By what you wrote it is clear you have never bothered to look at other countries’ health systems, and let your political dogma cloud your views.

I also feel that I must make some counter-arguments to the “cons” of single-payer health care listed in the post above. I have listed them as numbered above and responded.

1. There isn’t a single government agency or division that runs efficiently; do we really want an organization that developed the U.S. Tax Code handling something as complex as health care.

The inefficiencies that we sometimes see in government programs are usually not the result of inefficient administration by federal employees in the field. More commonly, they are the result of for-profit, private industry intervention into and undermining of these programs that has come about because of the ability of private corporations and affiliated organizations to unethically influence our elected officials with huge campaign contributions, promises of future high paid lobbying jobs, etc. Private industries are efficient at making a profit; they are often not so efficient in contributing to the well-being of average Americans. The private sector is not always better. Where would those who have lost their retirement funds to the financial crisis be now without Social Security? As another example, concerning education, the misallocation of resources that should be used for smaller class sizes, tutors for young children with reading problems, etc. to the companies that now profit from the testing craze has come about because of the lobbying of the Business Roundtable and the testing companies, not because of employees that work directly in the delivery of education. What is needed is comprehensive election reform, campaign finance reform, and media reform, even if it means changing the Constitution to retroactively reverse the disastrous Buckley vs. Valeo Supreme Court decision that contributed to our current “money is speech” boondoggle by essentially legalizing bribery. The answer is to reshape the election process so that our representatives actually represent us. The answer is not to allow the government to abandon its obligations. Some things, such as fire protection, police protection, and education should be rights of citizenship. Would you really want fire department protection only for those who can afford it? Don’t forget that the wind can carry your neighbor’s fire to your house. In other 1st world countries, health care falls into the same category as fire protection. It is viewed as a public good, and that is the way it should be here.

2. “Free” health care isn’t really free since we must pay for it with taxes; expenses for health care would have to be paid for with higher taxes or spending cuts in other areas such as defense, education, etc.

Single- payer health care would require payroll taxes, but these would replace the premiums and out of pocket costs we now pay, and most of us would end up paying less than we are paying now. This could be done with establishment of an employer/employee payroll tax of 4.75% each (includes present 1.45% Medicare tax) as is suggested by HR 676, or with an employer/employee payroll tax of 7.25% on employers and 3.25% on employees, which has been suggested by some single payer advocates. John Conyers, Jr., a co-sponsor of HR 676, states, “under the plan created by H.R. 676, a family of four making the median income of $56,200 would pay about $2,700 in payroll tax for all health care costs. No deductibles, no co-pays, no worrying about catastrophic coverage.” It is not true that there would have to be spending cuts in other areas such as defense and education. This would only be necessary if we choose an expensive subsidized private insurance plan to try to achieve universal coverage without converting to a single-payer system.

3. Profit motives, competition, and individual ingenuity have always led to greater cost control and effectiveness.

The argument that the private industry is the more efficient financer of health care simply does not hold water. “Costs of Administration in the U.S. and Canada,” a 2003 New England Journal of Medicine study, revealed that the cost of keeping private health insurance involved in health care is at least 350 billion dollars a year. That’s half the cost of the bank bailout everyone has been wailing about, and we continue to endorse this waste, year after year. Traditional Medicare runs with lower overhead costs than the Canadian system, so it is likely that the savings would be even more. It is unacceptable to pay so much for so little. The only way we are going to be able to care for everyone, with quality care, is to retrieve the dollars that are currently being wasted on the paperwork, corporate profits, and executive compensation that are associated with the private insurance system.

4. Government-controlled health care would lead to a decrease in patient flexibility.

Single-payer health care is not government controlled. It returns the role of decision making to physicians (with peer review), wrestling it back from the insurance companies that are now attempting to control doctor’s decisions for the sake of their profit margins. We would still have private doctors and private hospitals, and we would have more patient flexibility because we would no longer be trapped within HMO and PPO plans that limit our choices of doctors and facilities.

5. Patients aren’t likely to curb their drug costs and doctor visits if health care is free; thus, total costs will be several times what they are now.

