Health Care Reform Part 2: Government is Not the Answer

It doesn't take long to figure out why government-sponsored health care is not the answer to our health care problems in the United States. Government health care simply doesn't work. It's not financially sustainable, and it does not improve the health care system. It has been tried before in both the U.K. and Canada, and it is failing in both countries. It's even been tried in the United States with Medicare and Medicaid and they are failing as well. The U.K. and Canada are currently expanding their private health care sectors in response to widespread problems with their public systems. If the government systems are failing everywhere then why are we moving in the opposite direction in the United States?

The fundamental problem with "free" government health care is that it isn't free. As I outlined in part 1 of this series, someone pays for it. When the patient is not held accountable for his or her own health care costs then the overall costs for the entire system go up. When something is free the supply of products or services dries up very quickly. It's very basic economics. In the case of "free" health care it leads to people requesting and receiving services and/or procedures that they do not need. If they had to pay for it (or at least a portion of it) themselves then they surely wouldn't buy something they don't need. "Free" health care inevitably leads to rationing. Rationing means lines and long waits for health care. Rationing means less access to health care for everyone. But don't people say that government-sponsored health care increases access? They're wrong. It does the exact opposite. Keep reading for plenty of examples of the failures of the U.K. and Canadian health care systems and how government health care actually restricts access to health care rather than increasing it.

Canada
You will see here that years ago Canada had already begun its march towards privatization of the health care industry. The turn towards privatization is a direct response to the failures of their single-payer government health care system, the exact road that we're headed down. Look here and you'll find data from 2005 that outlines wait times for various specialties (due to rationing). Any of this look alarming to you? How about 11 weeks just to see a neurosurgery specialist? Oh, and don't forget to add in the waiting period just to see a primary care specialist. Many regions in Canada have lotteries to decide who gets to go to the primary care doctor. If you subsequently need to see a neurosurgeon and get referred then it's another 8 weeks after seeing the specialist until you actually receive treatment. That's over five months from referral to treatment for brain related medical issues! I'm pretty sure many neurological issues are a lot more urgent than a five month wait. But hey, it's free right?

U.K.
The U.K. is also increasingly reliant upon the private sector for their health care. Additionally, in the United Kingdom they have developed a standard that they use to measure success regarding wait times from referral to treatment. If the wait time is less than the standard then it's considered a "success." Care to take a guess at how many weeks they consider successful? Their standard for "success" is eighteen weeks from referral to treatment! Can you imagine a wait time of eighteen weeks being considered "successful" here in the United States?!? What if you went to the doctor tomorrow with a broken leg or some sort of trauma and they said "okay, we'll try to get you treated within 18 weeks." You would go nuts! Check out this data from August of 2008 (the "adjusted admitted pathways" link). Just browse through the different regions and specialties and see the percentages of people who were actually treated within 18 weeks. Look at line 35 and you'll find that three out of ten "trauma and orthopaedic" patients at this particular hospital had to wait over five months to get treated for trauma and orthopaedic related medical problems. That means people with broken legs and ACLs had to wait five months to get them fully treated. Are you kidding me? You'll also see some percentages for cardiothoracic surgery around 50%. That means half of the people who needed HEART SURGERY didn't get it within eighteen weeks! Imagine your doctor saying "You have a serious heart condition and need emergency surgery. Our goal is to get you this emergency surgery within the next five months." But it's free, so that's better, right?

You have already seen the failures of the current government run health care systems in the United States. Medicare is projected to go bankrupt by 2017. Even if it doesn't go bankrupt, Medicare has quality and accountability problems. If we can't figure out how to make our current government systems work then why are we going to try to expand government health care?

ALL of these government run health care systems are failing, even our own. What makes people think that the government will suddenly be able to make it work this time around? Do you need more proof? The fact is that it doesn't work. It cannot work. You cannot ignore the fundamental, natural laws of economics. They exist regardless of whether or not people want them to exist. The good news is that we can improve the system while taking advantage of the basic laws of economics and increase access to health care. That is everyone's goal. Let's get it done.