Where the private health insurance system stinks
Why are so many people afraid of universal healthcare?
They seem to think that means the government will actually run hospitals and tell doctors what to do, but it does not have to mean that. It can just mean government coordinating the system however it will work most efficiently.
And we already KNOW the system of competition between private insurance companies does NOT work for the best interests of patients.
This quote by a family doctor says it all –
I wasn’t trained to say, “What’s your insurance company before making a treatment decision?” And now I have to. (Online News Hour 1/6/09)
As the doctor explained, this situation arises because “what medicine I can put you on depends upon your insurance company.”
But doctors are trained to diagnose and prescribe on the basis of symptoms and evidence, not on the basis of a variety of formularies making them clerical workers.
Since their professional associations are apparently not strong enough to step in on behalf of patients, it is time for people to unite through the means of government to demand universal healthcare to resolve these kinds of problems, to coordinate the delivery of healthcare so that costs are reduced and the best care is delivered as efficiently to as many people as possible.
