Why do so many Americans think socialized medicine is a great system?

Question

I do think we need reforms in our health care system, but why do so many Americans assume that socialized medicine works so well? I thought it was pretty great until I found out that my cousin in Ireland had to wait a full 3 months after diagnosis to get treatment for breast cancer, just because of how slow the system was. One of my friends with roots in Canada sees similar cases with very slow, often sub-par treatments. It seems that only a few countries have found success with socialized medicine, but success in the area is uncommon. Does anyone else get tired of hearing that America needs socialized medicine?

Great answers, all of you! Very interesting reads.

Answer 1

No, I am glad that the movement has picked up momentum. We should be the best in the world for everything, including access to health care. Currently we rank 37th with developing nations like Costa Rica ranking ahead of us. Clearly our current system isn't so great.

Answer 2

Because, unlike the rest of the civilized world, we Americans have yet to wrap our heads around the fact that the private sector's sole purpose is to turn a profit; that means we the people - in the case of health care/insurance - are viewed as a liability, and once we start becoming expensive they throw us under the bus and move on. Privatized health care isn't the answer, and the recently passed health care legislation/law allows these private health insurance companies to remain privatized, instead of falling under the control and purview of the state as they should. The industry should be publicly owned and operated, and if that means a little raise in our taxes - fine, I will gladly pay the extra costs. Obama's concessions and subsequent capitulation to the private health service industries and the GOP is despicable (albeit expected). The legislation never went far enough. It only partially alleviated the problem; it did not, however, solve the issue outright. It merely avoids the problem while appearing to confront it. This American thinks it's time for socialized care and medicine - but, then, I'm a socialist. Unfortunately, most Americans balk every time major change comes their way, and that includes overhauling and dismantling our current health care system. The private sector's sole concern is profits; that said, does anybody here really expect a private health company to pay for every sick or dying patient that falls under their care? No, they'll drop the person as soon as they become a costly liability. The answer isn't privatization - it's setting control in public hands.

Answer 3

The current system isn’t working so well either. Many people have no health insurance and some risk their entire life savings and bankruptcy if a serious illness occurs.

We pay the most money for health care of any industrialized country and much of that money goes to administrative costs. There are waiting times here also, depending on the doctor, the procedure and the location.

Painting the system as ideal in order to avoid change is not going to work because more and more Americans are realizing that it is a false picture. Facing reality and proposing solutions without fear, paranoia and illusory beliefs will help us provide better health care for all Americans.

Answer 4

No question the Canadian health care system needs a little more money for certain things, but on the whole it's pretty darn good and I have no complaints about my treatment. I think the trouble is, like politicians everywhere, politicians in Canada tell the public they can make things better without spending more money, and like people everywhere, Candadians never seem to get tired of hoping that's true. I think Canada has it mostly right, and they could pay a little more to address a few shortcomings, and have a truely awesome health care system and it would be worth every penny. People just need to be committed to the idea and ready to chip in their share if it's going to work.

Answer 5

First off Americans will still have access to private insurance and have the option of paying, for those of you with insurance trust me you're already paying for the uninsured it's just a matter of how, while I'm sorry about your cousin had there been NO insurance what would have happened, hard as it is to think about they would have been even worse off, also we have socialized healthcare that works pretty good it's called Medicare and many seniors are on it, those who can afford it get supplemental insurance, what we're talking about here is making sure EVERYONE has a chance to see a Doctor there are over 43 million Americans with no health care at all, Mediacre has an exceptionally low overhead of only 1% you can't beat that, while we do need to be vigilant about abuse and fraud it basically works pretty dang good, now the uninsured drive up costs across the board since there is no money from them you, your insurance company, all of us end up paying MORE for medical attention, at least this could help rein in and reduce those costs

Answer 6

I don't know how many people want socialized medicine or even what you mean by that. Our system doesn't work too good if you don't have insurance. If you have a great and most likely expensive plan it is great. You have to be careful when looking at anecdotal evidence too. There are horror stories everywhere including here. I am not an expert but I want to look into what is being discussed with money going into a pool and then going to providers. I know there is a heck of a lot to it than that but I don't think we should just dismiss everything as "Socialized" You know - give it a bad name and scare people. That sounds like something you'd here on my show.

Answer 7

im a british citizen and an american citizen.
I live in the USA now.
The Answer is easy, if you cant afford health , then social medicine is a great idea , because somthing is better than nothing .
As for your cousin , there not restricted to just what the NHS has to offer, there are private medical plans as well she could get , like going with bupa and other private medical plans, BUPA just comes to mind because it was the best well known when i left the UK

Answer 8

Katy: excellent question intelligently asked.

Among the answers, there are a few noteworthy responses (see Red, Tribeca_Belle, Chredon, Captaincollector, Vegaswoman).

The question behind socialized medicine (that is, medicine provided by a government for its people) is whether health care is a human right or a commodity. If the latter, than people get what they are able and willing to pay for. If the former, in a country where human rights are considered a supreme value, the government is obligated to provide health care (And in a democracy, the people are obligated to ensure their government does so.).

