Healthcare can therefore be divided into these categories:
Quality
Accessibility
Cost
Autonomy
As far as quality goes, America ranks amongst the highest quality health care systems in the world. Technology is unmatched, and outcomes are comparable if not exceeding other nations. According to the Lancet Oncology journal 91.9 per cent of American men with prostate cancer were still alive after five years, compared with only 51.1per cent in Britain.
The same publication suggests that 90.1 per cent of women in the U.S. diagnosed with breast cancer between 2000 and 2002 survived for at least five years, as against 77.8 per cent in Britain. Overall life expectancy in general is very similar between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada; varying only 2 years according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Wait times are comparable if not shorter in the United States. According to the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, which studies health-care policy, U.S. patients had the second-shortest wait times if they wished to see a specialist or have nonemergency surgery. Germany was the fastest, which does have nationalized health care, but interestingly has gone through massive reform recently with the conservative party taking control. So the question then is not whether or not the health care in the United States is any good, but is instead if the health care in the United States will be the same or better with Obama's proposed reforms. Technology shouldn't be affected very much, but if you bombard the health care system with 40 million more people without changing the number of practitioners, it is doubtful the wait time will decrease, or that the outcomes will improve.
After comparison has been made to universal health care models in other countries, the argument could be posed that our society is somehow different. We do things differently in America for sure. What would it look like if the government had a larger role in the health care system. To do that, we can look at what the government already does in health care. The best example of currently government run hospitals are the Veterans Hospitals (VA). Without even attempting to find written evidence VA hospitals are poorly run, I can tell you first hand of my experiences there. I also challenge you to discuss with ANYONE who has worked at the VA hospital in ANY CITY about how terrible the health care can be. I have worked at the VA in Lebanon (PA), Phoenix (AZ), Long Beach (CA), Hampton (VA), and Portland (OR), so I would argue I have a fairly representative sample.
Employees in the VA system run on a different time scale than the rest of the world. If you thought government employees at the DMV were slow (no offense, but we all know it's true), just imagine if your grandfather were dying and we needed a CT scan. He may get one tomorrow, or monday if it's the weekend. It better not be a holiday on monday, because he'll definitely have to wait until tuesday. What about blood? If your same grandfather came into the VA complaining about chest pain and needed to be evaluated for a heart attack, we draw blood every 6-8 hours to make sure his heart is ok. There better be someone else who knows how to draw blood because the ONE phlebotomist in the ENTIRE hospital may decide to take a break, not come to work, or quit without telling anyone. Yes, all three have happened to me, and I drew the blood MYSELF because I didn't want my patient to die. Now I don't think I'm above drawing blood, but if every doctor had to perform each test he ordered himself, no patients would be taken care of. That is why we do hire phlebotomists, nurses, and technicians. A person may argue it doesn't take that long to draw blood. Try doing that on all your assigned patients in the hospital, and then there's definitely a problem. For the sake of argument, I'll give you an example of something that takes longer than drawing blood. A man comes into the hospital with liver failure and about 8 liters of fluid in his belly. He's having a lot of abdominal pain, so I perform a pericentesis where I stick a needle in his belly to drain the fluid for comfort and to make sure he doensn't have an infection which can kill him. I drain the fluid and take the sample down to the laboratory and order a stat gram stain and fluid studies to make sure he's not infected. The lab tech responds by asking me if I know how to do a gram stain because he doesn't "feel like doing it." Once again, I'm not above doing gram stains, and I did them in medical school, high school, and college biology. The problem is, you have to put the sample on a slide, dry it, stain it twice, and look under the microscope. This is something a physician would rather not do when he's on call, and all the new sick patients need his attention, but yes I did the gram stain. I have also wheeled my own patients to the CT scanner, MRI, and Xray because nobody else wanted to do it. To make things worse, I've had at least a couple patients who the nurses decided to let stay at an oxygen level of 60% without calling a doctor because they didn't feel the need. Just so you know, a person needs much more oxygen than that, and all of them died that morning. I filed incident reports on all of those, and the people still work at those same hospitals. The problem is, my experience is not unusual, and I doubt anyone would want that kind of care for their loved one.
In regard to accessibility, I would argue EVERYONE in America has the potential to access the health care system. This doesn't mean everyone has good care, but everyone can obtain health care in one way or another if their life depended on it. There are private hospitals if the patient can afford it, there are county hospitals if they can't afford it, and there are countless low cost commuity clinics to render care to people. There are also many charity programs available. Please don't take me as saying I am satisfied with the current state of healthcare, but rather there are minimum standards currently being addressed in America. Why then would the entire health care system require an overhaul to a completely different system if a little improvement could go a long way? I'll discuss my ideas for improvement shortly.
One last comment before I discuss some suggestions we initiate prior to revamping the entire healthcare system. I believe everyone should have health care, but I don't believe everyone should demand it from others or be entitled to it. What ever happened to personal responsibility? I would like everyone to live in a big house and have lots of money, but that's not how the world works. In fact, I work very hard for my salary, and would like to choose to who and what cause it goes to benefit. The private sector donates millions if not billions to charity and health care in various forms, why should everyone then be mandated by the government to give a percentage of their hard earned money to specific causes they don't believe in? I volunteer at free clinics, go on medical missions trips, and contribute my share in addition to taxes to the poor. I don't believe everyone should be FORCED to do what others do voluntarily. Why did some of my patients at an underserved clinic in Santa Ana, CA come to my clinic driving a better car than I do? That's not me saying I want a really nice car, that's me saying they can probably afford to pay for their care. Monthly insurance costs roughly $300 a month. As you add people/dependents, the relative cost per person decreases. It comes down to priorities. If they value a nice car more than they value health care, why should someone else pay for their health insurance? If they truly are unable to pay for it, as I've stated before, there are programs to assist them.
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