I have a friend whose step daughter is half Native American and our community borders the indian reservation. Although she has free health care on the reservation they do not take her out there to receive her care. They would rather pay the co-pays and deductibles because the quality of care is so poor and the waiting times are so long. They would rather pay out of their pocket than use government run health care.
I lived in Japan for 2 years as a missionary for my church, and saw first hand similar, yet different conditions in Japan which also has government funded health care.
I saw crumbling hospitals with paint and plaster falling off the walls of the patient's room. I saw doctors who are only able to spend a 2-3 minutes with each patient before they leave - that is 2-3 minutes for greeting, diagnosis, tests and writing and explaining prescriptions.
This is the average time spent by doctors with patients in Japan.
I personally went to the doctor. I walked in sat down opened my mouth. He looked in, wrote a prescription and I left. I had no time to ask questions or get instructions. I was never told what the diagnosis was. Nor was I informed what medications I received from the pharmacy housed in the medical center. I needed to get out so that he could keep pace with the work load.
The above video is an example of how our government is already running health care. Is that what we want?
One of the arguments for government health care is that we have many people who don't have insurance and therefore can't get health care. This point is a fallacy. No one in this country is denied health care because of an inablity to pay.
I know of a woman locally who has no health insurance and was diagnosed with cancer a few days ago. She will be having surgery in a week and a half, regardless of her ability to pay. As we saw in the above video, when the government runs it, there will be cuts and waiting lists and lack of money.
The Government taking over the health care system is always sold to the public as "helping those who can't be helped." Rather, it is really about power and money. Healthcare accounts for 1/6th of our country's economy. That is a huge piece of the pie that once is put in the government's hands will be nearly impossible to remove.
We keep talking about about the Canadian system and how we should be looking towards that as an example. Well this week the Head of the Canadian health care system came out and announced that the Canadian System is "sick"and "imploding." Maybe we need to be more honest about our health care system. We get the best treatment in the world. Is it perfect? No. Are there changes that need to be made? Absolutely. But, it does not need to be completely scrapped for something worse.
Check out these two links
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