By : Hugo Gallegos
Real health care reform is a complex issue; therefore it's not possible to cover every aspect of universal health care or reform of the current system in this short article. However we will cover as much ground with the limited space available.
Health Care System Needs Reform, Not a Government Takeover
Believe it or not, America boasts some of the world’s best doctors, the most advanced health care system, and the most technically superior resources in the world, bar none. Those who travel globally and have gotten sick know that their first choice for treatment would be in the U.S. Though health care in America is, more expensive than any other country, many of the worlds wealthiest come to the U.S for surgical procedures and complex care, because it holds a worldwide reputation for the gold standard in health care.
To examine the complex health care issue, a small research study was conducted from randomly selected doctors in mdnationwide.org's best doctors database. We ask 50 top doctors, located in different states and who practice different specialty fields, " Is a universal health care plan good for America?" Forty-eight of these doctors essentially responded that it was a "bad idea" that would have negative impacts on the quality of our nation’s health care.
Social Engineering Your Health Care
One of the greatest mis-conceptions some people have relied on with regard to the health care debate is that, given a universal health care system, every person in the U.S. would receive the highest quality health care - the kind our nation is renowned for and that we currently receive. However, unlike some public amenities, health care is not a collective public service like police and fire protection services, therefore the Government cannot provide the same quality of health care to everyone, because not all physicians are equally good orthopedic surgeons, internists, neurosurgeons, etc, in the same way that not all individuals in need of health care are equally good patients.
As an analogy - stay with me - when you design a software program, there are many elements that are coded on the back-end, and used to manipulate certain aspects of the software program, that your average "John Doe" who uses the software (the end user) does not understand or utilize, nor do they care about these elements. Certain aspects of the program are coded, so that when one uses that portion of the program, other elements of the program are manipulated and automatically follow the present or next command.
Likewise, once a universal health care plan is implemented in America and its massive infrastructure is shaped, private insurance companies will slowly disappear, and as a result, eventually patients will automatically be forced to utilize the government’s universal health care plan. As part of such a system, patients will be known as numbers rather than patients, because such a massive government program would provide compensation incentive based on care provided, patients would become "numbers," rather than "patients." In addition, for cost savings reasons, every bit of health information, including your own, will be analyzed, and stored by the Government. What are the consequences? If you're a senior citizen and need a knee replacement at the age of 70, the government may determine that you're to old and it's not worth the investment cost, therefore instead of surgery, you may be given medication for the rest of your life at a substantial cost savings to the government, and at a high quality of life price to you.
Solutions:
Fixing the current U.S. health care system might require that we;
1. Encourage prevention and early diagnosis of chronic conditions and management.
2. Completely reform existing government health care programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.
3. Forgive medical school debt for those willing to practice primary care in under-served areas.
4. Improve access to care, provide small businesses and the self-employed with tax credits, not penalties for providing health care.
5. Encourage innovation in medical records management to reduce costs.
6. Require tort reform in medical malpractice judgments to lower the cost of providing care.
7. Keep what isn’t broken-research shows 80% of Americans are happy with their current insurance, therefore, why completely dismantle it?
8. Reimburse physicians for their services.
9. Innovate a system in which Medicare fraud is dramatically decreased.
Devil In the Details
Socialized medicine means:
1. Loss of private practice options, reduced pay for physicians, overwhelming numbers of patients, and increasing burn-out may reduce the number of doctors pursuing the profession.
2. Patient confidentiality will need to be compromised, since centralized health care information will be maintained by the government and it's databases.
3. Healthy people who take care of themselves will pay for the burden of those with unhealthy lifestyles, such as those who smoke, are obese, etc.
4. Patients lose the incentive to stay healthy or aren't likely to take efforts to curb their prescription drug costs because health care is free and the system can easily be abused.
5. The U.S. Government will need to call the shots about important health decisions dictating what procedures are best for you, rather than those decisions being made by your doctor(s), which will result in poor individualized patient care.
6. Tax rates will rise substantially-universal health care is not free since citizens are required to pay for it in the form of taxes.
7. Your freedom of choice will be restricted as to which doctor is best for you and your family.
8. Like all public programs, government bureaucracy, even in the form of health care, does not promote healthy competition that reduces costs based on demand. What’s more, accountability is limited to the budgetary resources available to police such a system.
9. Medicare is subsidized by private insurers to the tune of billions of dollars, therefore if you take them out of the equation, add a trillion dollars or more to the current trillion dollar- plus cost estimates.
10. Currently, the government loses an estimated $30 billion a year due to Medicare fraud. Therefore, what makes anyone think that this same government will be able to run & operate a universal health care system that is resistant to fraud and save money while doing so?.
About The Author-- Hugo Gallegos a health information technology expert, author, software architect, and founder of MDNationwide.
