Why national health care is not the answer for America
 

Here are my reasons why NHI (National Health Insurance) is not something Americans want

1. Its immoral.-

Would the government ever decide how much one can charge in any other business? What if the government decided the computer industry was essential to the rights of Americans and forced apple and microsoft to sell their products at the price the government demanded. Obviously people would never go for that but with Healthcare you have doctors and hospitals that would be forced by law to have prices what the government decided.

2. Its would perpetuate the inefficiencies that are already evident in the half government half market model we have today (Health care in america is not a free market its the most regulated industry in the USA) -

For example, Downtown detroit has been shrinking for years and the hospitals down there want to shift some of their business to the growing suburbs. To do this one must fill out a huge licensure process with the state that will take years to make the move (Certificate of Need). Can you imagine if a bank was in downtown detroit and did an analysis that they could get better customers in the suburbs but the state of michigan forced them to stay downtown because they thought the need was better down there?

3. Inefficiencies compounded cont -

Health care would become a game of favors and a "who has the best lobbyist"
not who is the most efficient and best run. This is good if you are John Haddow but terrible for everyone else You already see evidences of this . In detroit the Henry Ford Health system (HFHS) wanted to open a hospital and move beds to a rich suburb. so did St. Johns (SJHS) and so did the Detroit Medical Center (DMC). HFHS had the best lobbiest (must have been haddow)and was permitted to open up a 300 bed hospital right only 5 miles from Beaumont hospital which is a 1000 bed hospital (1000 bed hospitals are the biggest kind like the university systems). Beaumont then wanted to move some of its beds to another growing area but was denied (as was DMC) due to it not receiving authority from the state.

4. Rationing health care -
too blue can spin it all he wants but Canada rations health care. The government decides when it is appropriate for you to have surgery. What this does is cause a nice black market. People who can afford surgery but are on a list will just go to somewhere that will take their money. Poor people will be worse off. India right now has an emerging market of medical tourism. People from Europe go there for surgery because they are US trained doctors working in lavious suites. I know it was worth 4 million a year for windsor Canada patients to come over and self pay for surgeries at the hospital I used to work at. I can only imagine the windfall buffalo hospitals get from toronto.

5. Moral Hazard -

this is an insurance concept that if you have insurance you will use it. for example, everyone will go to the doctor for every little ailment. you think getting into the doctor is hard now... just wait

Immoral? LOL ..... I'm going to laugh for weeks about that one ... lol! Comparing health care to a commodity such as computers and software lol!

I find it immoral for the government to decide how much I may charge at my own business... maybe the canadian government can decide how much you should charge for consulting work

btw here is a definition of Immoral from dictionary.com

im·mor·al /ɪˈmɔrəl, ɪˈmɒr-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-mawr-uhl, i-mor-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective 1. violating moral principles; not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics.

I'm curious as to whether national healthcare is Constitutional. I'm no lawyer but it seems like it's pushing the tenth amendment. Anybody know?

Mike, the Hippocratic oath be dammed, I’m jacking up the price on PsychMike version 2.0 due out this Spring!

Social ethics being key here!

by the way i compared it services like banking as well...

Health care is one area I don't believe simple free market economics will drive to a positive solution for all.

I wouldn't mind seeing some alternatives that involved government policy, but I haven't studied Hillary's or anyone else's proposals to have an opinion.

The first thing that needs to happen is that regulations should be lifted and HMO's should be squeezed and malpractice litigation should be managed so that the consumer has more alternatives. A simple ear infection or strep throat shouldn't cost >$100 to treat. We need more flexibility in the hospital model so that we're not covering huge, expensive hospital overhead to treat the majority of what is treated at a hospital that could be moved to lower tier institution. We need more doctors. More medical schools accepting more students. We need more nurse practicioners. An extra couple years of school and a standard deviation higher IQ shouldn't justify a salary 6 X the national average.

Where do you come down on price gouging? If I own a store and my town gets hit by a hurricane, what right does the government have to tell me that I can't sell toilet paper for $10 a roll and water for $20 a bottle? If I own an oil company, why does the government have the right to tell me I can't get together with the owners of all the other oil companies and agree that everyone should sell gas for $10 a gallon? Is the government acting immorally in those cases?

then the AMA and CMS are immoral
 

Rates are already highly regulated in the US through the pricing structure established by CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) and the AMA (through its CPT list of procedure codes). Aren't most insurance reimbursements linked to these rates?

As with the Indian medical tourism you mention, medical care is becoming globally commoditized. US hospitals and doctors are quite fortunate that travel for sick patients and the myth of the "greatest health care in the world" are such barriers.