On Obama and "Socialized Medicine"

Image by: Obama for America

There's an interesting contrast, but a kind of similarity at the same time,  regarding the health care wars currently raging throughout North America.

Down south, Barack Obama manages to shepherd a version of health care reform through Congress and the Senate, despite fierce opposition from many quarters.

Here in B.C., where we have what the Americans like to vilify as "socialized medicine," we devote more than 40 per cent of our government spending to health care. So the government in its recent budget, rebrands all kinds of taxes as "health taxes" to make them more palatable.

After all, health care is sacred.

Or is it?

Certainly, not in the US, whose new system is really a version of a private insurance scheme with government now offering to help the poorest people make their insurance payments.

The two systems

Good luck to them, because any discussion I've had with Americans on the subject usually revolves around how they routinely pay thousands of dollars a month for health insurance, that may -- or may not -- repay them for health care costs.

Having a heart attack? Hope you've got a spare $100,000 or so lying around, because that's what the hospital will demand to fix you up. And if you want the kind of care you routinely see on television shows like House, you better be able to come up with a million or so.

Presumably, an insurance company will eventually compensate you for a portion of it -- maybe. Of course, if you have broken one of the hundreds of caveats in your policy, then you're out of luck.

There's a reason why half of America's homeless and poor were made that way by medical costs. Many couldn't afford insurance, and those that could sometimes discovered that they weren't covered quite like they thought they were.

Up here, it's different, of course. Have a heart attack, and you'll be rushed into the hospital and fixed up lickety split. And it's all on the government ticket. Americans may see us a socialists, but we like to think that we're a caring society that recognizes we're all part of a community.

That means we have huge health care costs, and not much of an incentive to control them. You can blame an increasingly aging society for some of that cost growth, but a large part also comes from inertia and a disincentive to innovate or change some of the empires that have grown up in the system.

Have nurses perform some of the more routine doctor chores? Not on your life. That's a doctor's job (and where he or she makes most of their income).

So, which is better? Well, obviously I'd opt for our system -- look to dental care and other health-related, but uncovered -- costs and you'll get an idea of where we'd be without it.

But I do have reservations. BC has a much kinder system. But it's calcified, rife with empires, and has an aversion to any kind of thinking that hasn't been there for three decades.

It's government run, which means that when savings have to be made, they're done the government way – across the board cuts, cutbacks of services, and other system wide methodology.

It's a lot easier than to look at a system piece by piece and innovate where possible.

Seems to me that what health care everywhere is a strong dose of innovative thinking.

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  • Barack Obama, 
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