I also agree that a socialized health care system would have as many disadvantages as our present system, which is a managed care system. I feel patients need to be given the same motivations to economize their healthcare needs as they do other consumer needs people do in other markets. As a result, I feel the best system would be one that is an intermediatary of managed care and socialized medicine, like medical savings account programs or a singly payer system.
The benefits of going to a single payer system would be that
1) it would provide everyone with health care, because I feel that health care is a right, not a privilage,
2)Eliminate the financial threat for those who have coverage have, but can't afford the out of pocket expenses,
3) Let patients choose the hospitals and physicians they want to see,
4) AND MAINLY allow physicians and other health care professionals choose the BEST treatment for an individual (because these are the people who are trained to do this, not adminstratores of HMO's), and not be dependent on what the Insurance company or HMO will pay for.
Some disadvantages of this system inlcude the we may not be able to pay for health care to all individuals. But I feel that other countries, such as canada and uk, use less % of their Gross Domestic Product than the u.s. to cover more of their citizens.
Another disadvantage may be that their would be delays in recieving Health care. I DO NOT thing this would be as big of a problem as it has been in other countries because our health equipment is more sophisticated and we have an excess of capacity in health care, for instance I read somewhere that we have more MRI's in Orange County, FL, than Canada has overall.
Another disadvange is that many people would confuse this with Socialized Medicine, which is not true because in Socialized medicine, the government owns the facilities and the employees would be governmental employees, in single payer, it uses existing private and public ownership and employment. The universal pool that all people are put in is funded in a fair manner because everyone pays for their fair share. Our medicare program is similar to this and has been a strong program in the U.S.
The last thing i will talk about is that many will think that quality of health care will go down. I feel that the quality of health care has already gone down because of HMO control, and with more funds and more efficient administrations, a single payer system would raise the quality of health care.
I'm not exactly sure if this is the total solution, and yes every system that is implemented will have faults, but we have to pick one that will be the most advantageous for our country, and we have to look at our standard of living, not other countries. If this is not the way to go, I also agree with medical savings accounts, and other similar programs, just so that EVERYONE recieves adequate health care.
Also, this doesnt' mean that any kind of health care that is not necessary, such as cosmetic or other can't be payed for by the individual, if the individual has the money, they can do any of that stuff.
Any comments on any other health care system that would be good? I'd like to hear about them so i could research them.
