From: dallagata@fnala.fnal.gov (Michele Dall'Agata)
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: nationalized health care
Date: 13 Dec 92 01:25:39 -0600
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Lab
NNTP-Posting-Host: fnala.fnal.gov

In article <1992Dec12.201634.1@acad.drake.edu>, rjr004@acad.drake.edu writes:
> In article <1992Dec12.185055.1@fnala.fnal.gov>, dallagata@fnala.fnal.gov (Michele Dall'Agata) writes: 
[Old stuff deleted]
> 
>    30% more than comparable european systems?  Where the hell did you read
> that?  PER CAPITA, the United States spends 12.4% of our G.N.P. (granted our
> G.N.P. is 6.4 trillion), Italy 7.7% (Source:  O.M.B. 1990).  Granted, there is
> more coverage in Europe, but is it the best coverage available? 

I really would like to have the right answer. Anyway, I was not speaking 
about the "PER CAPITA" number (maybe I am going into a misunderstanding, 
but what do you mean with "per capita"? The money that the governemnt 
spends or the money spent _per capita_ for health care?). Anyway, what I 
heard was Clinton saying that, the _average_ cost for health care is 
30% more expensive than in Europe (i.e. to 'fix' a broken leg costs 30% 
more here than in Europe). I belive that, I went to the hospital 
ones, just beacuse I hurt one foot, and the bill has been $214.00.
It is a LOT of money for 10 minutes and X-ray.

[Other stuff deleted]

>> 	Michele
>    The problem with our health care system is that it was jerryrigged over many
> years with a patchwork of different objectives, conflicting demands, colliding
> interests, and confused incentives.  Our system is bad, per say, it is just
> expensive (on this point I agree with you).  

The sad thing is that ALL the health care systems are bad. Sometime too much 
expensive  (USA), sometime they do not work (Italy).

> However a nationalization of the
> United States' health care system would prove disasterious.  It would mean a
> collapse of our multi-billion dollar insurance industry, throwing thousands of
> white-collar PMC (professional middle class) workers out of a job.  

Yes, that's true, it would disasterious for the insurance companies. But
that's the *political* problem. Is it right to give so much money to them? 
I know, they give jobs to the PMC people. But, isn't it a waste of money (
and energy) anyway? You know, I care for the workers, but I do not really 
care for companies. If they loose the money, somebody else can find a way 
to get that money, in a more useful way. I mean, I do not like lobbies.

> Also, as
> mentioned previously, Canadian patients and doctors migrate to the U.S. because
> of the fact of superior technology and wages (for doctors).  Our technology is
> undisputibly the best in the world (the price we pay...), if not for the costly 
> U.S. health care system many new health care innovations would have a slower
> genesis.You speak of the rights of people, are rights being truely denied? 
> Our medicare system, while terribly beurocratic and expensive, does help many
> poor people.  The right to life is granted and protected in the U.S., anyone in
> critical attention gets INSTANT response from all available medical
> facilites--no matter how much money they have.  Granted the right to good
> health is not one granted by our consitution, we try to protect it via several
> federal, state, and private institutions; as well as socio-economical 
> structures.  

I do not know about it. Does it *really* work for poor people?

> I don't believe that the right to unconditional good health is 
> granted by the Italian goverment, nor do I believe that there are no people 
> who fall through the cracks of nationalized medicine.  

It is not easy to explain. It is like a lottery. There are hospitals in Italy 
that work VERY good. If you are sick, and you go in such an hospital, they 
do everything for you WITHOUT to pay anything. It depends on the people. 
They have tecnology, they have good doctors, they have good nurses. They 
work because the people of the hospital CARE about the ills. If you are 
unlucky, you can go inside an hospital that looks like a drain. However, 
yes, you are right. In Italy there has been people who falt through the 
cracks of nationalized medicine. But I am not sure that it happened in 
France and in Germany (I know a little bit about those countries). And they 
still have a nationalized medicine. 

> While the U.S. health
> care system does need beurocratic restructuring, it does not need
> nationalization.  
> 
You know, it is something crazy. In Italy many things are nationalized, in 
USA it is true the opposite. But we do have the same problem. The 
burocratic restructuring. Maybe (like often it happens) the truth is on the 
middle. Anyway, what about the north of Europe countries (Sweden, Norway, 
Finland) ? They seem to work fine in many fields, there are few poor people,
I think that their health care systems work good too. I do not know about 
that, but, *maybe* they found an answer. And, maybe, their answer is a *good* 
health care nationalization.

> ---The Doctor
> 

	Michele