Imagine: Living in a Socialist U.S.A. by Frances Goldin & Debby Smith & Michael Smith

Author:Frances Goldin & Debby Smith & Michael Smith [Goldin, Frances]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-01-21T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Socialized Medicine Means Everyone Gets Care, Regardless of Whether They Have Money

Dave Lindorff

When I was a young man just getting started on my career in journalism, I lived in New York City. My wife, Joyce, a harpsichordist, was herself just starting out as a freelance musician. We had a cheap but rather minimal health insurance plan that didn’t pay for doctor or emergency room visits—only for very costly hospital stays, and then only 80 percent of the total bill. One day, Joyce, who suffers from allergies, had a severe asthma attack—her breathing became increasingly labored. We rushed out of our apartment, hailed a taxi to Roosevelt Hospital, and went into the emergency room entrance.

Joyce was gasping so hard she couldn’t talk, but I was nonetheless questioned at length by an intake nurse about our insurance plan and our finances. It was clear to everyone around us that Joyce was in danger of losing consciousness because the swelling in her throat had constricted her windpipe, but the intake process dragged on as she gasped for breath. The hospital, a private institution, like most hospitals in this country, wanted to make sure it would get paid before it would admit her for treatment!

I lost my temper and began yelling and making a scene. Another nurse came by, saw Joyce’s condition, and, fortunately, brought her in to be seen by a doctor before the financial details were resolved. She was given a drug to reduce the swelling, and she recovered. We ended up paying the hospital $700 for this abusive nightmare.

Today, things have only gotten worse. The nearly 50 million people in America who don’t have health insurance—and that number keeps growing as employers eliminate their insurance plans for workers—have nowhere to turn when they or their families get sick.

Think about that number. There are just over 310 million Americans: nearly one in six is uninsured. Many people with curable ailments have died for lack of care. That’s what happened to a teenage boy brought to a hospital by police in Chicago. He died on the sidewalk as the cops stood by helplessly: the hospital wouldn’t admit him because he had no insurance.

America is the only modern industrial nation in the world that does this to its people. Everywhere else—Japan, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, Canada, Taiwan—there is some kind of system through which every single person has easy access not only to emergency care but to doctors and hospitals as well. In most of these countries, the patient receiving care pays nothing or merely a token fee. The cost is borne by the whole population, which finances the system through taxation.

These countries use several different health care models. The United Kingdom has a truly socialist-style National Health Service. In the British system, doctors are on salary from the national government, which also owns the hospitals. Canada’s Medicare system is semi-socialist; the various provinces each pay private hospitals and doctors a set fee for providing care. In Switzerland, the government establishes a basic health insurance plan that all insurance companies must offer to all citizens at a fixed cost.

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