Let Wisconsin Experiment with Socialized Medicine

[Chuckiechan]

Nothing like a real world experiment...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...ment_with.html

[Pexster]

Congress has their own health care plan. Maybe that can be used as a model. I'm betting they created a fairly good one for themselves.

[Harold7]

I'd love to see this in action, but for a really fair test, ALL federal health care money should be prohibited to show what happens when a closed system of socialism is put into operation without external subsidies.

How long would it take for residents, doctors and businesses to vote with their feet to avoid the crushing burden of taxes, wage and price controls in health care and the inevitable waiting lists for care... the main reason for demands by liberals for a nationwide system... it leaves no room for choice for the individual.

What a great experimental laboratory to let the socialist model compete in proximity to market driven health care.

[Chuckiechan]

Quote:

How long would it take for residents, doctors and businesses to vote with their feet

Thats why the Dem's want single payer, universal health care. They want you to have nowhere else to go.

I can see Mexico becoming a destination. Especially as more doctors leave the USA.

Oddly, the only Democrat interest group against universal heath care are the trial lawyers. We'll have to see how the Dem's placate them.

[MTAtech]

One can't trust the WSJ Editorial pages for clear insight. The Journal's editorial pages are notoriously biased and more often wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harold7

What a great experimental laboratory to let the socialist model compete in proximity to market driven health care.

It's hardly 'socialist" when citizens can choose their own doctors. Our current system is bureaucratist, by giving control of health care to bureaucrats in insurance companies and hospitals, who only care about their bottom line and therefore decide which doctors you can receive services and what treatment you can get. The Wisconsin system allows medical decisions to be made bewteen you and your doctor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckiechan

Thats why the Dem's want single payer, universal health care. They want you to have nowhere else to go.

[Chuckiechan]

Quote:

NOW you have no place else to go since the private plan dictates where you can go for service. Under the Wisconsin system you can go to the doctor of your choice.

I have a variety of PPO's, HMO's, and other initials I can go to.

We'll wait with baited breath to see in Wisconsin's plan collapses. Meanwhile, back in California, the medical care program has stalled.

[Atomic Rooster]

What more could a liberal democrat want? Government controlled medicine and higher taxes. It's nirvana.

[MTAtech]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atomic Rooster

What more could a liberal democrat want? Government controlled medicine and higher taxes. It's nirvana.

As a so-called conservative, I would have thought that you would appreciate lower costs to businesses and citizens and more free-market choices (e.g. you aren't limited to a narrow choice of doctors in a plan but can use any doctor.)

What difference does it make if health costs are in the form of taxes or premiums? I'd surely trade in $17 billion is costs for $15 billion in taxes. I save $2 billion.

[Harold7]

Gee, MTA, you make this sound like heaven on earth, so when does the mass migration of people and businesses into Wisconsin to take advantage of this health care utopia begin?

I wonder... just how much of this system will be subsidized with federal tax dollars?

If the poor, the unemployed, illegal aliens, etc., can't pay the premiums will the state provide a subsidy and if so is there going to be a flood of those on the bottom of the economic ladder into Wisconsin for all the essentially free medical care they can get?

As with most government programs, once the government starts providing services paid for by others, how long before the demand for increased health care coverage outstrips the supply of money available to pay for it?

Will the people tolerate the inevitable waiting lists for medical procedures that a finite pot of money and a growing demand always produce?

How is this going to impact the medical profession... will the State institute wage and price controls over providers and hospital staff to control system costs... will they also control wages and prices for those businesses that supply medical goods and services... will tort lawyers be brought to heel with limits on lawsuits?

It's going to be interesting to see this in actual operation... these type systems never, ever operate as they're hyped to be, there are always unintended social consequences and the realities of finances that tend to put a crimp in actual operation of government programs... demand always grows faster than the supply of money to pay for the services.

[MTAtech]

Harold, those are all good questions. For a look into answers let's look at a real life example, France, which system seems similar.

Quote:

Its hospitals gleam. Waiting-lists are non-existent. Doctors still make home visits. Life expectancy is two years longer than average for the western world.

....For the patient, the French health system is still a joy. Same-day appointments can be made easily; if one doctor's advice displeases, you can consult another, a habit known as nomadisme médical. Individual hospital rooms are the norm. Specialists can be consulted without referral. And while the patient pays up front, almost all the money is reimbursed, either through the public insurance system or a top-up private policy.

For family doctors too, liberty prevails. They are self-employed, can set up a practice where they like, prescribe what they like, and are paid per consultation. As the health ministry's own diagnosis put it recently: “The French system offers more freedom than any other in the world.”

...
[T]he French system provides this service to everyone in the country and does it for less than half the cost per person of the U.S. Even if they decide to raise taxes to cover a growing deficit in their healthcare fund (the subject of the Economist's article) their costs will still be less than half ours per person.