WITH PRIVATE HEALTH CARE there are little or no wait times. Profit incentives and free market mechanisms provide higher quality, more efficient and affordable choices here in the United States. So why would we ever want to change our system to be more like Canada's? Oh wait! We don't. It's our government elites, hijacking our system for power and expanded government control in our lives from cradle to grave, who want to change it to an unrecognizable degree. Are we going to allow this?
If Congress succeeds in destroying free markets for medical care and insurance here, a black market will explode, fueled by bribes and under-the-table deals. Medical tourism is and will also blossom even more into a growing industry for people willing to go to abroad for treatments and surgeries sometimes at a third the cost.
H/T
Err.. Canada's system is single payer. That's not even on the table in the HCR debate taking place in our Congress right now. It looks like even the public option may be off the table. No one central to the debate has proposed making all doctors government employees, as is the case in the UK. So I'm failing to see how what's being proposed here is even close to the Canadian system.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Canadians prefer their health care system. A recent poll shows that 82% of Canadians believe their system is better than the US system. (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090710/health_care_090710/20090710?hub=Health)
I beg to differ with you about the inevitability of single payer and public option. To wit, a piece this morning at the Daily Beast, a liberal site, states the following which I agree with:
ReplyDelete"As was argued forcefully in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, that two-tier system is unsustainable because two identical families would be treated completely differently on the basis of where they work, which will inevitably lead to this "firewall" breaking down and everyone getting the new subsidies. As long as this system survives into the final version of Obamacare, progressives will whine but will, ultimately, attain national health service nirvana.
"The truth, of course, is that the public option—now said to be dead—was but one of many problems with President Obama’s health-care plan. As Shikha Dalmia of the Reason Foundation has observed in a recent column, another notable political (and philosophical) problem is the Individual Mandate, under which Americans could be forced by law to buy health insurance. So long as that mandate remains, the costs of insurance will skyrocket, making a formal public option only a matter of time.
"And Harry Reid knows that."
Once these kind of shennanigans gets its foot (foots!?) in the door, it's only a matter of time....
I can't address the Canadian poll, but know there are many of them who come here to get treatment. Maybe the ones who don't like it just die off and never get to respond to the poll in the first place!
Thank you for your comment.