Summary of reasons not to nationalize health care

[Dr.Who]

# Health care is not a constitutional right.[164][165] Thus, it is not the responsibility of government to provide health care.[166]

# Free health care can lead to overuse of medical services, and hence raise overall cost.[167][168]

# Universal health coverage does not in practice guarantee universal access to care. Many countries offer universal coverage but have long wait times or ration care.[169]

# Systems that lack profit motive may have a lower rate of medical innovation.[170]

# Publicly-funded medicine is less efficient and less egalitarian[170][171] Universal health care would reduce efficiency because of more bureaucratic oversight and more paperwork[172] The Cato Institute claims that the performance of administrative duties by doctors results from medical centralization and over-regulation, and may reduce charitable provision of medical services by doctors.[165]

# Converting to a single-payer system could be a radical change, creating administrative chaos.[173]

# Unequal access and health disparities still exist in universal health care systems.[174]

# The problem of rising health care costs is occurring all over the world; this is not a unique problem created by the structure of the US system.[169]

# It requires governments to increase taxes as costs rise year over year.[175] As an open-ended entitlement, Medicare does not weigh the benefits of technologies against their costs. Paying physicians on a fee-for-service basis also leads to spending increases. As a result, it is difficult to predict or control Medicare's spending.[174] The Washington Post reported in July 2008 that Medicare had "paid as much as $92 million since 2000" for medical equipment that had been ordered in the name of doctors who were dead at the time.[176] Large market-based public program such as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and CalPERS can provide better coverage than Medicare while still controlling costs as well.[177][178]

Commodites based health care systems # tend to be more effective as they incorporate market mechanisms and limit centralized government control.[169]

# Public health care is a step towards socialism and involves extension of state power and reduction of individual freedom.[179]

# The right to privacy between doctors and patients could be eroded if government demands power to oversee the health of citizens.[180]

# Universal health care systems, in an effort to control costs by gaining or enforcing monopsony power, sometimes outlaw medical care paid for by private, individual funds.[181][182]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_reform_debate_in_the_United_States

 

[TVoffBrainOn]

# Health care is not a constitutional right.[164][165] Thus, it is not the responsibility of government to provide health care.[166]

US Constitution
Amendment IX, Amedment VI cl.2
Ratified by 11 states on December 15, 1791. First US federal law.

This Constitution . . . and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby.
- Amendment VI

Charter of the United Nations
Ratified by the U.S. Senate on July 28, 1945.

The preamble states that the peoples of the United Nations have determined to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

Article 55 of the UN Charter states: The UN shall promote higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development . . . as well as universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.

All levels of U.S. Government are expected to enforce rights guaranteed by the UN Charter. The US supreme court, two circuit courts, two district courts and one tax court have cited the UN Charter as U.S. law.


United Nations Declaration on Human Rights
Article 25 Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.


International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
In October of 1977 the U.S. signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It was ratified it on Oct 21, 1994. This document recognizes:

The right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest available standard of physical and mental health. [to be implemented by] the creation of conditions which would assure to all, medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness.

 

[TVoffBrainOn]

Below is a great read on the myths of healthcare around the world.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/08/five_myths_about_health_care_a.html

oped »
Five myths about health care around the world
By Galen Barnett, The Oregonian
August 25, 2009, 5:30AM

As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.

I've traveled the world from Oslo to Osaka to see how other developed democracies provide health care. Instead of dismissing these models as "socialist," we could adapt their solutions to fix our problems. To do that, we first have to dispel a few myths about health care abroad:

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

Not so.

Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans.

In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.

2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.

Generally, no. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans -- a broader choice than any American has. If a German doesn't like her insurance company, she can switch to another, with no increase in premium. The Swiss, too, can choose any insurance plan in the country.

In France and Japan, you don't get a choice of insurance provider; you have to use the one designated for your company or your industry. But patients can go to any doctor, any hospital, any traditional healer. There are no U.S.-style limits such as "in-network" lists of doctors or "pre-authorization" for surgery. You pick any doctor, you get treatment -- and insurance has to pay.

Canadians have their choice of providers. In Austria and Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.

As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for non-emergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.

In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"

3. Foreign health care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.

Much less so than here. It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise -- private-sector, for-profit health insurance -- is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours.

U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for non-medical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.

The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.

4. Cost controls stifle innovation.

False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.

Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)

5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

Not really. American health insurance companies routinely reject applicants with a "preexisting condition" -- precisely the people most likely to need the insurers' service. They employ armies of adjusters to deny claims. If a customer is hit by a truck and faces big medical bills, the insurer's "rescission department" digs through the records looking for grounds to cancel the policy, often while the victim is still in the hospital. The companies say they have to do this stuff to survive in a tough business.

Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.

The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

In many ways, foreign health care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die.

This fragmentation is another reason that we spend more than anybody else and still leave millions without coverage. All the other developed countries have settled on one model for health-care delivery and finance; we've blended them all into a costly, confusing bureaucratic mess.

Which, in turn, punctures the most persistent myth of all: that America has "the finest health care" in the world. We don't. In terms of results, almost all advanced countries have better national health statistics than the United States does. In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.

Given our remarkable medical assets -- the best-educated doctors and nurses, the most advanced hospitals, world-class research -- the United States could be, and should be, the best in the world. To get there, though, we have to be willing to learn some lessons about health care administration from the other industrialized democracies

 

[GenSeneca]

TVoff, your claim is: Everyone has a "right" to food, clothing, housing, employment, healthcare, social services, financial security in the event of unemployment etc....

Who is responsible for providing you with those things?

 

[Little-Acorn]

Dr. Who, you left off:

# Federal involvement in Health Care is forbidden by the Constitution. The 10th amendment states that any powers not explicitly given to the Fed by the Constitution, are forbidden for the Fed to exercise, but "the states and the people" can have those powers if they want.

And the power to run a general health care program, is not given to the Fed anywhere in the Const, including its amendments.

 

[TVoffBrainOn]

TVoff, your claim is: Everyone has a "right" to food, clothing, housing, employment, healthcare, social services, financial security in the event of unemployment etc....

Who is responsible for providing you with those things?

My claim is simply that the case can be made that there IS constitutional claim to universal health care.

 

[BigRob]

US Constitution
Amendment IX, Amedment VI cl.2
Ratified by 11 states on December 15, 1791. First US federal law.

This Constitution . . . and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby.
- Amendment VI

Charter of the United Nations
Ratified by the U.S. Senate on July 28, 1945.

The preamble states that the peoples of the United Nations have determined to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

Article 55 of the UN Charter states: The UN shall promote higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development . . . as well as universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.

All levels of U.S. Government are expected to enforce rights guaranteed by the UN Charter. The US supreme court, two circuit courts, two district courts and one tax court have cited the UN Charter as U.S. law.


United Nations Declaration on Human Rights
Article 25 Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.


International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
In October of 1977 the U.S. signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It was ratified it on Oct 21, 1994. This document recognizes:

The right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest available standard of physical and mental health. [to be implemented by] the creation of conditions which would assure to all, medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness.

What a load of garbage. First of all, the UNDHR is simply a declaration by the GA and under the UN framework has no binding legal authority on anyone.

Additionally, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has never been ratified by the Senate, and therefore is not in force in any manner within the the United States. Since, under the Constitution the Senate has to ratify a treaty to make it binding.

As for the UN Charter, all it says is "promote." I would say we are "promoting" everything that is obligates us to do.

 

[Dr.Who]

TVoff, your claim is: Everyone has a "right" to food, clothing, housing, employment, healthcare, social services, financial security in the event of unemployment etc....

Who is responsible for providing you with those things?

To make it even more ridiculous he is arguing that all those things need to be provided because of an unratified treaty that could never outweigh the highest law of the land and does not even demand that we do those and that the US generally includes written loopholes so that if we don't want to obey it we can simply refuse.

 

[Dr.Who]

My claim is simply that the case can be made that there IS constitutional claim to universal health care.

Not only is there NO claim but it is contrary to the constitution as it is meant to be read.

 

[Dr.Who]

Below is a great read on the myths of healthcare around the world.

Five myths about health care around the world
By Galen Barnett, The Oregonian
August 25, 2009, 5:30AM

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

No one here said that it was.

2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.

Overseas care is rationed in various ways in various countries.

3. Foreign health care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.

Sometimes yes sometimes no.

4. Cost controls stifle innovation.

As a rule of thumb yes.

5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

No one here said that.

 

[GenSeneca]

My claim is simply that the case can be made that there IS constitutional claim to universal health care.

I understand that but along with universal healthcare the charter calls for people to be provided with such things as food, clothing, housing and more. So again I ask:

Who is obligated to provide those goods and services?

