanced care out of their own pockets, so in effect I guess it would be a two-tier health care system. But wouldn't 1975-level care be a lot better than nothing? And wouldn't it be cheaper to fund than, for lack of a better term, "full care?"
