The real benefits of public health
By Bruce J. Potts 08/13/2009
The topic of health care has dominated the national news for many weeks. Along with a great many Americans, I firmly believe that health care, much like education, is a right that should be not be denied to any American citizen. Reform is necessary, and the best possible solution is a single-payer health care system.
However, the mainstream left, which includes many members of the Democratic Party and the media, are not explaining the benefits of socialized medicine in the proper way. All we seem to hear about are the excess costs that private healthcare places on the consumer, and that a public system would cost the taxpayer much less than we currently pay now.
While this is true and needs to be heard, it does not tell the whole story. The real issue is the much higher quality of care that a public system will give to you and your family than the private sector does. Americans are so infatuated with the market system and free enterprise that we refuse to acknowledge the fact that in need-based industries, a private-based market cannot compete with the quality and cost that a nonprofit system will deliver.
The very nature of the health industry highlights the questions that we must all ask ourselves: What do we want the single goal and basis of our health-care system to be? Do we want the first and foremost concern of our health-care industry to turn a profit, or do we want it to take care of us and help us become healthy people?
The basic argument is that a system with a limited supply of funds that must care for all will not only strive to treat patients, but will aim for citizens to utilize the free system as little as possible in the name of cost efficiency. In short, the best interests of a public system include helping people become independently healthy. The best way to accomplish this is to educate citizens about how they can remedy their health problems by adopting healthy lifestyles. In sharp contrast, it is in the best interests of the private, for-profit health system to make people dependently healthy.
If any health problem arises for an individual under a private plan, it then becomes a commodity, in which vested interests will seek to maximize their profits. The pharmaceuticals, the insurance companies and the facilities owners all stand to gain from a patient who must maintain a perpetual dependence on doctors and drugs to maintain his health. I call this the “revolving door” of private health care. By contrast, the taxpayer, who becomes the “vested interest” in a socialized health care system, becomes an individual who can live free of constant medical attention because it simply costs less. The American taxpayer wants a patient to come in the door with a problem, then leave with a permanent solution to that problem.
The necessary argument I have briefly outlined for a single-payer health care system is, unfortunately, left out of the public discourse because it calls into question the ability of capitalism to provide us our essential goods and services. The mainstream media is careful to question the market system, essentially because they have a stake in its preservation. However, closing the door to a free marketplace of ideas is doing the American people a disservice. In times like these, we need to keep our minds open to new ideas, even if they’re deemed “socialistic” by the fringe right wing of this country. We must face the harsh reality that capitalism and the free market cannot solve all of our problems. While the free market brings us the goods we want quickly and efficiently, and competition keeps prices fair, need-based industries such as education, health care, utilities and insurance are best left in the hands of the public, where the administrators of the system face democratic accountability. Many other nations have already figured this out, and it is about time we do the same here in the United States.
Bruce Potts is a high school history teacher in Ventura.
However, the mainstream left, which includes many members of the Democratic Party and the media, are not explaining the benefits of socialized medicine in the proper way. All we seem to hear about are the excess costs that private healthcare places on the consumer, and that a public system would cost the taxpayer much less than we currently pay now.
While this is true and needs to be heard, it does not tell the whole story. The real issue is the much higher quality of care that a public system will give to you and your family than the private sector does. Americans are so infatuated with the market system and free enterprise that we refuse to acknowledge the fact that in need-based industries, a private-based market cannot compete with the quality and cost that a nonprofit system will deliver.
The very nature of the health industry highlights the questions that we must all ask ourselves: What do we want the single goal and basis of our health-care system to be? Do we want the first and foremost concern of our health-care industry to turn a profit, or do we want it to take care of us and help us become healthy people?
The basic argument is that a system with a limited supply of funds that must care for all will not only strive to treat patients, but will aim for citizens to utilize the free system as little as possible in the name of cost efficiency. In short, the best interests of a public system include helping people become independently healthy. The best way to accomplish this is to educate citizens about how they can remedy their health problems by adopting healthy lifestyles. In sharp contrast, it is in the best interests of the private, for-profit health system to make people dependently healthy.
If any health problem arises for an individual under a private plan, it then becomes a commodity, in which vested interests will seek to maximize their profits. The pharmaceuticals, the insurance companies and the facilities owners all stand to gain from a patient who must maintain a perpetual dependence on doctors and drugs to maintain his health. I call this the “revolving door” of private health care. By contrast, the taxpayer, who becomes the “vested interest” in a socialized health care system, becomes an individual who can live free of constant medical attention because it simply costs less. The American taxpayer wants a patient to come in the door with a problem, then leave with a permanent solution to that problem.
The necessary argument I have briefly outlined for a single-payer health care system is, unfortunately, left out of the public discourse because it calls into question the ability of capitalism to provide us our essential goods and services. The mainstream media is careful to question the market system, essentially because they have a stake in its preservation. However, closing the door to a free marketplace of ideas is doing the American people a disservice. In times like these, we need to keep our minds open to new ideas, even if they’re deemed “socialistic” by the fringe right wing of this country. We must face the harsh reality that capitalism and the free market cannot solve all of our problems. While the free market brings us the goods we want quickly and efficiently, and competition keeps prices fair, need-based industries such as education, health care, utilities and insurance are best left in the hands of the public, where the administrators of the system face democratic accountability. Many other nations have already figured this out, and it is about time we do the same here in the United States.
Bruce Potts is a high school history teacher in Ventura.
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