Tag Archives: single payer system

Health Alerts

California Single-Payer Bill Looks Backward, Not Forward to A New Era of Patient Choice

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Covered California(A version of this Health Alert was published by the Orange County Register.)

Here we go again. The California state legislature is considering yet another bill to impose a so-called single-payer, government monopoly, health care system. This has long been an obsession of the militant California Nurses Union, because a health system under total government control would suit the narrow interests of union leaders. They would accrue power similar to that wielded by other public-sector unions and might even be able to negotiate contracts similar to those enjoyed by state and local employees, which are driving public finances across the state into the ditch. Continue reading California Single-Payer Bill Looks Backward, Not Forward to A New Era of Patient Choice →

single payer

Feel The Bern! No Right To Health Care In Canada

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220px-Tom_PriceOn Wednesday, I watched the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP) Committee’s courtesy hearing for Dr. Tom Price, MD, whom President-elect Trump has nominated to be the next United States Secretary of Health & Human Services. As a game of “gotcha,” the hearing played out predictably.

However, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stood out for asking a pointless “question” (actually a statement), which was because it was based on an error. As he has many times, Senator Sanders made the false claim that health care is a right in Canada and other countries outside the United States. According to Mr. Sanders, this is a unique stain on the United States. With respect to Canada, it is simply and plainly not true that health care is a “right.” Continue reading Feel The Bern! No Right To Health Care In Canada →

single payer

A Holiday Health Policy Vignette: Eye Surgery

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Seniors-CelebratingIf the Christmas dinner table has a cross-border contingent, different national characteristics are sure to come up for discussion. I enjoyed Christmas in Naples, Florida with a mixed group of Americans and Canadians. One couple consisted of a Canadian husband and an American wife. She insisted Canada’s single-payer health system was superior in every way (despite the couple’s living in Florida, not Canada).

I had sailed with her husband the day before, and he had invited me to pay tennis and golf, too. I was exhausted. How did he have so much energy? “Ever since I was five years old, I was blind as a bat, wearing Coke-bottle thick glasses. I could never play any sports. About seven years ago I had surgery to replace my lenses, and since then I play every sport I can. It has been a liberation.” Continue reading A Holiday Health Policy Vignette: Eye Surgery →

Science and Other News

Castro’s Death and Cuban Health Care

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cuba-flagThe recent death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro brought forth a grotesque encomium from the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who asserted “Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.”

Michael Moore, producer of propaganda dressed as documentaries, made a film in 2007 called Sicko, in which he also praised Cuban health care. The reality was different. According to a U.S. intelligence cable published by WikiLeaks, a local person employed by U.S. intelligence covertly observed:

  • Many young cancer patients reportedly have become infected with Hepatitis C after their surgeries. Contracting Hepatitis C after surgery indicates a lack of proper blood screening prior to administering transfusions. All blood should be screened for Hepatitis B, C, HIV and Syphilis prior to use. Patients have no recourse and are not fully informed of the seriousness of such an inadvertent infection.
  • Patients had to bring their own light bulbs if they wanted light in their rooms. The switch plates and knobs had been stolen from most of the rooms so one had to connect bare wires to get electricity. There was no A/C and few patients had floor fans. Patients had to bring their own sheets, towels, soap and supplemental foods. Hospital food service consisted of rice, fish, rice, eggs, and potatoes day after day. No fresh fruits, vegetables, or meat were available.
  • The laboratory equipment is very rudimentary – a simple CBC (complete blood count) blood test is calculated manually by a laboratory technician looking through a microscope and counting the individual leucocytes, lymphocytes, monocytes, etc.

Continue reading Castro’s Death and Cuban Health Care →

Health Care Access

Widespread Government Failure In Health Care

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UntitledThe Commonwealth Fund has published yet another survey comparing health care in the United States to health care in other countries. The title emphasizes US Adults Still Struggle With Access To And Affordability Of Health Care.

