Remember 2007, now let's move forward five years into 2012. Will our healthcare system under the same scrutiny. As stated by Slashdot (2007) when it comes to health care the advocates of socialist systems of care immediately reverse things. Americans are worse off because they spend more. And that is true. Americans spend more because they purchase more. The average American receives more health care than the average European.

The assumption in much of the world is that American health care is significantly inferior because Americans spend more per person than do people in other wealthy nations.  But no health care system anywhere in the world has been able to make health care available to everyone. Every state provider of care restricts services, often through the use of queuing. Canada’s health care is lauded by advocates of state systems yet Canadians wait significant periods of time for what care is available. One factor often ignored is that most Canadians live along the US border and that some of the for Canadians is provided privately in the United States. There is little argument that American health care is among the best in the world when it comes to technologies and innovation. What is targeted for criticism is that costs are high and this restricts access. (Slashdot, 2007)

Economist Arnold Kling points out in his book Crisis of Abundance health care is not an exact science. Often a physician looks at a problem, tries his best to determine causes and takes actions which may, or may not, help. He has to make educated guesses but often still guesses none the less. With so many people ready to sue physicians for making the wrong educated guess it is in the benefit of physicians to take all reasonable precautions regardless of cost (Kling, 2006).  Does this not apply to making educated decisions and not guesses by researching and knowing the facts.  Real research, not just the reading or listening to one, two or even three sources.  Issues of this magnitude needs an in-depth research in reaching an opinion. 

Slashdot (2007) continues to question is America overspending on health care? No doubt. But it is also likely that state systems are under spending as well.  America is said to have a health care crisis because it spends more than any other nation per capita. But Americans also lead the world in spending on food, entertainment and automobiles. Yet no one speaks of the food crisis, entertainment crisis or automobile crisis. Of course the big difference is that Americans don’t have their food, cars or entertainment paid for by a third party such as insurance or government.  There is no denying that Americans consume more health care than they need. That is what third party payment schemes do. Nor can anyone deny that some Americans get less health care than they need. But the same is true in socialist systems. There are many people who over consume on small issues because the state covers the costs but who under consume on big issues because the state won’t provide the care at all.

References

Slashdot, I. (2007, January 18). The illusion of socialized health care. Retrieved from Classically Liberal web site.

Kling, A. (2006).  Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health Care. Cato Institute.