Zhukov said:
(The dreaded wall-o-text lurks below. I tried to keep it as concise and readable as possible. No, really, I did.)
Let me provide you some insight, from someone who has experienced both kinds of systems. First, some pertinent background info:
I have Crohn's Disease--it's a chronic autoimmune disorder that basically means my immune system attacks a portion of my small intestine. That's very oversimplified, but it's painful, lifelong, and the medication is pretty expensive.
I grew up in a Marine Corps home. That means we had access to no-cost Navy medical facilities, just one of the services our government provides for its soldiers and their families. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it. However...
I've witnessed firsthand what this sort of medicine can do (and what it can't). Every member of my family has had a "close call," and several friends of the family have died as a result of the botched care provided. It's not that the doctors were uneducated or negligent--that could happen anywhere. It's that they have two responsibilities that change the way they approach treatment:
1. The responsibility to keep cost down.
2. The responsibility to get each case pushed through, because the line gets backed up fast.
As a result, a five-year-old girl with a ruptured appendix was diagnosed with the flu that was going around. She died. Two mothers-to-be with "tubal" pregnancies (an irregularity that basically causes the embryo to implant in the Fallopian tube, rather than the uterus) not only lot the babies, but died because the correct precautions weren't taken. My mother nearly bled out from the inside because of a slipped IUD, which they wrote off as "the flu that was going around." Another woman
did die when she bled out after a laproscopic procedure, because they didn't keep her overnight for observation. When I first started showing symptoms of Crohn's, they
ruled out Crohn's before they even did any tests, and I went for nearly a year untreated. This was all in just
one of the hospitals, within two years.
But it's not just one bad hospital. One more story: My parents' first child was arriving very early. It was not expected that she would be born alive,
so the doctors did not prepare for a live birth. She was born alive, and there was a delay getting her the proper care for a premature baby. She died a week later.
I know it would be easy to write this off as just "bad doctors doing stupid things." But look into cases like this, and you can see the financial concerns behind it all. These hospitals are crowded, because people want to
use them. And they've still got to come in under budget, when all is said and done--it's just a different budget.
I will also say, when you're hiring doctors... well, if they know they're getting paid a lot less, you
will be more likely to settle for not-the-best doctors, because they'll settle for not-the-best salaries, won't they? So finances even play a part in the negligence, when you get right down to it. Additionally, the tendency is to start with the cheapest tests first, only working your way up if it seems absolutely necessary (rather than eliminating the most dangerous problems
first).
These hospitals are great for routine things. If you actually
have "that flu that's going around," you're in luck! They're equipped to efficiently handle all the routine problems you can throw at them... but the second there's a hitch? Or the second there's a financial shortcut?
And this isn't just America. Speak with some people from other "socialized medicine" countries. Not the routine patients, but the ones with complications. You're going to hear the same kinds of stories, because
money still matters, unfortunate as that might be.
_________
Aside: Now, I'll also concede that socialized medicine is a problem here because of our national culture. Half of the nation doesn't want to pay for the health problems of those that choose to smoke, do drugs, and get fat. The other half of the nation doesn't want the government telling them they can't smoke, do drugs, or get fat. Both are a result of our fiercely individualistic culture, and our tendency to put our perceived rights over those of others.
There's also our national aversion to taxes. As someone who works in education, I know how important taxes are. We haven't had a pay increase in
five years, and we've in fact taken massive cuts and had to spend more out-of-pocket just to keep things from falling apart. Socialized medicine, like education, takes
real money, and that means higher taxes. People don't want to pay them.
So, yeah, we've got some problems, too. And the current system, with its hidden costs that catch you
after you've received treatment, or all the caveats and exceptions insurance companies throw around... yeah, it's far from perfect. But so's the alternative.
As someone with an expensive, painful disease, I
still say that I prefer a system in which my treatment isn't handled by, for all intents and purposes, the "lowest bidder." Just like the battle between capitalism and socialism, the "free market" actually exists somewhere
between the two.
