Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Dark Ages
When discussing socialized medicine, Britain is often held up as the poster child of a failed universal health care system. Complaints about the British system are that there are long waits, it's impersonal, and it's bureaucratic.

Well, Kevin Drum has found a very interesting story regarding a study done on health care by the American Medical Association. The study compares European style universal coverage to the United States, as well as the health outcomes from these different systems. The key graf comparing the U.S. to Britain:
"At every point in the social hierarchy there is more illness in the United States than in England and the differences are really dramatic," said study co-author Dr. Michael Marmot, an epidemiologist at University College London in England.

....The upper crust in both countries was healthier than middle-class and low-income people in the same country. But richer Americans' health status resembled the health of the low-income British. [my emphasis]
Drum gives the conclusion to all this much better than I can:
So here's the deal: under the British system, you don't have to worry about which doctors your HMO allows you to see. You don't have to worry about losing coverage if you get laid off. You don't have to worry about being unable to get a new job because you have a pre-existing condition. You don't have to worry about being bankrupted if you contract a serious chronic illness. And large corporations don't have to worry about going out of business because of spiraling healthcare obligations.

And the result of all this? Healthcare that's as good as ours and delivered for about half the cost. Under a national healthcare system, when you get sick, all you have to worry about is getting well. Explain to me again why we're afraid of this?
Written at 2:08 PM by Greyhair.
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