Health, Wealth and Humbug!

Wouldn’t it be great if food and housing and cars and the gas to make ‘em run were all free? Of course there were some people, perhaps many, before and after the last election who believed that was the program in store. Maybe they still do but it’s just that Obama is so busy and hasn’t got round to that part yet.

Wrong!!

So now, a few months later, the latest potential freebie is healthcare. Before we get into the specifics, there are 2 or 3 things to acknowledge upfront. Let me start by saying that clearly there are some people who don’t have health insurance. Some of those can’t afford it for all kinds of reasons. Others, mainly the young, are convinced that they will never get sick and so they’d prefer to buy another Xbox 360 instead of paying an insurance premium.

Here’s a bet, but understand that it is purely a rhetorical bet and not a literal one, because I went to Las Vegas a few weeks ago and never dropped one quarter into a machine. Of course, they got my money a different way but I digress …

Oh, the bet!

I’m prepared to wager that you would be shocked, stunned and amazed at the number of voters in this country who heard the phrase “comprehensive healthcare” and somehow equated that with “free healthcare”. Now only an utter fool wouldn’t want that but most are also well acquainted with the adage that, if it’s too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

The liberal left is pining for a “single-payer” system. Obama campaigned on that promise and its doubtful if anything less will shut ‘em up. Well, another speech by the teleprompter and read by Obama would work for a while. So far it seems to.

Well people, do I have news for you? For a start, contrary to popular opinion in the student bars of Tempe or Berkeley, “free healthcare” is not free. For example, in the UK which is oft cited as “the shining city on a hill”, the tab is almost 24% of an employee’s income. And that’s on top of income tax etc …..

Of course the AMA doesn’t want single payer or anything like it but I’m sure that statement will be hailed as a “Gotcha”. Not really because, believe me, you don’t want a poor doctor. Don’t know about you, but as a surgeon approaches my prostate with a scalpel in his or her hand, I don’t want to see a yawn induced by their early morning paper route.

In a post to this Blog dated June 4 of this year I went into some detail about the methodology which is used by the British National Health Service to select the prescription drugs which can be dispensed. But this “rationing” doesn’t stop there and a similar rationale is applied to surgical procedures, organ and tissue transplants etc.

So is this what you voted for and is this what you want to see in the US?

In about 3 month’s time I plan to attend a class reunion in England. At least 2 of my classmates are surgeons working in the National Health Service. I have no reason to think that their clinical skills are any less than an equivalent professional at the Mayo Clinic. The difference though is simply a question of availability of and prompt access to that clinical expertise. I’ve seen stark evidence of this within my own family when my youngest grandson would have had to wait for months to see a specialist. Fortunately my daughter is as stubborn as I am and paid good money to “go private”.

So, I ask again, is this what you want?

Contrary to opinion in some parts of the world, no person who needs medical attention in the US can be denied. The thousands of Emergency Rooms around the country are legally obligated to provide care to anyone who shows up. You may have to wait in line for some time, even hours. In the UK though, unless you want to pay “to go private” you can wait in line for months or even years.

Of course there is a solution that a friend suggested and which I would really like to see and that is to require members of Congress to relinquish their existing and very exclusive scheme and instead use the same system they foist on the rest of us.

Fat Chance!