©2007 Gregory Norman Smallwood

Rectalcranalotomy

The election of ’08 is in full swing and national health care is a huge topic. Likely to further fuel the fire is the June release of Michael Moore’s controversial documentary, “Sicko.”. My favorite mediots are already predicting the foregone conclusion of a national health care system, but before you buy into the hype, let’s take a sober step back before embracing a new bureaucratic system that will:

· Increase government and taxes

· Increase government interference into the most personal aspects of your life

· Efficiently (nudge, wink) deal with the problem in a manner that only the U.S. government can achieve. Let’s think Hurricane Katrina style healthcare.

· Most likely decrease the level of health service and health care for working-age Americans

The purpose of my diatribe is to focus the health care system debate on improvement toward a better system, not a government-imposed solution.

It is my understanding that Michael Moore’s movie highlights English, French and Canadians sneering at the U.S. for lacking a national health care system, emphasizing the point with case studies of medically insured Americans unable to get care. My Canadian friends love to mock our fascist system while they slip south across the border for any serious surgery. Private medicine is strictly taboo in Canada, although you can pay a premium for queue jumping. The English upper class can afford private medicine, but the middle class is largely prevented from such a luxury. Understand, national health care will likely drag your personal situation down to an undesirable standard.

I’ve spent the past year in Singapore, away from the fray in the U.S. I pay $350 each month to maintain my COBRA single coverage in the U.S. and consider it a catastrophic policy. I pay cash for all my health care in Singapore, where I have the highest level of care I have ever had, and I rarely or never wait to see a doctor. Payments are made on the spot and are very reasonable in comparison. The cash cost of my 38-year-old wife’s pregnancy will be approximately equal that of my annual single coverage insurance premiums in the U.S. Her doctor and hospital are the best and most expensive in Singapore.

Why is health care in Singapore so effective? Singapore health care is largely pay-as-you-go for routine visits, limiting paperwork to filling out the forms prior to service and a credit card receipt at the end. The doctors are well educated and typically spend a great deal of time with their patients. . There is no insurance company middle man.

Let’s face it, Americans are held hostage by our insurance companies. They dictate who you can see and what you will pay. They refuse your claims as a matter of business and endlessly hassle you and your doctor with paperwork. Don’t expect that a government-based solution will increase your level of service here. A simple solution to health care in the U.S. would be to institute a pay as you go system for routine doctor visits with catastrophic insurance policies for costs above $5,000. Five thousand dollars might sound steep, but most Americans are paying that amount annually for insurance.

The patients would benefit because service would improve as it would change to encourage speedy service. As clinics and doctors would compete for your business, the more efficient and organized clinics would flourish, and less efficient clinics and doctors would be forced to reconsider their business models. American health consumers would be able to make better decisions as they would be limited only by their ability to decide.

If America is the supposed greatest nation on the planet, it should be reflected in our policies. American citizens must ensure that attempts at health care reformnot be a giant private interest boondoggle and personal interest compromise. As Special interest groups will likely attempt to drive the debate here, it is your responsibility to make certain your elected officials know what you want.

Any national health care plan needs to protect American children as well, and if we’re going to have a discussion on health care, it is necessary to address the tradeoffs the issue that doctors are making financial decisions for the rest of us every day. Trade offs like the price of 10 children’s Harvard Educations being spent on the last month of an unconscious life.

http://www.aarp.org/research/international/perspectives/june_07_yap_medicaltravel.html

”Dick Knows Best”

To better illustrate the debate over our nation’s health care system, allow me to introduce my good friend, Richard. Richard is English by birth and pure expat by lifestyle. In his mid 50’s and full of life, his and his wife’s recent travel adventures include Cambodia, Vietnam, Bali, Malaysia, England, Indonesia and Thailand. Richard woke up one morning in the beginning of the year with blood in his urine. He went to the doctor that day, where he was seen immediately and was diagnosed with what the doctor believed to be kidney stones. The doctor refered Richard to a specialist to ensure it was nothing else. Richard saw the specialist for kidney stones and another specialist after that for the next likely cause. The third specialist determined a growth in his bladder and by the end of the first week, Richard was scheduled for through the opening surgery the following week, the only delay caused by a concern that Richard took baby aspirin to thin his blood, and the doctors wanted a week before proceeding.

Thankfully, Richard’s surgery went very well, and I visited him the following day with a beer to celebrate in his private hospital palace. The biopsy showed the scariest and fastest-growing cancer, and Richard was lucky that they had caught it this early. He was prescribed a series of bladder chemotherapy rinses. His follow up has shown that they have caught it in time, his bladder and his life saved by the early diagnosis and treatment. Richard says, “I was lucky this didn’t happen in England. It would have taken me months of waiting to see the specialists.” The likely outcome under a socialized medicine scheme would be that Richard would have lost his bladder, if not his life.