I don't understand all the angst about single payer universal health care.
We have a single payor,universal coverage healthcare system in this country, specifically designed for the needs of a group that our polititions purport to single out for special care--the VA medical system. It is completely government funded and managed. It is not a paragon of either efficient or cost effective care. If the government cannot meet the needs of our veterans, what faith should we have that it can care for the rest of us? [There are a lot of truly wonderful physicians, nurses, and others who work in the VA system--this is not meant as an attack in any way on anyone who works there, but rather an observation that the system as a whole is not necessarily an improvement over the present civillian system.]
In England, their universal NHS system is the target of constant criticism .....lots of their own citizens are very unhappy with the care their receiving there. Did you know that modern studies of the natural history of a perforated appendix were done in England, on patients who ruptured because they did not receive timely care, despite full knowledge of the diagnosis?
The Canadian system seems to work better, but it is still designed to provide care within the limits of budgeted constraints, at which centralized, sigle payor systems excel. We can trade anecdotes all day, but two years ago I set up a consultation with a neurosurgeon here in TN for an acquaintance in Canada who was having terrible headaches and couldn't get scheduled for an MRI for 10 weeks. She was ultimately diagnosed with a slow growing brain tumor, couldn't see a neurosurgeon up there for six weeks after the diagnosis was made. Her mother, who lives in England, is in a wheelchair now because she was on a waiting list for a decompressive laminectomy for spinal stenosis for 18 months, and lost the ability to walk during this time.
I don't have the answer to fixing the system, but increased involvement by the government doesn't guarantee improved results.
