Interesting take by a liberal physician who now opposes Fed.gov medical care

Another case of a liberal who begins to lean right after encountering the real world. Most telling was her description of how the apparatchiks who oversaw the federal program where she provided medical care bullied her into towing the Fed.gov line:

"Compliance with federal regulations requires a team of office bureaucrats, and these managers acted as clinic enforcers. Medical providers were routinely warned, threatened, and bullied over minor infractions or for questioning policies."

https://fee.org/articles/i-was-a-ph...nger-believe-government-health-care-can-work/

Why do leftists expect any other result other with Fed.gov administered medical care?

 

I actually read this article last night. What a great read. Shows us that there are massive drawbacks to govt control of healthcare.

 

And yet, as has been pointed out innumerable times, EVERY OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRY ON THE PLANET has some form of government-run health care, have had it for decades, and it works well.

 

Healthcare is the most personal thing on the planet. Why the f, would you want the govt to run it? And no, it doesn't work well, there are massive shortages, the wait times are long as hell, and the quality is not better than the US. The only problem with the US is the cost of HC, not the quality or timeliness of care. Whenever you take the profit motive out of an industry, and socialize it, the govt has no duty to make it better or innovate, because they're merely just spending other people's money. That's why most of the medical research is done here in the US. If we de-regulate this already highly regulated and monopolistic industry in the US, I don't see why costs will go down. And btw, why do you want to determine, what's good for people? What if people want to keep their private insurance? Because many people do like what they have. Why do you want the government the sole monopoly to take something away from people which they like, and determine what's better for them?

 

Baring insolvent countries and negative interest rates

 

We have a form of government run health care already.

 

I think you packed every single conservative trope about health care and government into one paragraph.

Why would you want the government to run it? Because in countries where the government runs it, costs are lower, outcomes are better, and access to health care doesn't depend on the company you happen to work for. And nobody declares bankruptcy because of medical bills.

The stories about shortages and long wait times are scaremongering anecdotes, not objective data. Actual studies show that wait times are similar to ours.

If people want to have private insurance, they can. Just about every developed country ALSO has private insurance; it operates alongside the government system.

 

In your dreams it works well.

In reality, most of the government run healthcare programs across the globe are sub-standard because they don't offer timely care or they simply tell patients that the care that they need is not available.

Cubans are 100% likely to have a free healthcare provider tell them that the solution that they need is not possible.

 

What's keeping you here?

 

they cannot choose their doctor

what if they prefer an older, whiter, competent male Jewish MD like President Trump has?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Bornstein

 

Name a country where such health care exists that isn't funded by U.S. taxpayers.

What do I mean? Simply all these countries are under the U.S. defense umbrella, where U.S. taxpayers pay for the majority of each country's defense costs. If Germany, France, the UK, Japan, South Korea etc had to fund their own military using their own GDP, they wouldn't be able to provide free health care and other niceties to their citizens.

If the U.S. withdrew all bases and military personnel and told each country they were on their own for defense costs, they would have a choice; continue their social programs and take their chances with Russia and China, or arm up at the cost of these social programs.

But regardless, I'm amazed that leftists would want to turn their local health clinics into a version of their DMV...

 

"Compliance with federal regulations requires a team of office bureaucrats"

so does private insurance

but yes, some laws like mandatory vaginal probes go too far.....

 

Government run systems are sensitive to negative feedback, and insensitive to positive feedback. A regulator, for example, has far more incentive to deny approval of a drug in order to avoid responsibility for negative consequences, than the regulator has incentive to approve a drug that may have great benefit. The reward for the benefit never makes it back to the regulator. You never think, "thank God the FDA approved hip replacement." But just let the FDA approve a drug that makes babies grow extra limbs .... watch out.

There's no telling how much innovation is currently being stifled by those supposed well run government systems designed to protect people from their own choices.

 

Sure, but private insurance is driven by profit, and without a monopoly a bureaucrat as described in my link would be dismissed the first time they drove a doctor away.

