We Need A Shot In The Arm
Below the Belt: A Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

October 17, 2008

http://www.now.org/news/note/101708.html

It's been a few years, but I had a brush with the kind of "socialized" medicine that John McCain invoked with such derision in Wednesday night's debate. I'm delighted with the size of my family and my two daughters, ages 13 and 15 -- but they might have had an older sibling if I hadn't suffered a miscarriage while visiting my husband's sister in England.

Having surgery under general anesthesia was not part of my plan for that trip, and the visits from multiple specialists made me worry that the cost would be a real financial setback. In the hospital, there was a nice warm robe instead of a paper gown, and imagine my surprise when the doctor dropped by my sister-in-law's house, not once but twice, to see how I was recovering.

My surprise was even greater when the hospital personnel looked actively for ways to avoid charging me for my stay ("Are you sure you're not here on any kind of business?"). And when I assured them that I had insurance, they presented me (quite regretfully it seemed) with the full bill. It was under $400, a shockingly low price tag even then.

The trouble with implementing IT in hospitals is that often it doesn't work the way it's supposed to, if at all (I work with it on a daily basis, it can be a real <censored> sometimes), and you end up with far more paperwork and upheaval every time the system decides it wants to crash for no apparent reason.

So... if you guys go down that road, just make sure you don't have Bob The Builder as chief designer.

The seven years I spent working in a state bureaucracy with a state-wide computer-system we spent about as much down-time as up-time on casework. That system was provided and maintained courtesy of the Ross Perot business enterprise.

The me was true of the security network I worked on back in the 1970s and 80s when I was employed by the military and an unnamed federal agency. That system was maintained by Hewlett-Packard and was considered "frontline" in the Cold War.

Both systems made for lots of cursing, lots of weight-gain due to the eating of pastry and drinking of coffee while they were down and no one could do their work. *sigh*

I came to believe that down-time was a requirement of government-purchased computer systems, or seemed so at any rate.

Nichole

When I joined the military, I had GREAT socialized medicine.  I paid nothing, and got all the care I needed.  I didn't get to see the same doctor, but I was taken care of. 

Actually, you could move around in the system, go to a different clinic.  I went to the 'wingside' dental clinic and got a very painful filling.  The next time I went to the 'mainside' clinic and told the dentist of how badly I'd been hurt by the wingside dentist.  This second dentist was MUCH better, and he said they knew about the other dentist.

So socialized medicine CAN work. (The U.S. Military is organized under principles that could be called socialist.)

Then Hillary lost to the couple that wanted to choose 'their own doctor'.  And military medicine was transformed to look like an HMO where the government picks up the whole tab.  Getting care got much more complicated, and the care received, aside from assembly-line stuff, got much worse.

There are pockets of excellence, though.  My Primary Care Physician is at the base clinic.  Everybody knows me (the trans-girl videographer,) and as a military retiree I pay low, low premiums for my healthcare.

Still, I wish that there was a single-payer national system that everybody had as a RIGHT.  Then we could have FREEDOM from the worry of what might happen if we didn't have access to healthcare.

Karen

I think it's a slippery slope to call health care a right, but I agree that a single-payer system would be much better that what we've got now.  We're definitely entitled to something back from our government - veterans perhaps more so than most.

Health, something the progressives understood, is public business.  I love how doctors, who went to a state supported school, then a state supported medical school, then trained in a publicly funded hospital, and use drugs that for most part were brought into being due to federal funding for state research universities, then claim that any form of government health care is socialistic.  Lots of nerve there.

A public matter is one thing, a right is something else entirely.

QuoteHealth, something the progressives understood, is public business.

But the AMA controls the number of doctors along with competition and costs.

Quote from: lisagurl on October 21, 2008, 09:38:45 AM
But the AMA controls the number of doctors along with competition and costs.

It's called 'professional birth control.'  It keeps the supply low and thus the demand (and the fees that can be charged) high.  A lot of other fields use it, too... =K

Quote from: Katie Leah on October 21, 2008, 07:26:50 AM
A public matter is one thing, a right is something else entirely.