Most of us are at least emotionally committed to the concept that, here in the U.S., health care is a human right.

At this point, complications set in.

The first is resources: how much do we have, and how much are we willing to spend? We’ve seen both elsewhere and in our own country (in Oregon, for example) where the demand for resources exceeded the supply agreed upon, and tough, painful choices needed to be made about who got what care, and who didn’t. There is no reason to believe that won’t happen in a national health care system here.

Another resource problem is the current availability of facilities and personnel. We are already short. What would adding the estimated 48 million non-insured do to the time line for receiving care? We’re already importing a significant number of physicians and nurses to try and meet our needs. That supply is not endless – and questions have been raised about the morality of enticing health care professionals away from their far needier populations to ours by “showing them the money.”

Would we be willing to shift resources or raise taxes to meet our obligation to adequately provide for this human right? Are we really as generous as one of your responders says we are? This would be quite a test of that hypothesis.

Another problem is expectations. Those of us with resources have gotten used to the relatively kind and gentle and efficient and informed way in which we get our care. Those of us without resources know what we’ve been missing. While the care itself may be as good (or as bad), we know the difference between private and public medicine is like the difference between private and public school, and private and public transportation. Everyone’s expectations will include the environment and frills of the private medicine experience. That will not happen here, and we are a famously intolerant group when it comes to any imposition on our entertainments and conveniences.

You are quite right to be concerned about the stories you have heard from family and friends. But I think you can find horror stories anywhere. I’ve seen some myself in a very fine private community hospital. I know those horror stories are the exceptions. And I think Azawalli’s post re: his own first-hand experience with socialized medicine helps support my viewpoint.

(Speaking of anecdotes, here's one from a weekend in Seattle several years ago. It was during fall elections which were going on in both Canada and the U.S. I saw a political commercial in which a candidate for a seat in the House accused his opponent of wanting to bring Canadian-style medicine to the U.S. Within 30 minutes, on the same station, I saw a political commercial in which a candidate for a seat in the Canadian parliament accused his opponent of wanting to bring American-style medicine to Canada. Perspective.)

What we decide to do, and how we decide to do it, and how we continue to sustain it, will surely tell us what kind of people we are. One thing: we’ve always been up for a challenge.

Answer 9

When Canadian Medicare came into being, it covered much more than it does now. Billions of dollars have been bled from the system so that it is starving to death. In the 1970's the powers that be, decided we had too many doctors and nurses per capita and shut down training hospitals and laid off personnel.

The privatized system in the States does not cover over 45 million people and their health care system costs more than double ours in Canada and does not get better results in most cases.

People should not have to worry about getting help for medical problems. It is inhuman. Many American companies profit very nicely in Canada because their staff have the medical with much lower costs than Americans.

It is fairer because most comes out of taxes with taxes dependant on your income. The exception to this is businesses which are taxed lower. I think this is wrong because those businesses make their profits because people work for them and buy their products so they should pay equal taxes because they benefit from this. They couldn't make profits without the people that support them.

Originally it also covered dental, etc. Someone decided it wasn't part of our health. Tell that to someone who contracted heart disease because of bad teeth and the infections that went to their heart.

Many provinces now don't cover physio therapy. This means people don't recover as fast from many ailments and end up in the emergency ward or hospital.

Our system isn't as good now also because governments with ideaolgy that someone should make a profit out of human misery.

The fact is that if everyone didn't have to worry about getting health coverage businesses would have more people on the job making profits for them.

On and on I could go.

Answer 10

Socialized medicine indeed. Just got back from seeing "Sicko", the movie, and I can truly say I"m ashamed of my country. Guess what is allready socialized in this country. How about the fire departments? Socialized. LIbraries, socialized. Military, socialized, Social Security, socialized. Medicare, socialized. If you feel reforms are not needed in medicine, hold your final opinion until after you see this documentary. You will be enlightened.

Answer 11

If you look into any system, you will find examples of things gone wrong. I live in Canada and I needed surgery to prevent blindness in one eye due to a detached retina. I was in surgery the next day.

Although I've had to wait for treatment in other, less dire situations, I can honestly say that I never got "sub-par" treatment anywhere.

As I've made the point in other answers, health care, like any other resource is rationed. In the U.S., it's rationed by price--if you can afford it, great, if not, "tough luck". In Canada, as in other countries in which medical coverage is available to all, health care is rationed by waiting longer for treatment for conditions that are non-life-threatening. If we had to talk about probabilities, I'd say that anyone with breast cancer is more likely to get timely treatment in Canada than the U.S. Nobody talks about people who are denied treatment by their insurance companies and die as a result--unless, apparently, it's Michael Moore (I haven't seen "Sicko" yet).

I've heard horror stories about things gone wrong in the Canadian system; more than you have, as I live here. Knowing what I know about Canadian health care and American health care, I would say I still prefer the Canadian system any time.