The Joys of Socialized Medicine
From the London Telegraph...
Millions of people with arthritis, asthma and even heart failure will be urged to treat themselves as part of a Government plan to save billions of pounds from the NHS budget.
Instead of going to hospital or consulting a doctor, patients will be encouraged to carry out "self care" as the Department of Health (DoH) tries to meet Treasury targets to curb spending....
Critics claimed the plan would provide doctors with an excuse for ignoring the elderly or those with debilitating, but not life-threatening long-term conditions, and would not work without significant investment in community health services.
As a powerful advocate for reasonable and adequate health care for citizens, the government can be very effective. As a provider, however, it becomes the problem.
Everything revolves around money. It's undeniable. Hospitals are business, existing to make money. Ultimately when deciding between quality and profits, they will choose profits. Government regulations, however, can curb that by creating boundaries that corral hospitals and other health care providers into continuing to maintain adequate quality. But when the government is the health care provider, and they choose money over quality, who then can curb their greed? Governments also exist for money. They need money to function and without it, will fall (as was seen when Reagan used simple economics to bankrupt the Soviet Union into obscurity)
When we have the government functioning as business, then we have a business with no boundaries, or even incentives. We can see what an utter failure that is when we look at the US Postal Service. When competition was finally allowed in delivering packages, quality improved and prices went down. Where they still have a monopoly--individual letters--service remains mediocre and prices high, even in the face of partial competition from emails.
Socialized medicine is like any other socialist concept--it doesn't solve the problem, but simply forces it on a wider segment of the population.
Posted by Danny Carlton at January 2, 2008 6:53 AM