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Socialist Health Care
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 Socialist Health Care For example, this little Koala is over 65 years of age and has less than a certain threshold of assetts. That entitles him to an Age Pension , which brings in a small income. This decreases in a taper if you have more assets than a 'base level' which is virtually negligible, or earn outside income. But it also provides for other concessions such as reduced fares on public transport, etc. Then there is Medicare, which subsidises visits to a G.P. to the extent that some G.P.s band together to share secretarial costs, rent, etc so they can charge pensioners no more than the per-capita subsidy. So pensioners like me can use these medical centres and pay nothing for routine GP visits; and about half-price when I need to see my specialist once a year. We also have the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. This is a brilliant idea which negotiates low prices for bulk sales with Big Pharma, and then further subsidises their retail cost to individual patients. If one drug manufacturer won't agree to a price which is little more than marginal production cost, then his competitors will corner the market. Most companies accept the government price; it supports their economies of scale in production while the research and development costs are paid for by consumers in the USA who don't have the negotiating leverage of a government. This subsidised charge is reduced even further for pensioners like me. This little Koala has to take five different drugs every day. Thanks to the combination of the PBS and my pensioner concession, each costs me $A6.50 (about $US4.35) per month, not hundreds. But today I passed a threshold. I have spent the 'ceiling' on payments for prescription drugs in this year. Does that mean that I revert to the full PBS cost for further prescriptions? NO!! It means that I now pay NOTHING for prescription drugs for the rest of the year. Living in a Socialist Paradise can be quite pleasant! |
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Sounds terrible |
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Socialist health care Indeed! The finest medical system in the world! www.va.gov |
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Canadian Doctor Explains www.youtube.com |
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Mreica! Heck yeah baby! |
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Shiva Here in Oz, we have the basic government-funded 'Medicare'. This provides excellent care for life-threatening hospitalisations, or urgent cases where delay can have serious, permanent consequences. These cases are prioritised by triage on purely medical grounds. We also have a private system, often supported by private insurance, which allows quick access for cases which would not get priority in the public system. The private system also offers other perks, such as private rooms instead of common wards of up to 8 patients, carpet and prints on the walls instead of "Institutionalised Brutalist" interior decorating, private bathrooms instead of a shared bathroom for each ward. Much as I would like to take advantage of any argument in favour of 'socialised medicine', I don't think this is significant here in Australia. Of course, something this complex can't be given a simple one-sentence answer. Here are a few dot points:- 1. Emergencies are treated on the basis of purely medical triage. Whether or not someone carries only the basis 'Medicare' cover or has paid for private cover is only assessed after the event when the patient has time and is fit to do the paperwork. 2. Most private hospitals do only minor, routine or cosmetic procedures. These are the surgeries that face longer delays in public hospitals because they are triaged to the bottom of the priority list. But anything that is life-threatening, they will ship you to a public hospital with the equipment and staff that can handle these cases better. Like what happened to me, admitted for a reasonably routine procedure at a private hospital but sent to a public hospital when I took a serious turn. So if you want a face-lift, go private. If you have a heart attack, you'll end up in a public hospital anyway so you might as well go straight there. This is why public hospitals get blasted for 'long waiting times'; those long queues are typically for cosmetic procedures, not life-threatening operations, which get done very quickly in Public, but not at all in private (with very few exceptions.) Private hospitals don't have long wait times primarily because they don't keep waiting lists, and because if you can get the same thing done in the same time publicly, why would you go private? 3. In so far as there is any overall effect on the total hospital system, it is probably that doctors earn more in private hospitals, so they tend to prefer to work there even if the through-put is less than in a public hospital. This tends to increase the wait times in the public system, which is what the younger of the two doctors in that video was alluding to. But even so, I still think the best model for health care is generally along the lines we have now; a public system that puts a floor under a reasonable minimum of basic care, in parallel with a private system for those who want more bells and whistles. My only complaint is that I would like the floor to be set a bit higher. A parting thought on the private room and bathroom arrangement for private hospitals... When I suffered my post-operative stroke, I was half-paralysed and it took me a long time to get to the nursing station alarm. Had I been affected more severely, or not as physically fit, I could have died or suffered permanent disability. But if that had happened in a public ward, then the frequent patrols by the night nurse would have noted my distress. It is even likely that I could have raise enough of an alarm for one of the other patients to hit the alarm for me. So if you want nice pictures and carpet on the floor, go private; if you want good care, go public. |
