Socialized Healthcare Bad for the Economy

[Shipuuden]

Term-Papers.us - Socialized Medicine

The National Center for Public Policy Research said that, “In 1990 the government shared 42 percent of the health and gained over 50 percent of health care in 1992 as expenses begin to rise.” In 1993 health care expenditures consumed 13.9 percent of the Gross Domestic Product and 15.6 percent in 1995 according to the Heritage Foundation. “Typically, people mistakenly blame rising costs on drug manufacturers, insurance companies, physicians, and hospitals. But the rapid growth in medical expenses is rising due to the rise in medical services needed” (Oatman 11-34). As the government attempts to establish health care, hospitals are being overburdened with minor and unnecessary uses of health care services. These have caused emergency rooms to be filled with treating common colds, headaches, and minor scrapes. Medicare is said to be useless by the year 2002, just 8 years before 77 million baby boomers begin to retire. “The only way that the country could continue is to raise taxes severely” (Oatman 40). The supporters of national health care are Canada, Great Britain, France and Germany. All are suffering from severe budget and service problems. They are all losing their best and brightest doctors to the free market systems of the United States. These health care systems have a two-class system. The rich in these systems use private hospitals with private insurance to receive the levels of health care that the average American receives (Peikoff 1994). In Canada, the national health care system is facing many problems. Many hospitals have been closed to cut costs, and proof of this is shown in the amount of Canadian health care workers in the United States. Robert Bourassa, former Premier of Quebec, after discovering that he had melanoma, flew to Washington D.C. for further consultation at the National Cancer Institute. Former Cabinet Minister, John Moore, in charge of British National Health Service, checked himself into a private hospital for treatment of pneumonia. “The British Royal Family has such faith in their health care system, that they are all treated in private hospitals. Socialized medicine is such a failure, even government officials admit to it by their actions” (Mc Cuen, 1988). When health care starts being a right, the medical profession will not be as wealthy, and the quality of medical care will be decreased.

Obama says he will cut taxes for people making under 250K a year, but to fund his "Socialized Healthcare" he will need to raise taxes drastically.

Judge Calls IRS ‘Illogical” And Socialized Health Care Horror Stories « 84RULES

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, in a rare moment of honesty on what he’d really like to do about health care reform, recently asserted that if we were starting from scratch he would probably choose a single-payer health care system.


That’s a system in which people pay higher taxes and the government pays most medical bills.

Obama’s not alone in that opinion. Filmmaker Michael Moore took his “Sicko” audience to England, among other places, where we learned that doctors in that single-payer system made good salaries, had nice homes and cars, and patients were very satisfied.

But anyone who reads the English press will find a different message, including waiting lines, angry patients, rationed and often subquality care.

Socialized Health-Care Nightmare| The Foundation for Economic Education: The Freeman, Ideas on Liberty

Supplies are painstakingly scarce—surgeries at a major trauma-emergency center in Moscow that we observed had no oxygen supply for an entire floor of operating rooms. Monitoring equipment consisted of a manual blood pressure cuff, no airway, and no central monitoring of the heart rate. Intravenous tubing was in such poor condition that it had clearly been reused many times. The surgeon’s gloves were also reused and were so stretched that they slid partially off during the surgery. Needles for suturing were so dull that it was difficult to penetrate the skin. All of this took place in 95 degree F temperature with unscreened windows open; though the hospital was built less than twenty years ago, there was no air conditioning.

Utilization of medical/nursing personnel was very different from our model. The ratio of nurses to patients in the ordinary hospitals was 1 to 30, compared to 1 to 5 in the United States. Duties of the nurse ranged from housekeeping to following medical orders. When asked for her “best nurse,” a head nurse in Moscow helped a young woman up from scrubbing the floor. Five minutes later she was practicing intravenous insertions with equipment donated by us. Both of these functions were in her “job description,” however unofficial that may be. Nurses are unlicensed and are not considered an independent profession in Russia. As a result, all their duties are delegated, with assessment and most documentation completed by physicians. The education of nurses occurs at an age comparable to the last two to three years of American high school.[2] Nurses are educated by physicians, not other nurses. A separate body of scientific knowledge in nursing does not exist.

The role of a patient advocate, heavily assumed by nurses in the United States was distinctly lacking in Russia. Nurses were subjugated to medical bureaucracy. Patients’ rights and patients’ privacy were all but ignored. There is no legal mechanism to protect patients from malpractice. To our amazement we were asked to photograph freely in patient-care settings without seeking patient consent. Patient education and informed consent were dismissed by the socialized system as an unnecessary increase in time and the cost of care. If the society does not respect individual rights in general, it would not do it in hospitals. The Russian medical oath protects the “good of the people,” not necessarily the “good of the person.”

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Let Wisconsin Experiment with Socialized Medicine

The Wall Street Journal editorial-page editors are upset that Wisconsin's state Senate passed "Healthy Wisconsin", which will give health insurance to every person in the state. Of course, the Journal editors are right in saying that the plan is "openly hostile to market incentives that contain costs" and that the "Cheesehead nation could expect to attract health-care free-riders while losing productive workers who leave for less-taxing climes."


In addition, as the Journal put it, "Wow, is 'free' health care expensive. The plan would cost an estimated $15.2 billion, or $3 billion more than the state currently collects in all income, sales and corporate income taxes."

And, of course, down the road it will cost much more than that. Even the $15 billion is based on the usual Pollyannaish assumptions such as millions in savings "from putting more emphasis on primary care."

As usual, most of the new taxes will be imposed on employers. Progressives believe money taken from them doesn't cost anything. Rich corporations will simply waste less on lavish perks and excess profits. But taxes on business are often paid by workers, stockholders and consumers. Businesses that can't pass the taxes on to someone else will close or move out of state.

But progressives are oblivious to this fact. They see Wisconsin becoming a fairyland of health happiness supervised by the 16-person "authority" that will oversee the plan. Socialism will work this time because the "right" people will be in charge.

[surreal]

I'd fix those citations before I turned in the paper if I were you.

[Pexster]

Typical MCP attitude there, surreal

[surreal]

I couldn't help it, I took one look and before I could read the words the cites jumped out at me!