Five "Myths" about Socialized Health Care

A friend of mine and I were having a discussion about "socialized medicine" the other night. After a lot of verbal parrying and thrusting we concluded at about 3:30 AM. When I woke up, I found that he had left me a message--a link to an article called "five myths about socialized health care." Here's the article. It's written by a "John Goodman."

Here's what I think about each of Goodman's "myths" and his ultimate conclusion.

Myth: "Socialized medicine gives you a right to health care."

Goodman argues that socialized medicine does not REALLY give you a right to care. In Canada, he claims, you don't have a right to heart surgery. You don't even have a right to a place in line.

In a sense, Goodman is correct. Just because the government provides single-payor insurance doese not mean that all people have the right to care automatically. That's why single-payor insurance/health care coverage is necessary but not sufficient. We need both single-payor health care AND a government declaration or law stating that citizens have a right to health care.

This argument is fallacious because it has inverted cause and effect. People aren't saying they want socialized medicine because it gives them a right to care. People are simply asserting that they have a right to care. People don't have a right to care under the current "free market" system, either.

Goodman claims that the market provides a means for people who need care more to get it--by paying more for it. He asserts that patients "waiting for care" in socialized systems are suffering. This is completely ridiculous. Hospitals in single-payor systems rank patients based on priority. The patients who are in most urgent need of care get it first. Care costs money; what Goodman is saying is that someone who really, really needs to get to "the front of the line" will magically produce as much money as it takes to get there. Where does this model account for people who really, really need to get to the front of the line but have no money for care?

Furthermore, many people are already sitting around and suffering because they can't afford medical care. Right now we are rationing care based on people's ability to pay rather than the severity of their illness. From a medical perspective, this makes absolutely no sense. You should treat the sickest patients first, not the wealthiest patients.

Myth: "Socialized medicine gives people higher-quality care."

Goodman claims that patients in Canada and the UK get worse care based on the number of patients in chronic renal failure who get dialysis or the number of patients who get coronary artery bypass surgeries. He also asserts that British doctors spend less time with their patients than American doctors.

In one study done in America (Ohio to be precise) physicians spent an average of 17.5 minutes with each patient. And it's true that physicians in Britain spent, on average, just under 10 minutes. But Goodman is exaggerating when he says that the physician barely has time to take the patient's temperature. Routine examination tasks like checking temperature and blood pressure are now relegated to nurses; doctors almost never do these things themselves.

If a patient is complaining of "coughing up yellow gunk" and "sinus congestion" and similar symptoms it generally takes about five minutes for the physician to listen to the patient's lungs and diagnose the problem appropriately because he's seen the same presentation of symptoms ten thousand times. The mean visitation time is likely skewed downward by the fact that some illnesses honestly don't take that much time to diagnose. Medical professionals report a prevalence of 62 million cases per year for the common cold; you can't really expect them to spend 20 minutes explaining proper treatment for that sort of thing.

Dialysis and coronary bypasses are strange endpoints. Dialysis is only actually medically necessary when kidney function declines to about 10%. 485,000 patients in America are estimated to have end-stage kidney disease requring dialysis or transplant; in 2005, 341,000 patients recieved dialysis, or 70% of patients with ESRD. 17,429 kidney transplants were performed, so 3.5% of patients recieved a new kidney instead (which is better).

In 2005 there were 32,375 Canadians requiring renal replacement therapy. Of these, 19,721 recieved dialysis, or 61%. It's true; this number is lower. But 12,654 patients recieved a functioning kidney transplant. So 33% of Canadians who needed a new kidney got one. That's TEN TIMES more people who recieved a new kidney, which is infinitely better than dialysis as far as patient quality of life and outcomes.

Also, we shouldn't brag about how many coronary artery bypass surgeries we're doing. The fact that people need bypasses means that preventative measures have failed. Ideally we'd do fewer bypasses because fewer people would need them because we provided better preventative care.

Myth: "Socialized medicine gives people more per dollar in terms of care."

Goodman claims that Americans don't get more care despite spending more money. He asserts that life expectancy is the primary measure used to judge "health care quality."

