One of the top stories in the news this week has been the increased tension surrounding universal health care. (See for instance Health debate turns hostile at meetings.) The plan being discussed in congress certainly has its problems, but unfortunately we have reached the point where meaningful discussion has transitioned into hyperbolic arguing with emphasis on scare tactics, skewed statistics and atypical anecdotal stories — and that is from both sides.
Sarah Palin
A prime example of this can be found in a statement by Sarah Palin which she posted on her facebook page. Here is an exerpt:
The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.
Discussion of health care does involve life and death decisions. It also involves money. In our current system money, not human rights and human dignity is the primary consideration. It takes money to have health care. The insurance companies are out to make money. They make more money by charging people more and paying less.
Lets look at some of the charges against a universal plan, and see how they apply to the current system
- Health care will be rationed – People are worried about the government telling them what procedures they can get and where they can get it. Guess what… that already happens. Insurance companies dictate which doctors you can go to and which procedures are covered. Plus, those without health insurance can’t get the procedures at all, so we are rationing for rich. We may disagree whether health care is a right or a privileged, but I am not comfortable with the deciding factor on who lives and dies being wealthy. Palin argues the elderly, sick and disabled will be the ones most affected. The irony is that these groups are the ones who already have the hardest time getting coverage. Even with a minor pre-existing condition, getting coverage is very difficult if it is not employer provided. Again, we see rationing already exists, but the only people who get it are the skilled.
- There will be a bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor – Guess what… there already is. If you look at the chart designed by the GOP in order to scare people into thinking things are more complicated than they are, you will realize most of the boxes and lines already exist. We already have government involvement in health care. Universal health care would not add another layer, it would simply change who you are dealing with. As it is, the insurance companies stand between you and your doctor and they are motivated to not provide you with service because doing so would cost additional money.
- America has the best health care in the world and that will be lost – This one is all about definitions. What is undisputed is that America has the most expensive health care. We pay on average more than double the average of every other developed nation in the world. However, even after spending that much we still are 17th in the world in terms of life expectancy. According to the World Health Organization, we are far from having the best system:
The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of GDP on health services, ranks 18 th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.
I think there is plenty of room for discussion around this topic, but we first must be honest with the system we have. America is not plotting new ground here, instead we are following every other developed nation in the world who has chosen to go this path.
