Why Socialized Medicine Leads to the Prohibition of Private Medicine
An article in today’s (Feb. 20, 2006) New York Times makes clear that Canada’s much ballyhooed system of socialized medicine, in addition to being plagued by interminable waits for treatment, has prohibited competition from private medicine. But now, as the result of a ruling last June by Canada’s Supreme Court, limited forms of private medical care are apparently in process of being allowed to appear, at least in some provinces. ...
To most Americans it may come as something of a shock simply to learn that all is not well with health care in Canada. That’s because Canada’s system has continuously been held up as the model for the United States to follow. ...
I could stop here, with the satisfaction of conveying knowledge that the system of socialized medical care in Canada is in fact so unwell that the door to its replacement with private medical care has been opened. But there is a deeper point I want to make, which will help to establish why socialized medicine is a profoundly evil and immoral system, that should never be implemented anywhere. ...
Socialized medicine is advocated as the means of making medical care free or almost free, thereby enabling even the very poorest people to afford all of it that they need. Unfortunately, when medical care is made free, the quantity of it that people attempt to consume becomes virtually limitless. Office visits, diagnostic tests, procedures, hospitalizations, and surgeries all balloon. If nothing further were done, the cost would destroy the government’s budget. [So]... cost[s] controls are imposed. The government simply draws the line on how much it is willing to spend. But so long as nothing limits the office visits, requests for diagnostic tests, etc., etc., waiting lines and waiting lists grow longer and longer.
Then the government seeks to limit the number of office visits, etc., by more narrowly limiting the circumstances in which they can occur. For example, a given diagnostic test may be allowed only when a precise set of symptoms is present and not otherwise. ...
As part of the process of cost control, the government controls and sometimes reduces the compensation it allows to physicians and surgeons. For example, in the present fiscal year, in the United States, the fees paid to physicians by Medicare are scheduled to fall by four percent. (The New York Times, Feb. 4, 2006.)
Now all one need do to understand why socialized medicine leads to the prohibition of private medicine is simply to hold in mind the combination of deteriorating medical treatment and controlled physician incomes under socialized medicine and ask what would happen if an escape from this nightmare exists in the form of private medicine. Obviously, physicians who want to earn a higher income and to have the freedom to treat their patients in accordance with their own medical judgment will flee the socialized system for the private system and leave basically only the dregs of medicine for what will remain of the socialized system. That is what the government’s prohibition of private medical care is designed to prevent.
This was confirmed in arguments before the Canadian Supreme Court. The Times article on the subject reported that:
"Various medical experts, government representatives and union leaders argued in court that privatization of insurance and services would bring an exodus of medical talent from public to private practices, and make waiting times even longer".
And there you have it. Socialized medicine destroys the quality of medical care and dare not allow the competition of private medical care. To prevent that competition, it must prohibit private medical care and establish a legal monopoly on medical care."
It's hard to disagree with much that was presented in this article, but what better way to get your point across about all the problems presented by socialized medicine then to pick the worst example.
First off, I have never advocated "making medical care free or almost free" to everyone. What I have advocated is that health "insurance" should be made available to everyone on equal terms. It is unfair to exclude those with pre-existing conditions from being able to continue to purchase health insurance, or purchase it at the fair market value, assuming they have been purchasing insurance prior to becoming ill, simply because they are unemployed.
Plus I have advocated making the purchase of health insurance mandatory, much like auto insurance is mandatory in many states.
The problem we have in this country is that health care is free, not almost free, but totally free to many in this society, creating just the environment described in this article, and we shift the cost, for that care, to those who purchase health insurance.
Nothing we do, in the form of HSAs, or shifting more costs on to the consumers, will fix the problems with health care in the US until we adopt a policy of universal enrollment, requiring everyone to purchase a minimum level of health insurance.
We need to stop looking at Canada or even the UK for a health care system to copy. There are many other countries around the world, e.g. Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Japan etc. that have health care systems patterned very closely to that currently practiced in the US, with the sole exception that everyone is required to purchase a basic level of insurance. In all those countries, waiting times are non existent, outcomes are better then the US, and they do it at less than half the cost.