Most people work, tend to homes and loved ones, and have busy lives. They do not have time to spend in doctors offices when they are not sick. If we are worried about the overuse of nonessential medications, we could pass legislation to curtail television advertizing. In fact, the limitation on doctors visits that we now have, due to lack of insurance and high out-of- pocket costs, contributes to late diagnoses of serious illnesses, which is far more expensive than preventative care and early treatment of diseases such as cancers.

6. Just because Americans are uninsured doesn’t mean they can’t receive health care; nonprofits and government-run hospitals provide services to those who don’t have insurance, and it is illegal to refuse emergency medical service because of a lack of insurance.

Where are these nonprofits and government run hospitals that provide free care to those that don’t have insurance? I know someone who needs one right now. I was at a health care reform meeting a week ago. A man spoke about his former job as a plant supervisor, and about how he had been let go because of his refusal to “get rid” of workers over 50, who were increasing the company’s group health insurance rates. He now works as a nurse at a low income health facility. Recently, they diagnosed a woman with cancer. She has no insurance, and she makes only $8.00 an hour. They can’t find anyone to treat her cancer. Yes, at some point, when she is screaming from excruciating pain, she will probably be seen in an emergency room, but it will be too late to save her.

While it is illegal to deny emergency care, people do get billed for it, and one emergency room bill, which would be catastrophic to a low-income family, would make it likely that there would never be a future visit. Many people will not go to the emergency room under any circumstance, due to fear of the potential bill. More importantly, emergency rooms do not provide the preventative and early diagnostic care and treatment that could keep illnesses from getting out of hand, and they do not provide follow-up care. By the time uninsured and underinsured people reach emergency rooms, it is often too late to help them, and if they are helped, the costs are astronomical, when they could have been more reasonable. For lack of a more accurate term, this is, quite frankly, a stupid way to run a health care system.

Six times more people die, every year, due to being uninsured, than died in the September 11th tragedy. Private insurance companies, with their rejections, exclusions, denials, and high out-of-pocket costs, have also contributed to the deaths of huge numbers of Americans. If a foreign country engaged in an activity that led to the deaths of this many of our citizens, we would be at war with that country. This is a whispering holocaust, but the media is, for all practical purposes, silent about it, because the bodies aren’t all piled in one place, and because some of the corporate owners and sponsors would be displeased if the issue were made a matter of public discussion. I applaud Ed for having the courage to speak up.

7. Government-mandated procedures will likely reduce doctor flexibility and lead to poor patient care.

The government would be more likely to consider the long term well being of the patients than insurance companies are. Patients who are not cared for properly, in the short term, will need more expensive care, in the long term. They are more likely to end up on disability, and if they die, they may leave children and widows/widowers who will need Social Security benefits. The government also feels some pressure to do the right thing due to the potential wrath of the voters. In contrast, insurance companies know that they will usually not have to bear the long term costs of caring for patients for whom they have denied or discouraged effective care. These patients often lose their jobs, and thus, their insurance. Once they have lost their insurance, the insurance company that contributed to the problem is freed from responsibility.

Our current situation, actually, is that insurance companies are running our health care system, and they are running it over the edge of a cliff. Doctors are often afraid of being dropped from plans if they displease the insurers too much, and this pressure often has a negative effect on their ability to practice medicine in the best interest of their patients.

Five years ago, my husband was hospitalized, about 8 weeks after breaking a leg and several weeks after an accidental pneumonia diagnosis, due to a massive pulmonary embolism situation. Days earlier, I had taken him home from a minor emergency center with a diagnosis of “leg cramp” after describing the classic symptoms of a DVT and pulmonary embolism. By the time he landed in the hospital, my husband was in a dire, life-threatening situation, but the hospital staff doctor seemed more worried about the fact that he needed to be out of the hospital in 4 days (according to our insurance company’s rules) than he was concerned about my husband’s medical condition. He was demanding that the respiratory therapist “walk him”, and she was bravely refusing, because of his excruciating pain and her concerns that remaining clots in his deep vein might also move up to his lungs. When we thought the hospital was about to send him home, in a state of panic, I called the night shift doctor and begged to have a Doppler done on his leg. (This had originally been ordered by the emergency room doctor, but my husband’s assigned doctor had canceled the test.) I wanted the test done because I was frightened that if I took him home, more clots might move up to his lungs to the point that he would suffocate. The next day, the staff doctor angrily stormed into my husband’s room and reamed me thoroughly. He said that I had been “teasing doctors into performing unnecessary tests that were not in my husband’s best interest and that our insurance might not pay for. I cried for a long time after he left because I was afraid that I had turned this doctor against us, and I didn’t think we would be allowed to have another doctor. Luckily, my husband had a relative who worked at this hospital, and I was able to acquire the number of a patient advocate to whom I could express my concerns about my husband’s condition. Once specialists were assigned to his case, it was revealed to us that he had one huge blood clot from his ankle to his hip. One of his lungs was so full of clots, there was only a nickel sized area free. The other lung also had a large amount of clots, and there was a large clot in his pulmonary artery. A procedure was done to drip blood thinner into the worst affected lung. Because of that, he is still alive, but due to the delay in proper treatment, he now has scar tissue in his lungs and a permanent heart rhythm problem.

