No

by G.L.F. Gammey

Created on: May 28, 2008

Universal health care is a system in which each state pays for the health care of all its residents of a geographic or political entity regardless of their medical condition or financial status. Is this politically feasible? The answer would be no.

Currently there are a few countries that practice this method, including Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy.

Some of the problems that universal health care programs face include a lack of incentive for patients to locate the best possible prices for the best possible services or products available; physicians do not have the incentive to provide competitive care and drug companies' do not have incentives to provide new drugs and treatments; universal health care programs are subsidized by taxpayers which means less money in the civilians pockets; the quality of health in a free health care system deteriorates and the average citizen will become sicker; this program will destroy your privacy because the federal government will now believe that they have a right to dictate what you eat, whether you smoke, whether you exercise, or the activities you take part in like riding motorcycles; and this program destroys your liberty by bestowing power on politicians and bureaucrats who take their orders from the wealthiest such as well-connected health care companies.

Canada

The current health care system in Canada is suffering and may have to be revised. One of the reasons this health care system seems to be inadequate is the failure of the medical care facilities to provide the needed care within a reasonable timeframe.
1.For an ophthalmologist, it takes nearly 25 weeks to receive an appointment
2.For orthopedic care, it takes nearly 21 weeks to receive an appointment
3.For heart-bypass surgery, it takes more than 18 weeks to receive an appointment
4.For a neurosurgeon, it takes over 16 weeks to receive an appointment
5.For a gynecological exam, it takes nearly 12 weeks to receive an appointment
These delays in receiving proper medical care have been attributed to everyone wanting as much health care as he or she can acquire because it is free.

In the 1980s, health care costs came close to tripling in Canada. Therefore, the bureaucrats began rationing supply by closing hospitals, reducing medical payments, and limiting the amount of hours doctors are allowed to spend in surgery.

According to official accounting statistics, the net cost of administering private health care insurance within the United States is approximately 7.6 percent of benefit payments while Canada's system is only 0.9%. However, when looking at costs, it does no good to only take this into account. There are more factors that need to be examined to truly know what the Universal health care system costs Canada and its citizens. For example, Canadian patients incur extra costs because they have to visit their doctors more frequently than do U.S. patients for the equivalent services and they sometimes face longer waits for hospital services, which results in lost productivity of patients and their families because of the inability to get medical care promptly.

Another issue that Canadian's face is that the fee schedules for Canadian physicians have not kept up with inflation, resulting in physicians requiring their patients to make multiple short visits to receive services that would be provided in a single visit within the United States. Each of these visits requires travel costs as well as the cost of having to wait in the doctor's office.

Due to the limited acute care services in Canadian hospitals, large numbers of patients are awaiting major surgery or surgical procedures.

The United States already funds medical care for lower income people. Instead of going to the extreme in promoting a universal health care system that will likely prove to be extraordinarily expensive and unsuccessful, I propose that we decrease the requirements to receive these benefits. Currently, you have to be almost totally poor and the welfare system does not take into account the amount of bills outgoing per month when they decide whether you qualify for assistance.

I am not opposed to offering tax incentives to businesses and individuals for acquiring their own insurance. There are politicians out there who believe they are helping the poor by overtaxing business. However, by taxing the businesses too much we run the risk of kicking them out of the country to take advantage of those places that do not have exorbitant business taxes in place. This is more harmful to the American people than giving tax breaks to businesses because we are the ones who suffer at the loss of jobs.

REFERENCES

1.Universal Health Care. http://www.quickoverview.com/issues/universal-healthcare-system.html
2.The Problems with Socialized Health Care.
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/sergeman/issues/healthcare/socialized.html
3.Canadian Health Care System. http://www.ncpa.org/ea/eajf93/eajf93r.html

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