Really? As I’ve previously written, I agree fully with the Commonwealth Fund scholars that health care in the U.S. is inefficiently delivered and over bureaucratized. Nevertheless, suggesting U.S. health care is the worst overall is not consistent with the data.

The latest survey compares 11 developed democracies. The relationship between government control of health care and various measures of health status is not at all clear, despite other countries having so-called “universal” health systems.

When it comes to actual access to care, 35 percent of low-income Americans (with household incomes below one half the median income) had to wait six or more days to see a primary-care doctor or nurse the last time they needed care. However, so did 38 percent of low-income Germans and 32 percent of low-income Swedes. Continue reading Widespread Government Failure In Health Care →

Science and Other News

Single-Payer Setback: Canadian Doctors Without Contract For Over Two Years

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OHIPPhysicians in Canada’s largest province, Ontario, have rejected a contract negotiated between the Ontario Medical Association and the provincial health ministry. The more than two-year old dispute shows no sign of ending.

Every Canadian is covered by his provincial government’s health plan. So, doctors have only one plan with which to contract. Each doctor cannot decide how much he wants to charge his patients. Instead, he is dependent on a centrally bargained contract which determines fees for every procedure and practice from the skyscrapers of downtown Toronto to windswept hamlets on the frozen shores of Hudson’s Bay. Continue reading Single-Payer Setback: Canadian Doctors Without Contract For Over Two Years →

Health Alerts

The Fantasy of Single-Payer Health Care In The States

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HEALTHCARE LAW PROTESTS AT SUPREME COURT(A version of this Health Alert was published in the Washington Examiner)

One of the defining characteristics of Bernie Sanders’ socialism is single-payer healthcare, a fully taxpayer-funded universal medical system. Single-payer healthcare has long had a following in the United States, but it is unlikely to become federal policy. Obamacare’s setbacks have made Americans less confident than ever that the federal government could operate such a system.

So single-payer advocates are focusing on individual states. This November Coloradans will vote on single-payer healthcare. A couple of years ago, Vermont’s governor tried to institute it, but gave up short of the finish line. Other states will surely try. I would put Oregon and (maybe) Hawaii at the top of the list of states to watch.

If successful, this would be a Canadian-style roll-out of single-payer healthcare, which began in individual provinces in the mid-20th century and subsequently won federal support. However, there are significant obstacles to any state instituting true single-payer healthcare in 21st-century America, even if the people or politicians choose it. Continue reading The Fantasy of Single-Payer Health Care In The States →

Policy Updates

Physicians for A National Health Program’s Red Herring

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The tireless Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, American champion for government monopoly, so-called “single-payer” has contributed a blog entry to a New York Times “Room for Debate” discussion on whether the U.S. should be more like Denmark (as suggested by Senator Bernie Sanders in the recent Democratic presidential candidates’ debate):

By the end of the 20th century, the U.S. was the lone hold out for private, for-profit health insurance, and its health statistics lagged behind dozens of countries. Meanwhile, costs soared to twice the average in other wealthy nations.

Other countries have seen huge savings by evicting private insurers and the reams of expensive paperwork they inflict on doctors and hospitals.

Obamacare will direct an additional $850 billion in public funds to private insurers, and boost insurance overhead by $273.6 billion.

One interesting thing about the fight against Obamacare is that the single-payer extremists and the free-market advocates agree that Obamacare is fundamentally unjust, in that it compels citizens to hand their money over to private health insurers. Continue reading Physicians for A National Health Program’s Red Herring →

Science and Other News

“Free” Canadian Health Care At $12,000 Per Family

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The Fraser Institute has released a study estimating the costs of Canada’s government monopoly, a.k.a. single-payer health system. A typical Canadian family of four will pay $11,735 for public health care insurance in 2015. The study also tracks the cost of health care insurance over time: Between 2005 and 2015, the cost of health care for the average Canadian family (all family types) increased by 48.5 per cent, dwarfing increases in income (30.8 per cent), shelter (35.9 per cent) and food (18.2 per cent).

FI Continue reading “Free” Canadian Health Care At $12,000 Per Family →