This is only one story. The statistics tell a larger story, and they do not lie. There are occasional tragedies and medical accidents that are going to occur in any health care system, but we have the worst statistical health outcomes in the industrialized world, even though we pay the most.

8. Healthy people who take care of themselves will have to pay for the burden of those who smoke, are obese, etc.

I frequently get frustrated with this “blame the victim” argument. My husband has never smoked, he does not drink alcoholic beverages, and we have been more careful about our diets than most Americans are. Nevertheless, he has been in the hospital 4 times in the last 9 months. I would like to see more of a focus on prevention and wellness, and we could start be revamping the school lunch program. However, many health conditions are genetic or circumstantial. There are even genetic factors that contribute to the tendency toward obesity, and although most people do not want to believe it, there are genetic factors that contribute to various addictions. I don’t smoke. I exercise when my schedule will allow it, and I try to avoid junk food. However, I would consider it heartless to leave someone writhing in pain in the street, and even if that person were obese, an alcoholic, or a drug addict, I would consider it immoral to do so.

This tendency to blame the victims of illness has a long history. It was common even in biblical times. People shunned lepers, not only because of fear of the disease, but because they believed that lepers were somehow being punished for some deficiency in themselves or because of something wrong they had done. When I was a child, I used to recoil in horror at the Bible story of the rich man and Lazarus because I was dismayed with the concept of a God that would sentence someone to “eternal” punishment. I have since learned that the Greek word that was translated to mean “eternal” actually means “that which befits God, belongs to God, or is characteristic of God.” When I think of what kind of punishment might be characteristic of God, I remember the words from the book of Matthew, “as you measure, it will be meted to you again.” With that thought, the story of the rich man and Lazarus begins to make sense. If I close my eyes, I can envision a time, more than 2,000 years ago. The sun is beating down mercilessly, and a poor, sick man, covered with sores, too weak to even crawl, lies beneath it. Every day, a wealthy man, clothed in purple silk, walks by, paying no heed to his cries. The sick man is so light, so shockingly thin; he could easily be picked up and carried to the soothing shade of a nearby olive tree. One day, the sick man, consumed by miserable thirst, begs the rich man ardently for a cup of water. Desperately, as he is about to pass by, he grasps the hem of his purple robe and begs for just a drop of water. Then, the rich man, annoyed by this embarrassment and intrusion on his time, spits on the sick man, Lazarus, and says, “There is your water”. So when he died, the rich man, to learn from his mistakes, had to experience the misery of unbearable heat and unquenched thirst. This is the story Jesus told to those who believed that sick people should be forced to bear their pain as punishment.

9. A long, painful transition will have to take place involving lost insurance industry jobs, business closures, and new patient record creation.

I always hate to see people lose jobs, but why are health insurance related jobs considered more sacred than the manufacturing jobs that are lost because businesses collapse or leave the country as a consequence of unreasonable health insurance rates? Where is this concern about the loss of jobs when we continue to push through “free trade” agreements that almost always result in a net loss of jobs in the United States? At least after implementation of HR 676, former health insurance company and billing company employees wouldn’t lose their health care when they lose their jobs, which is what happens to almost everybody that gets displaced now. HR 676 does provide for retraining of those that would lose jobs as a consequence of the country transitioning to a single-payer system. There would not be a net loss of jobs because there would be a greater need for people to work in the actual delivery of care.

