Shouldn’t Confuse ‘Socialized’ Medicine With ‘Socialism’--They Are Not the Same Thing
Harry Bernstein usually presents the liberal labor viewpoint accurately in his labor column, and his health-care column was no exception. The labor unions favored socialized medicine, or “national health insurance,” if you prefer, all along, and President Harry S. Truman tried to get it for them.
Bernstein is wrong, however, when he says that “one rarely hears a peep of opposition to the concept” nowadays. Everyone who has studied the subject knows how much it will cost if limitations on access to technology and on litigation are not included. The Canadian system, which is much admired by advocates of government medicine just now, is behind the horrendous Canadian budget deficit. This is despite some rationing of access to care and a very small malpractice litigation problem.
The problem that Bernstein and most advocates of government medicine ignore is the revenue shortfall. No one wants to pay for health care, but everyone wants all the benefits of Cadillac (or Mercedes-Benz) American medicine. Surveys by well-known pollsters have shown that the amount people are willing to pay for government health care is absurdly low. They expect that it will be free, with no rationing and with the same expectation of perfection that drives the malpractice litigation industry.
Doctors hate socialized or government medicine because we all have worked in such a system, in the military or the Veterans Administration or the big public hospitals where much post-graduate training takes place. The “prominent doctors” that Bernstein refers to as supporters of “universal health care” are all salaried employees of universities or public employees such as the various public health officers who have been publicizing their views lately. The doctors in the trenches of private practice, like me, know what it would be like, and we know that the truth isn’t being told to the taxpayers about this. They would get less health care for more money. If you like the Post Office . . .
MICHAEL T. KENNEDY, M.D.
Laguna Hills
