Nationalized Health Care - How Consumers Act

The abrupt and direct response to US Nationalized Health Care is that it will become a floundering mess of inefficiency and waste. One can argue, will nationalized health care in the US become more inefficient than what we have today and will it consume 20% or more of our nation's resources like what we experience today? My opinion is that if it doesn't consume 20% or more of our nation's resources, it soon will be designed to do so!

Two main problems exist with nationalized health care in the US: The supply side and the demand side. More clearly, in an environment where everyone is allowed and encouraged to seek medical attention as often as they want, the demand goes skyward. And since everyone is supposed to have equal access to health care considerations and resources, there certainly will never be enough to go around.

We get back to the major premise of socialism and why it distorts the reality of the free hand of an open market. With everyone wanting a service and theoretically enabled to have that resource, demand will always outstrip supply. (Insert image here of an old Soviet-ere Babuska slugging it out with another, similar woman over a package of toilet paper in a bare-shelved Moscow store).

One can argue all day about how successful Britain's or Canada's semi-socialist medical system is and they would be absolutely correct! Let's see if we could transfer that model to the US. Hmmm! I don't think so!

Why? Because US citizens are used to having the access of total availability of health care resources but at the already subsidized rate. If one thinks the present market has placed any restrictions upon consumer demand for health care resources, then please let's look at the reality of the marketplace.

There is no real "open-market" considerations where the actual payer makes decisions based upon price, availability and local resources. Most consumers are insulated from knowing the "true" cost of a procedure because insurance programs almost always pay the bill. The consumer only has to find a medical provider and the cost be damned! He or she really doesn't pay the bill anyway, so there is no understanding of the overall economic cost of specific services, resources or facilities.

So, what exists now is a "seemingly subsidized" consumer health care system in the US. Consumers buy the insurance program options when their employer's benefits renewal program presents repriced options, but nowhere does the consumer take direct responsibility of their own health care dollars as if no insurance existed.

As a nation, we are seeing more and more people without insurance for health care. The US Census Bureau has calculated that amount to be near 45 million up to 50 million people per year. The realities of a true consumer market for US health care actually only exists for a little less than one sixth the present population. These 45 to 50 million people have to make decisions as to how to spend their limited monetary resources on health care without the benefit of an insurance policy to smooth the way. WOULD A CONSUMER WITHOUT INSURANCE MAKE DIFFERENT DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH CARE THAN ONE WITH?

The answer would have to be a resounding YES! Certain tests would have to be weighed with extreme scrutiny for cost-effectiveness. "Iffy" procedures and operations with low response and success rates would be immediately removed from the decision-tree. Greater importance would be placed upon how an individual makes choices for him or herself.

Specifically, individuals would have to take greater responsibility for diet, physical exercise, alcohol and tobacco consumption in order to preemptively remove the excessive and extremely high cost of obesity, diabetes, heart failure, arterial sclerosis, emphysema, various and sundry cancers and other life-style diseases.

Why is it then, when spending time with most Western Europeans or Canadians, they continue to exhibit such consumerism in health care even when there is socialized medicine in some form or another in their native countries? While US citizens are bellying up to the buffet table/trough on cruise ships, our German, Icelandic, Italian, French and Danish counterparts have modest portions. Why is smoking so unpopular in Europe, but still nearly 40% of Southern US adults still smoke? What is different where in countries health care is readily available the citizens show individual responsibility for its use? My premise is that such responsibility would not be exhibited by US citizens who would fight and claw for each very last piece of good or service to claim as their own, regardless if they needed it or not. Possibly, after years and years of being told they have to take on their own health care concerns, especially regarding life-style issues, Europeans have been conditioned to do so. And since post-WWII was the beginning time for such education, the remaining population really had to believe the government's statements of limited resources!

Yet, if we were to try that very same thing today to instantly limit the access medical resources, with the current level of over-abundance of medical resources just waiting to be called upon at our slightest whim, consumers would revolt.

And that is what we are going to see. As resources tighten-up further and further and people who had previously had access to too much in terms of medical resources suddenly have little or no options, there will be problems. What needs to happen is more "medical consumerism" where the vast population understands and realizes the true value of each and every medical procedure. From there, individuals can decide on how and on what to spend their 20% per annum charge. Additionally, everyone will have to acknowledge the fact that those with more income and wealth have more options.

At least, that is, until US citizens understand how to responsibly use nationalized health care.