10. Loss of private practice options and possible reduced pay may dissuade many would-be doctors from pursuing the profession.

Doctors are also becoming very frustrated with our current system. Polls have indicated that approximately 59 % of doctors now favor a single-payer system. Also, while the AMA, an organization to which a minority of doctors belongs, is still officially opposed to single-payer, some of their members are dissenting. The American Medical Students’ Association is officially in favor of single-payer health care.

11. Malpractice lawsuit costs, which are already sky-high, could further explode since universal care may expose the government to legal liability, and the possibility to sue someone with deep pockets usually invites more lawsuits.

Malpractice lawsuits only amount to about 4 % of costs, and the expense of malpractice suits could be greatly reduced if people no longer felt the need to sue for the expenses associated with future medical care.

12. Government is more likely to pass additional restrictions or increase taxes on smoking, fast food, etc., leading to a further loss of personal freedoms.

The government might or might not place additional taxes on cigarettes and fast food, and they could do this with or without a single-payer system. Even if they did raise such taxes, people would still be free to choose to smoke and eat fast food; they would just have to pay more for it. In the long run, many people who have unhealthy habits really want to give them up, and the extra incentive that this tax burden would provide could be a deciding factor. If some people think we have to “punish” people for unhealthy lifestyles, this is a much fairer way to do it than by preventing them from getting needed care when they are sick.

13. Patient confidentiality is likely to be compromised since centralized health information will likely be maintained by the government.

I also have serious concerns about patient confidientiality, but again, electronic medical records are being proposed by people in both major parties, and this is something that can happen with or without a single-payer system. While electronic medical records could improve the coordination of care between primary care doctors and specialists, electronic records, without a single-payer system, could increase the risk of insurance companies, potential employers, and current employers trying to hack into the system to determine which patients might be expensive to insure. If we are going to have electronic medical records anyway, and it appears that we are, it is essential that we have a single-payer system.

14. Like social security, any government benefit eventually is taken as a “right” by the public, meaning that it’s politically near impossible to remove or curtail it later on when costs get out of control.

Health care should be a right, in a decent society, as Social Security is a right. Social Security costs would not be out of control if we would remove the cap, so that incomes above $200,000 would also be subject to the tax, as President Obama suggested during the campaign.

In closing, I would like to refer readers to a book that explains the severity of the problems of the uninsured and underinsured better than I can. The book, Sick, by Jonathan Cohn, published by Harper Collins Publishers in 2007 (ISBN – 10: 0-06-058045-3) contains many references about how health care is not so “good” here in the United States.

In his book A Critique of Interventionism, Ludwig von Mises wrote, “Authors of economics books, essays, articles, and political platforms demand interventionist measures before they are taken, but once they have been imposed no one likes them. Then everyone—usually even the authorities responsible for them—call them insufficient and unsatisfactory. Generally the demand then arises for the replacement of unsatisfactory interventions by other, more suitable measures. And once the new demands have been met, the same scenario begins all over again.”

No words could more accurately describe the nature of America’s health-care crisis. After decades of governmental intervention into the health-care arena, the failures are apparent for all to see. But rather than root out the cause of the problem, Americans are demanding that government do something about it.

Why Is There No Car Insurance Crisis?
by Wayne Dunn

Is there something special about health insurance that makes it crisis-prone? I mean, we never hear about the horrible “house insurance crisis” or the “spiraling cost of auto insurance.”

It wouldn’t be too hard to create such a crisis though. In fact, let’s try to map one out.

Just imagine if politicians resolved that, since automobiles are vital for getting people to work, companies ought to provide for the care and maintenance of its employees’ vehicles.

So political pressure is applied to employers– maybe through the tax code, or perhaps legislation is passed outright; and, before long, auto insurance is restructured to cover not merely accidents, but routine maintenance and service. For a monthly premium and a $10 or $15 “co-pay,”

your car insurance would cover the cost of an oil change, tune up, new tires, whatever it needed.

Something odd would begin happening though. Mechanics would stop hearing the now pervasive, “How much will it cost?”

