Does the United States need Socialized Medicine?

The Government stalemate on budget talks has been criticized as just a strategy of both parties to reinforce their agendas in this year's presidential election. However, the final budget draft will have a substantial effect on government social spending, particularly for the poor and elderly, that, can not be qualified as mere rhetoric. Though almost three-fourths of a trillion are spent each year in health care, the government does not guarantee health services to every person, nor will they. Medicare and Medicaid are in a financial crisis. The programs will be strain more each year, as those over age 65--a 12 percent of the population counted in 1990--will number 21 percent by the year 2030. Proposed budget cuts on health care, and the elderly booming, have experts talking about a major health care reform. Policy analyst Nancy Whitman, believes Americans will enjoy better and cheaper health care under a Canadian-type system. But, John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, claims the United States would lose the advantages of the medical free market if a socialized medicine were adopted. I believe the Government should control health care expenditures by abolishing the free-for-service method, establishing instead contracts with health care corporations. According to Whitman, the United States would be able to improve and save money in health care if a system similar to the one operating in Canada were adopted and improved. In Canada, the Government offers to every one, regardless of economic status, medical attention in every hospital and clinic. To provide this universal service, the Canada Government controls the supply of medical resources through rationing. This socialized medicine is paid for with tax revenue, which amounts just to 9 percent of the Gross National Product (GNP). Thus, while in America a worker with a $26,000 salary pays $2,500 for health care, in Canada a similar worker pays only $1,300. Canadians administer the system through provinces. A fixed amount for health care expenditures is given to each province, and each doctor is required to charge the same price for the same service. By contrast, Americans receive two different services: the expensive, high-tech care for the rich and the cheap unprofessional service for the poor. Moreover, American insurance companies discriminate against those with already active diseases and those in need of long care. Instead of reserving high-tech treatments for able to pay individuals, a system controlled by their government would provide equal access to every one. It is true that, Canadians must wait longer than Americans to receive treatment for cancer, coronary bypasses-or CAT-scans. But, a national health care in America would let enough savings to improve the system. While Canada spends 11 cents out of every dollar for administrative cost, the United States pays 24 cents. Money would be saved with a national health care program because under Government control the paperwork would be fairly simple, requiring less personnel to process forms. Indeed, the General Accounting Office (GAO), estimates that $68 billion could be saved with a Canadian health care model; an amount big enough to pay for every person uninsured in the country. And with the already high numbers of advanced machines Americans would be served appropriately, without delay. The transition must be made because the American medical market has failed. Instead of reducing prices, the medical free market increases the cost of treatment. This is happening because companies that spend millions in marketing charges higher prices than those that sell the same products but, are unknown to the public. Thus expensive treatments creates demand for more expensive treatments, more doctors, and higher fees. A national health system would control fees for hospitals and physicians, while still allowing prices of new drugs to fall down by a healthy competition. Even if companies decide to close doors, the savings under a Canadian plan would give the government plenty of money to finance medical research. Taking the other side of the issue, Goodman, alleges the American public would lose medical benefits if a comprehensive national health system were adopted. Though national health programs are less expensive, they do not possess all the advantages its advocates claim. To begin with, the much touted objective of reaching marginal groups is not possible because national health operates under democratic principles, aiming naturally to majorities. This means the American middle class would be the beneficiaries, paying less money for health care and getting more medical attention than the poor. Other more pervasive problems in socialized systems are created by the necessary rationing of its medical resources. Rationing policies affect most directly the elderly because, they receive fewer services. In Britain and New Zealand, for instance, elderly patients have to wait years to receive hip replacement or heart surgery, often dying for lack of attention. Because of this scarcity of public resources, a growing number of the population in both count-rise are turning over to private health insurance to finance their fight against illness. Management, the excellence of the National health systems, is also a failure. Canada, Britain, and New Zealand have shown poor management of their health programs. In both Britain and New Zealand, hospital beds for acute patients are being used for the chronically ill at a price much higher than the one paid in alternative facilities. Moreover, in Great Britain most of the ambulances are used as non-emergency transportation, which generally lack life-saving devices standard in the United States. Count-rise with national health care also spend millions of dollars in medicine to treat sleeping disorders, indigestion, or colds, instead of using those resources to treat patients with cancer or kidney disease. Though Americans spend more in health care, they also receive better and faster services. This is possible because health care facilities have more high-tech instruments to treat illness. There are. for instance, more CAT-scanners, magnetic-resonance-imagining, and radiation therapy units in the U.S. than either in Britain, Canada, France, or West Germany. No wonder, then a 65 year-old American usually lives 1.3 years longer his British Counterpart. Regardless of all its disadvantages, national health systems are popular because few know how the system should work. Socialized medicine works in these countries for three reasons: 1) the wealthy do not complain because they manage to be first on the waiting lists, 2) the poor do not know about better technologies to them unavailable; and 3) there are not legal remedies for the user. Implementing a national health system in the United States soon would crumble because middle class America is full aware of new technologies and legal fairness. I believe the free-for-service method has been abused. the Government should contract with private corporations to provide Medicare and Medicaid services for an annual fee. The "reasonable charge" and "assignment" methods to pay the physician or provider for their services were designed to control spending. However, during the five years after creation of medicare and Medicaid, hospital and physicians raised their fees at more than twice the annual rate of increase in previous years. Though new technologies and a growing elderly population have contributed to the crisis, the unbearable cost of health care is primarily the result of liberal policies of reimbursement. Knowing that their bills would be paid without complaint, hospitals, nursing homes, and physicians overcharge the government for simple or unnecessary services. Likewise, the unlimited fee-for-service profits encouraged health care providers to duplicate medical instruments and facilities when no one was needed, keeping prices high to pay for the new inversions. Medicare and Medicaid should be provided through a managed-care system. Under this system, health care corporations like Blue Cross submit proposals for annual contracts with the State. Because the State would choose the best cost-efficient programs, the competition among health care providers to win contracts would be stimulated and prices would fall down, according to free-market principles. State contracts would include stipulations for fees, standards for services, and quality of treatment as determined by symptoms. Health care providers would also be required to establish comprehensive programs of disease prevention to lower the rate of spending cause by advanced illness. The free market system is the economic version of freedom. It is characteristically American. To trade this sacred tradition for health care savings, as proposed by Whitman, is not only untenable but, also bad policy. Socialized medicine save money at expense of fewer services; it would hinder the quest for research and innovation of entrepreneur America. Absolute Government control of the health care market is not the only choice to the crisis. It is a fact that the free market will always be abused if left unchecked; and that is precisely what the free-for-service has done, allowing its abusers to go unaccountable. More Government control through a managed-care system would save money by compelling health care providers to allocate resources more properly.