The WHO created a scale to assess health care quality in different countries based on five criteria:

-Overall level of population health
-Health inequalities (or disparities) within the population
-Overall level of health system responsiveness (a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system acts)
-Distribution of responsiveness within the population (how well people of varying economic status find that they are served by the health system)
-Distribution of the health system's financial burden within the population (who pays the costs)

So no, no one is claiming that life expectancy is the primary criterion for evaluating health care quality.

Goodman also claims that more people who get breast cancer or prostate cancer in the US survive than those who develop these conditions in other countries.

See page 4 of this document.

It is true that the US outranks Canada and England in terms of breast cancer survival rates (in fact, it is 14% higher). But the survival rates for colorectal cancer are better in the UK and Canada. Childhood leukemia survival rates are better in Canada than the US. So are kidney transplant rates, as I already pointed out. So are liver transplant rates (about 20% higher, in fact).

Cherry-picking breast and prostate cancer is dishonest. Disease survival rates, incidences, and other statistics vary from country to country. Choosing two examples where the US outperforms other countries does not prove anything in the grand scheme of things.

Myth: "Socialized medicine gives people equal access to health care."

Goodman claims that care in countries with socialized medical programs does not really offer equal access because minorities still get less care. That's a terrible thing, but it doesn't really help his point. It isn't damning that socialized medicine isn't perfect.

Goodman then cites a survey of the elderly. According to the results, the elderly think that it is easier to get care in America, that they have shorter wait times, and that services are better.

This survey doesn't prove jack the way he's citing it. It's terribly misleading because as the author is presenting it he's basically saying "more elderly people think health care is good in America, so it is!"

I found the actual study cited--"The Elderly's Experiences with Health care in Five Nations" by Cathy Schoen et al., published May 2000. Let's see what it says.

12% of polled US elderly said it was "very difficult" to get care. 15% said the same in the UK; not a huge difference, and potentially attributable to randomness. 13% of Canadians said it was very difficult to get care--again, not terribly significant. Only 6% of Australians and 9% of New Zealanders thought it was very difficult to get care.

7% of those polled in the US said they had to wait five weeks or more for nonemergency surgery compared to 51% in the UK. So? That's the point--it's "nonemergency surgery." There's less rush to get it done. Having to wait to get an appointment to remove a mole or get a vasectomy is not a serious problem.

32% of those polled in the US rated their health care as "excellent." It is true that only 25% of those in the UK did the same, but New Zealanders had the highest rate at 39%. And again, 40% of US respondants reported "excellent care from their doctors," whereas 51% of New Zealanders did.

27% of respondants in the US described their most recent hospital stay as "excellent" compared to 39% in New Zealand.

9% of US respondants complained that their hospital stay was "too short." What in the world is this about? I think a team of medical professionals is in a better position to judge when you're well enough to go home than you are, especially since the longer you have to stay in the hospital the more it costs (both you and them).

I'm not going to go into the part of the study about prescription drugs because this study was released before Medicare Part D, and I'm sure that things have changed significantly.

As far as "younger patients preferentially getting care," which makes more sense--a liver transplant for a 30-year-old or a liver transplant for an 80-year-old? Who will ultimately benefit more?

In short, the US is somewhere in the middle of the pack. We do better than the UK and Canada on some issues but are vastly outperformed in most categories by New Zealand and Australia (and they have socialized medicine there, too). All this means is that if we institute universal health coverage we should learn from the flaws of the UK and Canadian system and emulate the good parts of systems from countries like New Zealand.

Myth: "National health insurance is an efficient way to deliver care."

Goodman says that the US health system is more efficient than other systems. He first asserts that this is true because the US has shorter hospital stays than anyone else. But he just cited a study where respondants complained that their hospital stays were "too short!"

What he says is true, to a point:

A 2006 survey says that in England the average length of stay was 6.3 days whereas in America it was 4.8 days (average of all diagnoses). One day's difference, really. That's not terribly significant in the long run. And hospital length of stay is not really an appropriate sole measure of the efficiency of health care systems.

