OK. That did it. I'm fed up with people trashing the concept of "socialized" medicine or government run healthcare.
I served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. When I was on active duty, if I needed any healthcare I could go to any military medical facility in the country or anywhere else in the world - I would be admitted without question and could receive some of the best care available in the world. If I fell ill and was not near a military medical facility, I could, and in fact did, go to a civilian hospital. All I needed to do was to show my military identification card and I was treated without any question about how I would pay for the treatment. I could receive any of the medical care provided by that facility and its doctors without having to pay out of pocket for it.
As a veteran, I now receive my healthcare from the VA. Again, I can go into any VA medical care facility anywhere in the country and I am readily taken in for treatment without question asked. I can receive any of the care that is available in that facility. I have found the healthcare I received from the VA (I have been treated in different geographic locations and a total of six different facilities in three states in the past three years) to be every bit as good as the care I received from privately insured health care. If a particular test or treatment is not available in the local VA medical facility, I am sent to a public medical facility for it. When I have gone to the public facility, I was admitted without any question and without having to come out of pocket to pay for it. I was not asked how I would pay for it. I didn't have to sign anything promising to be personally responsible for the charges.
What is really spectacular is that where ever I am in the country, when I go into a VA healthcare facility, they have access to my entire medical record. If I am brought into a VA emergency room unconscious, they will know immediately what medications I am on, what care I have been under, what lab results have been and what I am allergic to. If you are traveling in another part of the country, even with the best insurance available to you, what do you think the chances of that are?
My military healthcare and my VA healthcare are, in the simplest terms, "socialized medicine." When opponents talk about it they make socialized medicine or government run healthcare a big bogeyman, using comparisons to problems in the Canadian or British healthcare systems. They can look at other systems elsewhere in the world all they want. I’d prefer to assess how good that care would be by looking at what the military and VA do.
Sure, sure, you say, but look at the problems at Walter Reed and in the VA healthcare system. I agree. There are problems in both systems of healthcare. There are also serious problems in private healthcare. The rates of nosocomial infections (infections acquired while undergoing medical care) are outrageously high. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that "(f)or every 100 patients admitted to US hospitals in 2002, 4.5 patients developed a nosocomial infection." In the 1990's the National Institutes of Health reported that a 12-year University of Iowa study concluded that "(n)osocomial bloodstream infections occur at a rate of 1.3 to 14.5 per 1000 hospital admissions and are believed to lead directly to 62,500 deaths per year in the United States." Nosocomial infections are a leading cause of death in the U.S. with estimates ranging as high as 105,000 per year. (Walk into any VA healthcare facility and see what you find - disinfectant hand wipe dispensers hanging everywhere as well as handwashing signs posted where everyone, providers, patients and visitors, see them. I've never seen anything like that in a public hospital or private doctor's office.)
The Centers for Disease Control maintains an entire section devoted to reducing the incidence of nosocomial infections. Beyond nosocomial infections, it is reported that in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002 there were an average of 195,000 people who died in each one of those years due to in-hospital medical errors.
Nope, I think, all things considered, that socialized medicine might just be a good idea for us to pursue in our effort to provide good quality healthcare to all Americans. When we accomplish that, I believe that we will find that the cost of healthcare is dramatically reduced and the quality of life in America is dramatically improved for everyone. But, don't just listen to me - see what others are saying about the quality of VA healthcare (American Journal of Managed Care) and comparisons between VA and private sector healthcare (VAWatchdog dot org.)
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3 comments:
Regardless of whether we exist with our current healthcare system or if we choose to travel the socialist route, we are always going to have problems.
Making our healthcare system run on a socialist level is not going to vaporize deaths/illnesses/issues which exist in hospitals and/or any other medical facility.
Mistakes will always be made. Mistakes will continue to be made because it will all still be run by human beings who are prone to making mistakes.
By the way, the passion in which you wrote with was amazing. I can tell this is a very personal and important topic for you.
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