Why? Because if all you had to do is plop down ten or fifteen bucks and your insurance paid the rest, why would you care what the mechanic charged? Heck, you’d start taking your car in for an oil change every 1000 miles instead of every 3000. Rather than getting your tires rotated, you’d just have new ones put on. And that rear electric window that won’t lower, you’d not think twice about having fixed.

The influx of customers seeking what would be virtually free service means, however, you’d have to wait days, even weeks, to see a mechanic.

Costs would skyrocket. Since comparison shopping would be a thing of the past, auto service centers would have no pressure to lower prices.

Moreover, they’d have to buy more equipment and hire more employees to accommodate the heavier workload, driving costs still higher.

Insurance companies would have to raise premiums. Some people wouldn’t be able afford it. So politicians would trot out new government programs — Car-aid, Car-care– to help the “disadvantaged.” We’d see another deduction on our pay stubs. The numbers of “disadvantaged” would swell.

Resultantly, auto shops would have to hire more clerks to manage all the red tape generated by the government programs and regulations, making costs even higher. Perhaps by then an oil change might run $200 and a brake job $1000.

Before long, we’d hear speeches about our alleged “right” to affordable car insurance. Some would even propose putting everyone on the government dole with “universal” car care coverage.

Now in the midst of all this, imagine that some “radical” suggests the

following: that people would be able to afford car insurance and maintenance costs if only government would reverse everything it’d done to cause the mess in the first place.

How would that likely be met? Probably with screams of “You don’t care about the poor!” and “Do you expect people to pay for oil changes out of their own pockets? Have you seen how expensive they are?”

See how easy it is to kick off a crisis? Just add a little government control in the “right” area, and the thing practically runs on cruise control.

America doesn’t have a health care crisis. It has government crisis. Or, put another way, it has a freedom crisis.
_____________________________________________

In a nutshell:
Pros:
1. The number of uninsured citizens has grown to over 40 million.
2. Health care has become increasingly unaffordable for businesses and individuals.
3. We can eliminate wasteful inefficiencies such as duplicate paper work, claim approval, insurance submission, etc.
4. We can develop a centralized national database which makes diagnosis and treatment easier for doctors.
5. Medical professionals can concentrate on healing the patient rather than on insurance procedures, malpractice liability, etc.
6. Free medical services would encourage patients to practice preventive medicine and inquire about problems early when treatment will be light; currently, patients often avoid physicals and other preventive measures because of the costs.

Cons
1. There isn’t a single government agency or division that runs efficiently; do we really want an organization that developed the U.S. Tax Code handling something as complex as health care?
2. “Free” health care isn’t really free since we must pay for it with taxes; expenses for health care would have to be paid for with higher taxes or spending cuts in other areas such as defense, education, etc.
3. Profit motives, competition, and individual ingenuity have always led to greater cost control and effectiveness.
4. Government-controlled health care would lead to a decrease in patient flexibility.
5. Patients aren’t likely to curb their drug costs and doctor visits if health care is free; thus, total costs will be several times what they are now.
6. Just because Americans are uninsured doesn’t mean they can’t receive health care; nonprofits and government-run hospitals provide services to those who don’t have insurance, and it is illegal to refuse emergency medical service because of a lack of insurance.
7. Government-mandated procedures will likely reduce doctor flexibility and lead to poor patient care.
8. Healthy people who take care of themselves will have to pay for the burden of those who smoke, are obese, etc.
9. A long, painful transition will have to take place involving lost insurance industry jobs, business closures, and new patient record creation.
10. Loss of private practice options and possible reduced pay may dissuade many would-be doctors from pursuing the profession.
11. Malpractice lawsuit costs, which are already sky-high, could further explode since universal care may expose the government to legal liability, and the possibility to sue someone with deep pockets usually invites more lawsuits.
12. Government is more likely to pass additional restrictions or increase taxes on smoking, fast food, etc., leading to a further loss of personal freedoms.
13. Patient confidentiality is likely to be compromised since centralized health information will likely be maintained by the government.
14. Like social security, any government benefit eventually is taken as a “right” by the public, meaning that it’s politically near impossible to remove or curtail it later on when costs get out of control.

And here’s a place that has many references of how it’s not so “good” in other countries.

http://www.angelfire.com/pa/sergeman/issues/healthcare/socialized.html