Maybe you should have HIV or most any cancer and see if that changes your opinion.  I guess we all have the right to die.

I was thinking more along the lines of a pandemic, where those who can't afford treatment just pass it along to those that can.

The outbreaks of such events were the motivation for the beginnings of public health in this country.

The overhead for managing medicare is around 4 percent.  The veterans administration runs about 2 percnt overhead.  Private insurance companies run anywhere from 22 to 33 percent.  That is money not going to health care.  My parents, on medicare, get better care than I do and my insurance costs 1400 per month.

I don't think of health care as a right.  I think of it as a necessity.  My car is composed of many parts.  If I were to tell the wheels to go out and get their own grease job, I'm not all that confident that I'd be able to trust the car to get me where I want to go.  The thing is, we are all so interconnected now. Are you familiar with the term "human resources"?  Yup, everyone of us is a cog in the huge machine we call America. When someone is sick and at home, it affects us, even if it is another company or industry.  When they can't pay their bill, we still get to pay it throug higher premiums.

Wouldn't it just make more sense to make sure everyone is taken care of at the outset, eliminate the pork fried overhead, and make sure that everyone is healthy?

I think that it is a need.  We are the only industrialized country that does not provide a single payer plan.  Other countries make it work.  And for the argument against it by saying "Oh you don't wan that!  Just look at Canada or Britain!"  Hey... those programs work a lot better than ours does I bet when you look at them from the macro perspective. My health plan certainly sucks.

Cindi

Quote from: Claire de Lune on October 22, 2008, 01:19:34 AM

Quote from: Katie Leah on October 21, 2008, 07:26:50 AM
A public matter is one thing, a right is something else entirely.

Maybe you should have HIV or most any cancer and see if that changes your opinion.  I guess we all have the right to die.

Maybe I should get mugged by a black man and then rethink my opinion on the Ku Klux Klan.  Maybe I should witness a terror bombing and rethink my opinion on Arabs.  Maybe I should... not make my decision on self-centered emotional grounds.

I guess If no one can treat my incurable, fatal disease, then my rights have been violated.  After all, I have a right to health care.  If there aren't enough doctors or enough supplies to treat me, who's responsible for violating my rights?  Who should we throw into prison?  Who's the criminal?  Who's to blame for the untreated malnutrition and disease in the Third World (and even here)?  If health care were a right, we could identify specific people engaging in criminal action to deprive people of their right to health care, and prosecute them.

"Right" means something beyond "I'd like to have this", however badly we want it.  Rights are proscriptions on certain actions towards others, not positive obligations.  W punish people for violating rights because they're infringing someone's natural liberty.

On the other hand, the mere fact that I exist doesn't obligate anyone else to provide me with things.  If you think that should be the case, what happens when everyone chooses to exercise this "right"?  Do I have a right to food, water, shelter, and clothing as well?  Someone's got to provide these things... what about their rights?  What about the iron fact that there might not be enough for everyone?  If there are exceptions to those "rights", what about historical rights like speech, association, etc.?  Calling health care a "right" destroys the very idea of rights.

So if its not a right, its at least a public concern, and that science, skill and training are all part not of some private system, but rather of the commonwealth.  That to which we all share equal access to.  Is not a healthy population of some importance?  If its necessary to build superhighways, is it not also necessary to keep people healthy, and in the long run, its a lot cheaper to keep people well then it is to treat them when they are sick.  Every other industrial nation has this?  Are we right and all of them are wrong?  Kind of hard to believe.

Quote from: tekla on October 22, 2008, 01:13:21 PM
So if its not a right, its at least a public concern, and that science, skill and training are all part not of some private system, but rather of the commonwealth.  That to which we all share equal access to.  Is not a healthy population of some importance?  If its necessary to build superhighways, is it not also necessary to keep people healthy, and in the long run, its a lot cheaper to keep people well then it is to treat them when they are sick.  Every other industrial nation has this?  Are we right and all of them are wrong?  Kind of hard to believe.

