The handwriting is on the wall everywhere you look about universal health care: If you provide almost all things medical to all people, you are going to have a fiscal crisis. That’s just common sense. No matter how eloquently our president tries to pretend otherwise, no matter his high decibel charisma, no matter his telling his opponents to shut up (touchy, touchy), basic economics will eventually win out.
Just look at France, one of the nations always looked to as having conquered the universal access to health care beast. It is in a Code Blue: From the story:
When Laure Cuccarolo went into early labor on a recent Sunday night in a village in southern France, her only choice was to ask the local fire brigade to whisk her to a hospital 30 miles away. Ms. Cuccarolo’s little girl was born in a firetruck. A closer one had been shuttered by cost cuts in France’s universal health system.
France claims it long ago achieved much of what today’s U.S. health-care overhaul is seeking: It covers everyone, and provides what supporters say is high-quality care. But soaring costs are pushing the system into crisis. The result: As Congress fights over whether America should be more like France, the French government is trying to borrow U.S. tactics.
In recent months, France imposed American-style “co-pays” on patients to try to throttle back prescription-drug costs and forced state hospitals to crack down on expenses. “A hospital doesn’t need to be money-losing to provide good-quality treatment,” President Nicolas Sarkozy thundered in a recent speech to doctors. And service cuts — such as the closure of a maternity ward near Ms. Cuccarolo’s home — are prompting complaints from patients, doctors and nurses that care is being rationed. That concern echos worries among some Americans that the U.S. changes could lead to rationing
The French made health care very inexpensive–most of it paid for by a huge public insurance plan supported by taxes. Big mistake. That encourages over utilization and, given the birth dirth over there and the aging society, makes the economics of the thing untenable. But, once you tell people they are entitled to something, they get very angry if you try to take part of it away. Having been to France often and seen how quickly the people resort to Le Grève (strike), French leaders are in for a rough ride if they try to save money. As a result, even small changes can cause an uproar:
Yet even the smallest budget moves are proving controversial. Local residents are up in arms over a cost-cutting measure that makes patients pay €1.10 an hour to park at the hospital. “It’s a scandal,” says retired local Communist politician Gérard Eude. “It goes against the very idea of universal health care.”
There is much to admire about the French system. But we can’t get there from here, as the French find out they can’t stay there. (I encourage all SHSers to read the whole article. Much grist there for the thought mill.)
Time to pull back, Mr. President. We can increase access, but we don’t have to totally remake the system. Vouchers, increased competetion, basic policies to cover the serious stuff, co-pays and deductibles to prevent over-utilization, chains of basic and chronic care clinics in malls, etc: We can materially improve our system for those who are currently not insured without breaking the bank.
And while we are at it, let’s start triaging government! We are at the last step in the Ponzi scheme before collapse unless we cut government costs in less essential areas.
August 8th, 2009 | 3:59 pm
[...] you look about universal health care: If you provide almost all … Read more here: Secondhand Smoke — A First Things Blog Share and [...]
August 8th, 2009 | 5:29 pm
Here’s another good article on some of the problems with the program as presented. The protection of the IMAC board from any oversight is absolutely unacceptable, imo.
http://www.floppingaces.net/2009/08/08/obamas-health-care-czars-to-seize-congressional-power-key-to-achieving-a-single-taxpayer-system/#more-25953
August 9th, 2009 | 10:07 am
Why do we want to use FRANCE as a model for our health care? Because they smoke, are hardly known for military valor, got us into Vietnam, and don’t wash or pick up after their dogs? I’m not saying they don’t have a great culture; they do. It would be even better if the U.S. had stayed out of world history altogether once we got hold of this beautiful country here that already has everything. Then we’d HAVE something for them to emulate, and we could learn from them, as every other country and vice versa, only the best they have to offer, and not get stuck with the worst. But that would require a maturity and self-reliance which the U.S. is astrologically incapable of having.
August 10th, 2009 | 9:37 am
Wesley, while the anecdote about the French woman in labor is horrifying, we need to keep in mind that many rural hospitals here in the US have shut down their maternity wards over OB-GYN shortages and liability issues. The hospital nearest me is only about five years old but had to shut down its maternity ward soon after opening for a lack of OB-GYNs. Now women in labor must go 40 miles up the road to the next closest hospital.
Our health care system has serious flaws. I’m no fan of the proposed Obamacare package, but it is a little disingenuous to use other countries’ socialized systems to exemplify problems when similar examples are rife here without a nationalized system.
August 10th, 2009 | 3:33 pm
The problem is that we even call medicine a “health care system.” This is America. We’re supposed to have freedom of choice. SYSTEM? What the….is that? Too bad that the ob-gyns are going out of business and leaving; I’m all for malpractice litigation and it’s not the plaintiffs or the personal injury attorneys (my favorite kind of lawyer, and I love the law, or most things about it anyway) or the size of the awards who make malpractice insurance expensive; it’s the insurance companies, who are only too glad to pay defense attorneys exorbitant amounts and to go to court and to destroy medicine, ethics, and the trust that should exist between patients and doctors and vice-versa. Insurance is a fear-based industry and as such Aristotle, as well as simple common sense, could tell us it has to be purged and should not exist. Having a “system” enables the insurance companies to exist and make money. That’s where the problem is, and as long as there is a “system,” they will find a way to do it. Otherwise I’d be on board with Obama’s claim to be trying to get rid of them. But the same idiots who elected him and would have voted for Hillary are the same idiots who bought into the shibboleth of health insurance and of a “health care system.” America’s transcendent problem is STUPIDITY, which goes along with feeling entitled to be taken care of.
August 10th, 2009 | 3:40 pm
The old Chinese custom was for the doctor to pay the patient if the patient didn’t get well. No wonder they’re overtaking us. While the insurance companies are claiming tort reform is necessary, they’re sitting on the exorbitant malpractice premiums they collect from doctors who would be better doctors if insurance companies didn’t exist. And Republicans buy into this, which is the kind of stupidity that has destroyed the Republican party. Anyone who hasn’t been the victim of medical malpractice has no right to spout off about tort reform. I’d like to have heard what George Bush would have said about it if he’d ever been a malpractice victim. Good old Sean Hannity, he’s another one — so right about so many things, and then he gets this one wrong. Well he volunteered for waterboarding too, but as far as I know that’s as far as it went. It’s very distressing to see Republicans prove why non-Republicans can’t stand them. Tort reform my foot. We need MORE malpractice litigation. Most valid malpractice cases never even get filed, and whenever one is, the insurance companies’ lawyers clean up in fees. Then marmalukes endorse tort reform. Then we wonder how we got the mess we’ve got with a world full of idiots.
August 19th, 2009 | 1:14 pm
Wonder if k-man lives in John Edwards territory?
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