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"Better" Health Care? John Stossel Wednesday, July 01, 2009 President Obama says government will make
health care cheaper and better. But there's no free lunch. In England, health care is
"free" -- as long as you don't mind waiting. People wait
so long for dentist appointments that some pull
their own teeth. At any one time, half a million people are waiting
to get into a British hospital. A British paper reports that
one hospital tried to save money by not changing bedsheets. Instead of
washing sheets, the staff was encouraged to just turn them over.
Obama insists he is not "trying
to bring about government-run healthcare". "But government management does the
same thing," says Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute.
"To reduce costs they'll have to ration -- deny -- care." "People line up for care, some of
them die. That's what happens," says Canadian doctor David Gratzer,
author of "The Cure". He liked Canada's government
health care until he started treating patients. "The more time I spent in the
Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy,
waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second
floor of their house." "You want to see your neurologist because of
your stress headache? No problem! Just wait six months. You want an MRI? No
problem! Free as the air! Just wait six months." Polls show most Canadians like their free
health care, but most people aren't sick when the poll-taker calls. Canadian
doctors told us the system is cracking. One complained that he can't get
heart-attack victims into the ICU. In America, people wait in emergency
rooms, too, but it's much worse in Canada. If you're sick enough to be
admitted, the average wait is 23 hours. "We can't send these patients to
other hospitals. Dr. Eric Letovsky told us. "Every other emergency
department in the country is just as packed as we are." More than a million and a half Canadians
say they can't find a family doctor. Some towns hold lotteries to determine
who gets a doctor. In Norwood, Ontario, "20/20" videotaped a town
clerk pulling the names of the lucky winners out of a lottery box.
The losers must wait to see a doctor. Shirley Healy, like many sick Canadians,
came to America for surgery. Her doctor in British Columbia told her she had only
a few weeks to live because a blocked artery kept her from digesting food.
Yet Canadian officials called her surgery "elective." "The only thing elective about this
surgery was I elected to live," she said. It's true that America's partly
profit-driven, partly bureaucratic system is expensive, and sometimes
wasteful, but the pursuit of profit reduces waste and costs and gives the
world the improvements in medicine that ease pain and save lives. "[America] is the country of medical
innovation. This is where people come when they need treatment," Dr.
Gratzer says. "Literally we're surrounded by
medical miracles. Death by cardiovascular disease has dropped by two-thirds
in the last 50 years. You've got to pay a price for that type of
advancement." Canada and England don't pay the price
because they freeload off American innovation. If America adopted their
systems, we could worry less about paying for health care, but we'd get
2009-level care -- forever. Government monopolies don't innovate. Profit seekers
do. We saw this in Canada, where we did find
one area of medicine that offers easy access to cutting-edge technology -- CT
scan, endoscopy, thoracoscopy, laparoscopy, etc. It was open 24/7. Patients
didn't have to wait. But you have to bark or meow to get that
kind of treatment. Animal care is the one area of medicine that hasn't been
taken over by the government. Dogs can get a CT scan in one day. For people,
the waiting list is a month. http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2009/07/01/better_health_care?page=full |