According to the recent article “The Death of U.S. Healthcare,” by Dick Morris, in “The Hill,” the $2 trillion cost savings presented to the Obama Administration by the health insurers and providers earlier this month will not solve our healthcare crisis. For all intensive purposes it appears that our democratically controlled Government will proceed in establishing a form of nationalized healthcare system, where access to all will be guaranteed to all.
However, the “elephant in the room” in our national healthcare debate is that of simple economics. Healthcare is not an infinite resource. There are only so many doctors and hospitals at any given point in time. Although guaranteeing healthcare access to all may seem like the nice or right thing to do in a society, there may not be enough doctors to go around. As Mr. Morris points out, “our national inventory of 800,000 doctors is growing at only about 1 percent year . To stretch these doctors to treat 50 million more people is possible only through rationing.”
To be sure, our out-dated healthcare system is starving for vast reform and will require the attention of the best and brightest minds. But our capitalistic approach has created the most advanced healthcare system in the world where new technology and drugs are saving the lives of millions of people. Are we sure that we want to go down this road of nationalization? Many advanced economies, including Canada and England have nationalized systems and they don’t offer many successes that we should be attempting to emulate.
As this debate continues, many uninsured and underinsured people suffering in pain has found a viable and immediate solution to their pain through medical tourism, or traveling to a foreign country for medical procedures. Many regions of the world offer world-class medical care at a mere fraction of the cost in the U.S. To learn more about medical travel, please visit MedRetreat, a U.S.-based medical tourism facilitation agency that connects patients to their affiliate hospital network in 10 countries.
MedRetreat - Medical Tourism 
You point out that “Many advanced economies, including Canada and England have nationalized systems and they don’t offer many successes that we should be attempting to emulate.”
The US itself isn’t doing so great. Although we do have some of the best care in the world, if one looked at the Standford Medical Hospital for example where they have a higher mortality rate for cardiac procedures than a leading hospital in India it begs the question as to whether or not we really do have the best system in the world.
Comment by SatoriWorldMed — July 14, 2009 @ 5:31 pm |
Good luck with the blog; excellent post too.
Please keep us informed regarding health economics and related financial issues.
Best.
Ann Miller; RN, MHA
[Executive Director]
Atlanta, GA, USA
Comment by Editors — October 10, 2009 @ 6:40 pm |