I never said it wasn't a matter of public concern (I actually said the opposite).  I also agreed that a single-payer system would be better than what we have now.  It's just not a right.

Posted on: October 22, 2008, 02:20:08 pm

---

Don't forget that America already foots the bill for the CDC and lots of other things that countries with public health care make use of.  We do the research and pay for it, they benefit.  That's hardly fair.

QuoteIt's just not a right.

Just as clean water is not a right or clean air. The facts are private corporations are finding ways to charge for everything. The tax system supplies basic needs and security. Some things the private profit making sector violate the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Health should not be in the hands of profit, no morals corporations. We give rights to protected species why not humans. It is true if we overpopulate the amount of resources then some people will die. Along with providing health care we must be prepared for the government to control the amount of children we have. Rights all come with responsibilities.

Quote from: Katie Leah on October 22, 2008, 12:54:16 PM

Quote from: Claire de Lune on October 22, 2008, 01:19:34 AM

Quote from: Katie Leah on October 21, 2008, 07:26:50 AM
A public matter is one thing, a right is something else entirely.

Maybe you should have HIV or most any cancer and see if that changes your opinion.  I guess we all have the right to die.

Maybe I should get mugged by a black man and then rethink my opinion on the Ku Klux Klan.  Maybe I should witness a terror bombing and rethink my opinion on Arabs.  Maybe I should... not make my decision on self-centered emotional grounds.

I guess If no one can treat my incurable, fatal disease, then my rights have been violated.  After all, I have a right to health care.  If there aren't enough doctors or enough supplies to treat me, who's responsible for violating my rights?  Who should we throw into prison?  Who's the criminal?  Who's to blame for the untreated malnutrition and disease in the Third World (and even here)?  If health care were a right, we could identify specific people engaging in criminal action to deprive people of their right to health care, and prosecute them.

"Right" means something beyond "I'd like to have this", however badly we want it.  Rights are proscriptions on certain actions towards others, not positive obligations.  W punish people for violating rights because they're infringing someone's natural liberty.

On the other hand, the mere fact that I exist doesn't obligate anyone else to provide me with things.  If you think that should be the case, what happens when everyone chooses to exercise this "right"?  Do I have a right to food, water, shelter, and clothing as well?  Someone's got to provide these things... what about their rights?  What about the iron fact that there might not be enough for everyone?  If there are exceptions to those "rights", what about historical rights like speech, association, etc.?  Calling health care a "right" destroys the very idea of rights.

CT exhibits tangential behavior related to a libertarian delusional construct.  Adjustment in medication should be considered by med team.

I guess your world view doesn't leave room for any possibilities besides "mandatory" and "forbidden".

EDIT:  I'd love to know exactly how you can make products and services into a right.

EDIT: And apparently I need to agree with you 100% on everything to get some basic courtesy.  Your crack about HIV or cancer was totally uncalled for, and the follow up to it is ridiculous.  I might come across as cold or emotionless at times, much to my dismay, but I'm not going out of my way to insult people who agree with me on everything except a point of philosophy.

QuoteEDIT:  I'd love to know exactly how you can make products and services into a right.

It depends on the Government you want. In a Marx type society many rights are given as also many are taken away. Some very basic needs are needed for a healthy life. In a consumer society many products and services are not needed for a healthy life in fact many of these products and services shorten life and foul health. It is important that the social morals distinguish the difference.

But "rights" don't necessarily correspond to things that we need to survive or be happy.  Freedom of speech might be all well and good, but health care when I'm sick is usually more important to me.  Freedom of association is fine, but if I have to trade it for food when I'm starving, I will.  The thing that makes a right isn't that it's vital or necessary, but that it can apply universally and can be upheld even in a worst-case scenario.  If everyone is starving or sick, whatever rights to food and medicine they have make little difference, but the rights to life, liberty, and property are still important protections.

You can still provide something to everyone as an obligation of the government without making it a right.