Kevin, MD links to an article describing the only true single-payer health care system that we have in the United States: the Indian Health Service. And the picture painted by Bernadine Healy is bleak:
The Indian Health Service is everyone’s worst nightmare of what government healthcare would look like. The system is riddled with crumbling facilities, mindless regulations, ancient equipment, and far too few nurses, doctors, pharmacists, and dentists.
And, like all government-run health care systems, the IHS features long wait times and rationing:
Long waits choke clinics and emergency rooms. Patients have to fight to see specialists. Everything is rationed–eyeglasses, dental visits, gallbladder operations, kidney dialysis, CT scans, basic psychiatric services.
So, how are the patients of this home-grown single-payer system doing?
The health status of the more than 2.5 million tribal members is worse than that of any other U.S. minority or majority group. Native Americans have a life expectancy of 71, roughly 5 years less than all others. They face higher maternal and infant mortality rates and are many times more likely to die from tuberculosis, diabetes, and alcoholism.
This is what the single-payer evangelists want to force on the whole country. Think about it.
Comments 6
I just got done with a week at an IHS site. Excellent facility, same day access, excellent staff, on site pharmacy(true, they had a formulary of generics mostly…some rationing there, I guess) but I thought it was excellent. So how do you get your information? Mine is purely anecdotal but quite contrary to yours.
Posted 14 Jul 2007 at 1:23 pm ¶Obviously the linked article from Dr. Healy is one source. Here’s another that discusses IHS facilities. And here’s another discussing health disparities.
Posted 14 Jul 2007 at 9:29 pm ¶OK, I read the article by Dr. Healy and your other two links. I’m afraid you’re confusing the issue. Is the poor health of the Native American population caused by a poorly delivered healthcare system? If that is the kind of argument you want to make, that is a communuty’s health is caused by their use/access/health system, lets study Utah and Nevada….
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 3:24 pm ¶The IHS should be evaluated objectively( Wait times, cost, comparison to similar populations in outcomes) and directly. The article by Healy even points out that the IHS spends less than half the average of all Americans per patient, so in that sense it is a bargain.
I have read lots of your blog posts now and gather the tint of your glasses. I am amazed at the polarization on this subject of healthcare.
If that is the kind of argument you want to make …
The “argument I want to make” should be discernable in my post: The IHS, like all government-run operations, is inefficient and produces poor results.
I am amazed at the polarization on this subject of healthcare.
A vigorous public debate over an important issue like health care reform is healthy and, in my not-so-humble opinion, fun.
On a different subject, here’s a link to the best poet writing today (don’t be put off by the cheesy web site). Here’s the Wikipedia write-up.
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 8:17 pm ¶How do you find time to reply to these multiple inane emessages?
Public debate? I think this will all be decided in smoke filled rooms, since no one is unhappy enough to dislodge the powers that be. Sorry about the cynicism.
I argued that the IHS is efficient in that it’s results with the population it deals with(Apples to apples) are achieved at a much lower cost per capita than mainstream US medicine.
Is efficiency defined by outcome/cost?
Is efficiency really the goal? Or choice?
Your assumption(maybe mine since I haven’t seen you clearly state it) is that the Market is an efficient process. I disagree. Market forces are inexorable and real, but horribly inefficient. It got us all using Windows. Applying free market forces in specific areas of healthcare will create “best fit” efficiencies, rapid experimental solutions. But the costs will outweigh the marginal return.
I appreciated the link. “Man who won’t plant willows”is excellent. I will read others.
I am a Bukowski fan.
http://www.poetseers.org/nobel_prize_for_literature/wislawa_szymborska/
But she’s the best, no doubt.
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 10:58 am ¶Market forces are inexorable and real …
It is precisely because of this fact that I believe workable health care reform must be market based. A reform program containing no mechanism for dealing with market forces is like an airplane with no equipment for dealing with gravity. It is guaranteed to crash and burn.
How do you find time …
Easy. I just ignore my family and friends.
And, yes, Szymborska’s work is indeed something special. Perhaps I should say that Stallings is the best poet writing in English.
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 10:28 pm ¶Post a Comment