Is access to
medical care something that governments should provide, or is it better left to
the private sector? Are there drawbacks to your choice?
Here’s
my experience with government-run health care.
In the early years of my first marriage, before children, I traveled
with my then husband to New Zealand and Australia. The flights we arranged required us to fly
from Kwajalein to Hawaii, and then Hawaii to Sydney, Australia. Before we left Kwajalein, my traveling
companion was feeling a little uncomfortable. He was having shortness of breath
and chest pains, but he didn’t want to postpone or forgo the trip, so he shook it
off, and we headed for Hawaii. The uncomfortable feelings he was having did not
go away, so in Hawaii, hours before we were to depart on our red-eye flight to
Australia, we were in the hospital, and he was hooked up to monitors for his
heart. Problem is, they wanted to
continue to monitor him overnight and possibly do a stress test the next day,
so we had to make the decision to stay or go, again. We checked out of the hospital and caught our
flight. It was uneventful, but when we got to Sydney and started touring the
famous Sydney Opera House with its 72 stairs on the outside going in, the chest
pains and shortness of breath started again. The next day we were set to go to Kangaroo
Island for a couple of days by plane, but 3 times is a charm, I guess. We stayed in Sydney the extra days instead so
that we could go to more doctors to check things out.
Australia
has been on a government run health care system since 1975 (New Zealand since
1938). It’s a two-tier system where the
government mandates or provides for catastrophic and minimum insurance coverage
for all residents or citizens while allowing purchase of additional voluntary
insurance when desired.
For
us, this meant that we went to the doctor free of charge. They ran some tests,
took some blood, and concluded it was probably just the result of some minor
virus he may have, but felt that it would still be a good idea to have a stress
test to be sure. Thinking this could take up the rest of our 3-week trip, we
braced for the waiting. Surprisingly,
they booked an appointment with a cardiologist the same day. Amazing!! The
stress test came out just fine, and I think the knowing everything was okay (and
the potential virus working it way out of his system) caused the remainder of
symptoms to lessen and eventually disappear over the next few days.
The
health care was free, efficient, and immediate, and we were back on our way to
enjoy the rest of our vacation. Crazy,
huh? Well, that’s the up side and
because we were just visiting, we never had a chance to know or hear about the
cons from the citizens and residents who were most likely helping to pay our
bills for health care out of their taxes, but I thought it was great. Of course, with the two-tier system, there’s
both public and private sectors involved, and with Obama care here in the US
now (Insurance Mandate), it’s the same way.
There are some countries that have Single Payer health care where the
government pays for everything and studying this list of countries (http://truecostblog.com/2009/08/09/countries-with-universal-healthcare-by-date/)
and the number of years they’ve had universal health care, I have to consider
that it’s probably working pretty well.
As
US citizens, I think sometimes we are resistant to change, resistant to the
government being involved or “helping” us in any way. We are afraid of it becoming a dictatorship,
afraid of losing our freedoms in one way or another, but I think if we are
going to continue to thrive and evolve as a civilized country, we need to be
open to potential positive changes, although I admit that I don’t always
understand all the intricacies of the issues. That being said, I googled the
pros and cons and found a very succinct and simple explanation (just as I like
it when it comes to politics, which I am NOT well versed in AT ALL). You can
find it here, http://www.livestrong.com/article/30692-pros-cons-universal-health/.
Check it out and tell me what you think.
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