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Mixed Health Care Feelings

That’s mixed feelings about health care and feelings about a mixed system of health care, in case you were wondering.

I’ve expressed my ambivalence about health care previously. While I hope for an ideal situation in which a certain level of health care is available to everyone regardless of ability to pay, I also want to protect the good things about American health care, including the level of choice and the leading edge developments.

Such a combination won’t occur completely in real life. Any compromise that increases government funding is going to cut into choice and in some cases quality of care. Maintaining our leading edge advantage (read “expensive” leading edge) cuts into the ability to give basic care to everyone, simply because it costs. If everyone is expected to pay, expect everyone to get in on the decision as to whether certain treatments are worth it or not.

Today on MSNBC.com I read A tale of 2 sickbeds: Health care in U.K. vs. U.S., which expresses my ambivalence very well. The author was hospitalized for similar problems in the U.S. and the U.K. though about 10 years apart. There were aspects of each experience that were better than the other.

What is the possibility that real serious creativity could produce a system that gets the best of both? I suspect not. Everything I know about economics (which isn’t all that extensive) suggests it won’t work.

It’s too bad, because I think that this nation will not forever accept the idea that the Emergency Room is primary care for a substantial number of patients. That provides lousy care and forces other people to pay. It takes money out of some people’s pockets for others just as effectively, though not as fairly, as taxes would, but it doesn’t deliver health care all that effectively.

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One Comment

  1. Thanks for the article link. That was a great anecdotal view of both systems.

    I recently had to experience the American side of the system myself and am thankful for my insurance and can understand how the costs to the uninsured are quickly a heavy financial burden for any illness that involves an er trip and short stay in the hospital – let alone a long term illness.

    I still remain convinced however that our system would function better (perhaps not perfectly) if we re-establish health insurance as a catastrophic coverage rather than it’s current form of covering almost everything. We need to pay for simple primary care and reserve the insurance for unexpected events and long term illness.

    For those who exist at the poverty level, I think the government can provide some assistance for primary care and policies for catastrophic health care without incurring huge costs.

    We need to somehow plan for health care as a regular expense and prioritize our spending to account for that rather than rely on comprehensive policies or cost shifting to pay for it.

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