Socialized medicine a bad fix

Talking to Harold Haycook, owner of Haycook Moving and Storage, and his assistants, Mike West, 31, and Joe Braunig, 38, it was quickly established that they were all in favor of national health care, but what they did not realize are some of the serious pitfalls.

However, talking to local hospital employees at Bert Fish Medical Center, it was discovered that they are quite leery of national health care.

Hospital employees seemed to be mostly against national health care, although they did not want to be quoted.

With the return of cries for nationalized health care, readers need to be aware of the consequences of such a program. Talking to some typical New Smyrna Beach residents shows that many have no idea of what socialized medicine or national health care would do to them.

To start the discussion, note that National health care or Socialized medicine has been instituted a number of places including Canada, Great Britain, the former Soviet Union and others.

These programs have fallen into a very predictable pattern which we will outline below.

In the first phase, which may last a few years, national health care appears to be working and everybody is relatively satisfied with it.

However, very quickly people start to behave as if that their cost of health care is zero.

The public demand for health care starts to grow enormously out stripping any predictions which were made when the plan was being presented to the public.

For a few years, this growth is handled by higher taxes and sometimes inflating the currency.

Finally, the government is forced to find ways to reduce the load on their limited health care resources because there are limits to their ability to tax and inflate.

By far the favorite method for limiting the delivery of medical services is the waiting line followed by outright refusal to render certain treatments or telling the patient nothing can be done.

In some countries with national health care kidney dialysis is denied to people over a certain age.

In Canada and Great Britain, the waiting lines for some types of services can go into many months. Some recently publicized waiting times in Canada were on the order of half a year on average.

To cut costs, payment to physicians and hospitals are controlled at below market levels.

The relationship between the doctor and patient becomes overshadowed by the agency doing the paying. The Doctors lose their freedom as does the patient.

Naturally, the supply of doctors dries up as they retire early, move to the U.S. or simply do not go into medicine, period.

Patients in foreign countries try to get around a nationalized health service by going on the black market or simply going to the United States for treatment.

An illustrative example occurred when New Smyrna resident Ed Kenny, former Navy Jag core captain and former chairman of the Bert Fish Medical Center board needed a hip replacement.

Capt. Kenny was told that he could get one through the Navy, but the waiting time was about six months. Capt. Kenny was in a lot of pain so he opted to pay for it and have it done quickly.

With a national health service Capt. Kenny would have had to wait six months for his turn. That is what people have to do in England and Canada for many medical treatments.

In New Smyrna Beach, we have an above average percentage of people who are covered by Medicare which gives us a partial glimpse into what a fully nationalized health service might look like.

Doctors are hard pressed to make ends meet with their fees dictated by Medicare. Some doctors are leaving for areas with more non-Medicare patients. Doctors are leaving private practice and taking salaried jobs to avoid some of the bureaucratic type problems of running a medical practice.

Fewer people are going into medicine and doctors are retiring early, if they can. That makes it difficult for some hospitals to stay financially sound.

Notice how many people in doctor’s offices and Bert Fish Medical Center are occupied with paperwork instead of treating patients.

This is the inevitable result of having government as well as insurance companies cover medical bills.

Also notice that anyone who needs medical treatment can still get care in the emergency room or clinic run by the hospital. Under national health care this would probably no longer be true.

The people in New Smyrna Beach should give their doctor a hearty greeting and hug when they see him or her and cut a lot of slack for the people running Bert Fish Medical Center. They are facing tough problems with Medicare and insurance companies influencing medical care here.

Just think how much worse it would be if we had a universal government health system like those of England or Canada.