Majority Of Physicians Support National Health Insurance

April 1, 2008

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The results of a large survey of US physicians are published today. The survey shows that 59% now favor the establishment of a National Health Insurance Program (universal healthcare) and 32% are opposed. All I can say is Finally! It is time that everybody had similar access to health care.

I should preface my comments by saying that I am a dual citizen of the US and the UK. During my recent visits to England I was very disappointed to see that even the Labor government is trying to push the Nation Health Service (NHS) into the US model. The politicians should all be made to live here for a while with no health insurance and then let’s see whether they think it is a good idea.

Whether your politics are for government involvement in running things, or not, the current for-profit way that the system is run is not working for most Americans. To maximize profit you are not going to want to treat large segments of the population. You are going to want to select those that will cost you the least, and so maximize your profit. So whatever changes are made to the system we have to make the system more universal and not cherry pick. How can decent health care only be available to so few?

One objection that is raised is the cost. However, Canada and the UK governments spend less per capita than the US government does. Some of this is the economy of scale. For instance the government negotiates with a drug maker and gets a steep discount for the whole country.

One term that the opponents use to make people think a universal healthcare system is bad, is socialized medicine. This is supposed to make you think communist. However, now the words social and socialized are being used widely in other more favorable contexts such as social media. The question that needs to be directly discussed is, “Should everybody have the right to have access to good affordable healthcare?” It seems that now even the majority of physicans seem to think so.

If the situation stays the same, what is your healthcare situation going to be like when you (and/or your spouse) stop working? Would one serious illness be a financial catastrophe?

The results are published in Annals of Internal Medicine 148:566-567, 2008. It has not been indexed by PubMed yet.

I think I have said enough for now. What do you think?

Technorati Tags: national health insurance, socialized medicine, universal healthcare