Dan Says

Back in July, Bill Mayer wrote an article where he said that not everything in America has to make a profit. He talked about the noble days when hospitals weren't big business, but rather were there to, you know, help people. The goal of hospitals shouldn't be to make money; they should be to help people. I'd like to think that they could maybe do both.

I don't think that there is anything inherently evil about making money. Because of that, I don't see anything wrong with hospitals being self-sustaining and, dare I say it, turning a profit. However, it is a problem and it is evil when people have to suffer. Drug companies, insurance providers and hospitals are making money; which isn't wrong until you consider the fact that people aren't getting the care that they need. I believe in the universality of health care: that health is something that should be available to everyone regardless of how much money they make. If you can have a system where everyone, and I mean everyone, can have affordable, and I mean affordable, health care and companies can still profit, then I say go for it.

In Canada, we don't think twice about not having to pay for health care. We were born knowing that if we fall and hurt ourselves that we can go to the hospital and get looked after without worrying about mortgaging our house to pay for the visit. However, despite what some people will tell you, we do tend to wait a long time at the hospital. Sometimes very long. But while our system is far from perfect, it is leaps and bounds ahead of the US system, where millions of people don't buy medical insurance because they can't afford it. To me, that's appalling. How, in a first world democracy, can someone not be able to afford a visit to the hospital?

So the problem is that a completely nationalized system tends to be somewhat inefficient, but at the same time means that every single person in the country has access to health care. A completely privatized system means that hospitals are more efficiently run and people can make money, but the result is that far too many people are left without coverage. The choice between the two seems obvious: nationalize (or "socialize" if you want to be a baby about it) so that everyone has health care. But what if you didn't have to choose between the two options?

When the US passed their recent health care reform, it left one very notable thing off the list: the public option. The reasoning behind leaving it off was that even with a super-majority, the Democrats needed every single person to be on board to pass the bill and they feared that having the public option on the bill wouldn't have made it pass. They were undoubtedly right. Some reform is better than no reform and while the new reform is far from perfect, it certainly is a step in the right direction.

I believe that the public option could give the best of both worlds. For those that couldn't afford the private option, there would be a public option where every single person would still have access to medical care regardless of their income. With the private option, those that wanted more efficient service could get it. I idealistically call it "efficient" service and not "better" service for a reason. My biggest fear with this idea is that the private option would attract all the good doctors and all the best equipment. Ideally, the public option would still have these. The doctors working in the public option would still be making considerable money for their abilities, specialization and schooling. On top of that, it would attract the best kind of doctors: those that aren't in it for the money, but actually want to help people. As for where the money to fund this option would come from, I hate to say it, but it would come from the government and from the rich. I know, this must make me a terrible person. I must be a socialist or even a communist because I believe that the people who can most afford it should carry some of the burden with helping to ensure quality of life for their fellow citizens. I guess it's socialist to believe in helping other people.

I believe that the free market can do a lot. It can solve some of the economy's most complex problems, but I hate to say that it isn't solving health care. If it did, there wouldn't be so many people in a first world nation with the inability to afford health care. There wouldn't be so many people who can't afford to live.