Commercialized Medicine v. Socialized Medicine

Complex cases like UK's Charlie Gard add
controversy to our healthcare debates.

Few issues seem to touch a nerve like the debate over whether a socialized health care system (like that of most industrialized nations) is to be preferred over our own commercialized medical care.
The fact is that no system run by and for human beings is ever going to be perfect, but here are some of the prevailing arguments:

1. Government controlled single payer systems cause long delays for certain treatment or surgeries.

Sadly, so can commercialized systems. My wife, for example, who is in almost constant pain from a knee she needs to have replaced, has been told that December is the earliest her surgeon will be available. My older brother in Costa Rica, which has a single payer system but also has private hospital care available for those who can afford it, was recently placed on a priority of need list for heart surgery, one that places him at the top of the list if his condition worsens. He has since actually improved, and his doctor, whom he trusts and likes, now believes that at his age, nearly 90, he is as at less risk waiting. Meanwhile, neither he nor his family feel his needs are being overlooked.

2. Government controlled healthcare is inferior to commercialized medicine.

My friends in Canada disagree, and would not trade their healthcare for ours. But individual circumstances and results will always vary. Meanwhile, we know that our overall healthcare costs are the highest in the world, and while our results for certain specialized procedures are often outstanding, our overall healthcare delivery, especially to lower income individuals and families, is far from stellar. And according to an article in the May, 2018, Readers Digest, "as many as 440,000 Americans die every year from medical errors and infections contracted in the hospital."

No system is perfect.

3. Socialized medicine puts an intolerable burden on taxpayers.

There is no free healthcare, and there is no perfect formula for how costs of care should be met in a society. But our current for-profit system seems to be out of control, associated with CEO's of hospital chains earning astronomical salaries, pharmaceutical companies making insane profits, health providers prescribing unneeded tests and procedures to limit their liability and increase their profits, and too many people demanding the kind of end-of-life care that costs millions but adds very little to end-of-life benefit.

4. Governmentally funded healthcare is inevitably burdened with layers of bureaucracy that make it unpopular and unwieldy.

Again, no system is perfect, but our own Medicare and Medicaid programs have actually proved quite efficient and effective. My wife and I have personally benefitted from, and have been blessed by, the help we've received for healthcare as Medicare recipients, as have many people, ironically, who are strong opponents of socialized medicine.

5. In a system of socialized healthcare death panels determine who is treated and who is left to die.

In our own system, it is often for-profit insurance companies that end up making such decisions. In the much publicized case of ten-month-old Charlie Gard of the UK, who had a rare and terminal genetic condition that left him without the ability to see, hear, move or swallow, he was finally taken off life support after his team of doctors, the UK Supreme Court, and the European Court of Human Rights ruled that prolonging the child's life by artificial means would only cause him untold suffering. The case was highly controversial because the parents had raised over a million pounds in the hope they could find a cure for him somewhere in the world, perhaps in the U.S.

Our hearts go out to the parents of this precious child, even though it finally boiled down to a case of whether further efforts to artificially prolong his life would only prolong his death, since short of a divine miracle, neither system of health care would have been able to save the child. The British system and its medical personnel had in fact poured millions into his care, and the chances of a commercial health insurance plan being willing or able to invest more are next to zero.

In a day when we have astronomically priced healthcare options, but limited resources to pay for them, there are simply no perfect solutions when it comes to how we provide care of our sick and disabled.