Ever see a highly motivated DMV employee go above and beyond what is required of her? Yeah, me either, and this is who would be telling me when I can see a doctor...

 

This is an excellent observation.

Examine a typical government bureaucrat; there is no incentive to do anything other than rigorously follow regulations and deny anything that doesn't fall into their narrow wheelhouse. Virtually anything that requites innovation, diverse thought or extra labor is never pursued...

 

Since when did we become the country of followers instead of the country of leaders?

While most other countries serfs still bowed to royalty, we installed a social and economic system unfounded in the world and took down one of the world's only super powers for our independence.

Now... we are supposed to look to them for direction?

This is a bad defense for policy.

 

Because they are inconvenient truths.

Not true.
Let's use the dental and oral surgical medical care as an example.

Did you know many many americans go to Mexico for care? And their insurance covers it. Why is it so cheap? Because government stays out of it.

Look up non-primary or elective procedures in the UK. Their wait times are often YEARS.

Which is imposed for only one reason. Collectivism.

Like public education, you pay for everybody else's kids school tax even if you send your kids to private school.

The ONLY reason people want government funded healthcare is so coverage can be extended and subsidized for those that otherwise couldn't afford it.

Can we at least admit that?

 

Remove that profit and you remove substantial cost

 

I know you must be referencing this:



Higgs is no fan of government in general but he provides an excellent example of why, in this critique of the FDA.

 

Perhaps, but I'd rather contribute to profit rather than subject myself to medical care that's on par with what we can expect with DMV-like medical care. Just as I wouldn't mind paying more at my DMV to interact with competent individuals seeking a profit rather than incompetent, unmotivated government bureaucrats who could care less about the success of their organization...

 

So.........a libertarian "think" tank puts out an article in line with their views at a time when healthcare is going to be at the top of the issue list for the 2020 election and you get all weak in the knees? I'm beginning to see how you fell for the Conman-in-Chief's con.

 

Well this is a bunch of nonsense. Wait times, shortages, are not anecdotes. They are systemic plagued issues, whenever you socialize anything. Socialize food, get a shortage of food, long wait times. Socialize housing, get a shortage of housing. Cars, get a shortage of cars. This happens literally every time an industry is socialized. And no, wait times in countries with socialized medicine, are not the same as the US, they are worse. If wait times are the same as the US, then why are 'Nearly a quarter of a million British patients have been waiting more than six months to receive planned medical treatment from the National Health Service, according to a recent report from the Royal College of Surgeons. More than 36,000 have been in treatment queues for nine months or more.' (https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallyp...-medicare-for-all-is-collapsing/#5a7f3a936b89)

It is a good thing that some countries offer private insurance. But M4A, and other countries with universal healthcare effectively gets rid of private insurance. It would only have private insurance for mostly cosmetic, and not primary care.

For healthcare, the solution is to look for the best market based system. If and then we find some flaws with market forces, the government can come in with some regulations, like on ER care, etc, while keeping intact strong free markets,... but socializing the whole system, should not be the answer. It should be the last resort.

 

Do you really think we'd see such an article in one of the leftist mainstream media sites?

The article I linked is quite contrary to the liberal/progressive/socialist narrative that Democratic Party operatives posing as journalists have built, that we need single-payer, Fed.gov run health care...

 

Good to see people like minded people here, who get the fundamental drawbacks that government creates.

 

Oh, bullshit. That doesn't even make sense.

The reason we're having a health-care debate is because we spend a lot MORE on health care than other people. In other words, NATO countries spend LESS of their GDP than we do on health care.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS

United States: 17.07%
Britain: 9.76%
Germany: 11.14%
France: 11:54%
Italy: 8.93%
Ireland: 7.38%
Poland: 6.51%
Norway: 10,.5%
Sweden: 10.9%
Denmark: 10.35%
Belgium: 10.03%
Netherlands: 10.36%

So no, the reason they can afford national health care isn't because of our security umbrella. It's because it is CHEAPER TO DO SO.

Irrelevant display of preferring ideology over reality noted.