 

[Mr. Shaman]

# Health care is not a constitutional right.[164][165] Thus, it is not the responsibility of government to provide health care.[166]

# Free health care can lead to overuse of medical services, and hence raise overall cost.[167][168]

# Universal health coverage does not in practice guarantee universal access to care. Many countries offer universal coverage but have long wait times or ration care.[169]

# Systems that lack profit motive may have a lower rate of medical innovation.[170]

# Publicly-funded medicine is less efficient and less egalitarian[170][171] Universal health care would reduce efficiency because of more bureaucratic oversight and more paperwork[172] The Cato Institute claims that the performance of administrative duties by doctors results from medical centralization and over-regulation, and may reduce charitable provision of medical services by doctors.[165]

# Converting to a single-payer system could be a radical change, creating administrative chaos.[173]

# Unequal access and health disparities still exist in universal health care systems.[174]

# The problem of rising health care costs is occurring all over the world; this is not a unique problem created by the structure of the US system.[169]

# It requires governments to increase taxes as costs rise year over year.[175] As an open-ended entitlement, Medicare does not weigh the benefits of technologies against their costs. Paying physicians on a fee-for-service basis also leads to spending increases. As a result, it is difficult to predict or control Medicare's spending.[174] The Washington Post reported in July 2008 that Medicare had "paid as much as $92 million since 2000" for medical equipment that had been ordered in the name of doctors who were dead at the time.[176] Large market-based public program such as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and CalPERS can provide better coverage than Medicare while still controlling costs as well.[177][178]

Commodites based health care systems # tend to be more effective as they incorporate market mechanisms and limit centralized government control.[169]

# Public health care is a step towards socialism and involves extension of state power and reduction of individual freedom.[179]

# The right to privacy between doctors and patients could be eroded if government demands power to oversee the health of citizens.[180]

# Universal health care systems, in an effort to control costs by gaining or enforcing monopsony power, sometimes outlaw medical care paid for by private, individual funds.[181][182]

I guess you forgot to identify this as the Fair & Balanced Column.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

I understand that but along with universal healthcare the charter calls for people to be provided with such things as food, clothing, housing and more. So again I ask:

Who is obligated to provide those goods and services?

Just keep your bunker adequately buttoned-up.

I'm sure the stench will keep everyone away from your fat-back, corn-liquor & chawin' t'baccer.

​

 

[Dr.Who]

I understand that but along with universal healthcare the charter calls for people to be provided with such things as food, clothing, housing and more. So again I ask:

Who is obligated to provide those goods and services?

I will answer it for him but he won't like the answer.

Everyone has a right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The UN adds more such as food, clothing, and medical care. God will give those rights as He decides and He is not obligated at all to do so. The US Government is obligated not to violate those rights; no more, no less.

In fact, the dilemma is that when government tries to live up to its obligation to protect rights it must violate other persons rights in the process. For example, when a gov protects it's citizens from foreign invaders it has to rely on a draft (depriving persons of rights to liberty) or taxation (depriving persons of rights to liberty). The solution is for gov to do the least it can while still accomplishing the goal of protecting those basic civil rights described in the Constitution - it requires balance. As soon as the gov starts protecting rights its charter does not give it power to do so it has lost the balance. Likewise when it fails to protect rights it should protect it has also lost balance. This balance is not a question of degrees but a question of jurisdiction and roles; it is not the gov might do too much or too little but that it will interfere in areas it should not.

 

[GenSeneca]

I will answer it for him but he won't like the answer.

TV cannot answer, at least not honestly, because it reveals the truth. Underneath the veil of compassion and concern for human life is something much darker, contempt for individual achievement and ability. If individuals who need healthcare have a "right" to receive it, then those who have the ability to provide it are obligated to do so without compensation, they are forced to sacrifice for the good of society.

I don't know what TV does for a living, or even if he has a job, but lets say he's a doctor. Since people who can't pay for his services have a "right" to his services, he is obligated to provide his services at no charge. Nevermind the fact that he has a family to feed, a house to pay for and college loans to repay, nevermind that medical machines, bandages, sterilants and medicine all cost money... society has deemed that his uncompensated service is more important to the greater good than his family, his freedom, even his life.

TV would be a slave, his only purpose for life would be to serve his master, society. The same is true for the farmer, the clothes maker, the home builder and all the other individuals society condemns to slavery. Their crime is having a trade and knowledge of a profession that society deemed important to the collective. Their punishment is sacrifice, they must give of themselves, at the cost of their own well being, to provide society with the things individual members of society cannot provide themselves.

Those with need are the masters, those with ability are their slaves: Collectivism is a doctrine of slavery.