If you think today’s pandemic bolsters the case for socialized medicine, then ask yourself a simple question: If you came down with a serious case of covid-19, would you rather be in an Italian hospital or an American one? Even presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden knows the answer. “With all due respect to Medicare-for-all,” Biden said during the last Democratic candidates’ debate, “you have a single-payer system in Italy. It doesn’t work there.”
While the federal government’s pandemic preparedness was sorely lacking, the fact is America’s system of private medicine has left us far better positioned for today’s crisis than other nations. As Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, explained in an interview, here in the United States, “we’re going to have a better experience [with this pandemic] than a lot of other countries because of how good our system is at delivering critical care
Why this pandemic is an indictment of socialized medicine
We go back to a basic principle: Governments do not create, make, manufacture with any degree of efficiency. while Private individuals and companies do. Government should be populated with people who are smart enough to balance the wellness and safety of the citizens with the fiduciary responsibility of their taxes. Government is almost inflexible while Capitalism will adapt and provide what people demand may it be mood rings or five minute testing machines for virus detection.
I have no doubt that the Government would have screwed up Pet Rocks.
We have a perfect test case: the veterans hospital system. Get that working well – quantifiably with metrics like time to wait for an appointment, outcome improvement, customer satisfaction, etc. – and show that it works well, in budget, for an extended period of time. And then we can talk about doing that for everyone. Maybe.
But if you can’t even get it to work well on a relatively small scale model, why would you think you can make it work better on a far bigger scale? More importantly, why would you think you could convince me it would?
A better test case is the IHS, which makes the VA look like a marvel of efficiency and competence. The difference is that VA serves a highly regarded constituency so it gets better than usual handling — by government standards. By contrast, the IHS serves a constituency politicians don’t care much about — just as they don’t care about “deplorables”.
I like to refer to “IHS for All” whenever Bernie-bros refer to “Medicare for All”.
What is the IHS, for all of us nobs?
Indian Health Service.
Pkoning is right, it’s even more of a mess than the VA is. Check out what’s happening in the Four Corners area at the moment, for instance.
The shining star of socialized medicine (according to some), the UK’s NHS is the primary reason why the (formerly) great United Kingdom is under a strict lockdown, and will continue to remain locked down for months.
It is not because the disease is particularly dangerous in the UK.
It is because the UK hospital system is overloaded pretty much every day of the year. When any kind of outbreak happens, the system cannot handle it. I have relatives over there, and the stories are scary. Ambulances sometimes line up outside the hospital for hours because beds are not available. The patients get treated in the ambulance, if a doctor/emt/nurse is available.
I have a friend over in the UK that has been waiting for months (and will wait for a lot longer now that Corona is in town). This is a medically necessary operation, but it is not life threatening. Yet, the lack of available operating rooms means his procedure continues to get pushed, pushed again, etc…
A nameless bureaucrat, balancing a spreadsheet is not going to make decisions that accommodate surges, dips, etc… they have some standard that must be met, and never exceeded.
Another good question to ask: which of the innovations we’re now using in the Coronavirus war was developed in a socialized medicine system?
*** crickets ***