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Socialized healthcare
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10324

My fears, exactly.

The actuarial firm Lewin Associates estimates that, depending on how premiums, benefits, reimbursement rates and subsidies were structured, as many as 118.5 million people, roughly two-thirds of those with insurance today, would shift from private to public coverage — or be pushed. Businesses would have every incentive to dump their workers into the public plan. The result would be a death spiral for private insurance. In the end, the vast majority of Americans would have no choice. They would be stuck in a government plan, putting the government in charge of which doctors they see or which treatments they could receive.
I'd go further. If the system starts to fail, people will need someone to blame. So just like Canada, we'd probably force doctors to see public plan patients and suffer a pay cut. Everything will be rationed due to financial, not material, scarcity.

This is exactly why many Canadians cross the border to pay for things like hip replacements out of pocket rather than waiting years or more for free care. They'd gladly pay for it out of pocket in Canada, but alas that isn't legal.

Whatever healthcare solution we ultimately decide upon, it must not diminish the level of service provided by today's top-tier plans.

DranoKPosted on Wednesday July 1st, 2009 at 11:04 AM by DranoK
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Tags: cato, health care, insurance, obama
2 Comments, 1057 Views




2 Comments:
RathaAt 09:33 AM on Thursday July 7th 2009 (252 Days 15 Hours ago)
Ratha posted the following:


I agree entirely that the service for top tier plans needs to remain unchanged. It seems like there needs to be a split.. that we will absolutely need to have doctors who still run private practices. Perhaps in a slightly reduced number then we have today if many people are going to be switching to a public plan. The option still needs to be there. But in order to cover the rest of the public under said public plan, we would likely need to train more doctors.

I wonder if colleges pushing incentives on students who dont know what path they want to take would help fill that future need for more private or public doctors before we find ourselves with a shortage? Perhaps as part of the course to getting to their own private practice, have doctors complete a couple years in the public sector before being licensed for private care where they can then choose their own path?

It would seem to me that the newer generation of doctors are going to have many advantages over our older doctors, training with more state of the art equipment, computers and knowledge databases at their fingertips, this extremely long cycle of schooling could probably be reduced slightly as more information becomes easier to access, and the tools for which they have to work with become more advanced and easier to learn and use.

I could be wrong, but if the government is going to dump a ton of money into health care, the quality of health care due to new, faster, and easier to use equipment being installed to increase efficiencies could potentially balance out some of the increased workload and strain on the system. Our hospitals around here are flailing in the wind as it is half the time, generally understaffed and are often having budget cuts everywhere to the point where they are rationing blankets, towels, and other laundry that the nurses can give to patients. There was a lot of fighting over that stuff not too long ago.


DranoKAt 11:43 AM on Friday July 7th 2009 (251 Days 13 Hours ago)
DranoK posted the following:


Perhaps as part of the course to getting to their own private practice, have doctors complete a couple years in the public sector before being licensed for private care
.. They already do.

It would seem to me that the newer generation of doctors are going to have many advantages over our older doctors, training with more state of the art equipment, computers and knowledge databases at their fingertips
I disagree this produces better doctors ;) Besides, all good doctors are always learning and attending training conferences.

I could be wrong, but if the government is going to dump a ton of money into health care, the quality of health care due to new, faster, and easier to use equipment being installed to increase efficiencies could potentially balance out some of the increased workload and strain on the system.
Again, new technology doesn't necessarily mean better care. A $100,000 program of photon radiation therapy for colon cancer doesn't increase the likelihood of surviving any more than a $4000 program of "watchful care". Technology is a wonderful thing, yes, but just because something is shinier doesn't mean it's better.

The problem with a government plan is it will never pay the same amount as a private plan would. So doctors will either take a pay cut or only offer their services to those with private insurance. Businesses would rather shift their employee health care burden over to the government plan, however, so more and more people would end up with worse health insurance than they have now.

At least that's what my crystal ball says.


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