Goodman continually uses the UK as an example of a poorly-run socialized health care system. What he fails to take into account is that the UK is not the only country with socialized medicine, and it does not have the best system by any stretch of the imagination. Saying that Britain's health care system is socialized but not as good as ours in terms of efficiency does not prove socialized health care is bad, it proves that Britain's health care system is less efficient. We would have to compare America to more than one country. Furthermore, if the British model is bad, we can choose to do things differently than they do, taking examples from what works in other countries and throwing out whatever doesn't.

Goodman also asserts that when you incorporate the cost to hospitals and doctors that Medicare and Medicaid are inefficient, but he doesn't provide numbers to back his assertion.

Cato: "Capitalism will fix the problem."

No it won't.

The free market won't fix health care because as far as the "free market" is concerned there is no problem. People who can't pay for goods and services in a free market economy don't get them. Ability to pay is the primary rationing mechanism. This means that it's okay if people don't get medical care if they can't pay for it because you only deserve things you can pay for.

What medical insurance does is not provide you with health care--it protects you against the astronomical cost of health care. Insurance works by spreading out the risk of illness over many people. This is why it's cheaper to insure a whole company, where the risk is distributed over a larger group, than it is to buy private insurance. Health care is not going to get cheaper. As we develop more advanced technology it requires more specialized knowledge to be a doctor or nurse. This means doctors and nurses require more expertise and education. This translates into increased costs.

To quote someone else's words on the subject:

For most Americans, providing health care ought to be different from selling soap; they won't tolerate doctors acting like commissioned salesmen and investment bankers. And if that means having less market competition and more regulation in the health care system, it seems to be a trade-off they're willing to make.

The free market is fantastic for regulating the price of most goods. Grecian urns? They're worth whatever someone is willing to pay. Luxury cars? Caviar? Designer clothing? Pepsi versus Coke? Price is a good rationing factor for all of these things. If people won't buy Pepsi because it costs more than Coke, Pepsi can lower their prices and see if people change their minds.

If you have a heart attack you don't have time to comparison shop. There is no incentive for hospitals to charge less. If you need a drug and there are no other drugs on the market that are just as good because the only drug that treats your illness is too expensive for you to afford, why should drug companies lower their prices to accomodate you? Medicine isn't a luxury, it's a basic human need. It cannot be subjected to the whims of the market. It cannot be treated like "just another service." There is no other industry where "buy" or "don't buy" is literally a decision between life or death.

Seriously. Every choice you make regarding health care directly impacts your chance of survival. We as a society, if we value the lives of our members, cannot afford to permit people to make the wrong choices. This doesn't mean people should be treated against their will. It means that people who want care should be provided with the best care available.

Patients often have no idea how to choose which care is best--that's why they go to doctors. If you develop an infection, do you know which antibiotic to use to treat it? In a true "free market" scenario drug companies would advertise their antibiotics directly to consumers and let them choose which one to use. This would be an absolute disaster; patients would wind up choosing antibiotics based on who connected with them through advertising rather than which antibiotic would actually treat the infection. If you have trouble believing this, consider the fact that 75% of consumers purchase brand-name drugs when buying over-the-counter medications despite the fact that on average generics cost about 2/3 as much and are equivalent products. They choose the more expensive product even though it is no better than the cheaper product. They do this because of brand recognition, faith in companies that produce brand name drugs, misconceptions about generic drugs, and many other reasons.

I have a hard time with the idea that patients who won't buy generic acetaminophen because they like Tylenol better will choose the right therapy for complicated illnesses. Which insulin should a diabetic use? Which ACE inhibitors have the best data to prevent strokes and heart attacks? What chemotherapy regimen is best? Giving patients full control over these choices is a mistake because they typically do not have the information necessary to make them--and most people overestimate their ability to make the right choice. If I had a dollar for every time a patient told me they should be able to get antibiotics whenever they wanted (and pick the ones they should get) because "I know when I'm sick" I would be a millionaire.

And that's what I think.