COMMENTARY: GOP health care card

Mr. Walberg uses the example of the British NHS to attack universal health provision generally. He choses the NHS because he knows it is the worst-performing health system of any Western democracy other than our own. The NHS is the way it is because of chronic underfunding and an organization operating on Soviet-type command-economics. Mind you, it still provides better health-outcomes at half the cost of our own "system". Predictably, Walberg avoids looking at the French and German models. France, Germany, and most of the countries of Western Europe have universal provision at a fraction of the cost to their economies. They don't have waiting lists, and their health statistics in terms of the key indicators of infant mortality, morbidity, and life-expectancy put the US to shame. And of course, like Britain, and unlike Continental Europe, we have rationing of healthcare. In the UK you queue. In the US, if you can't afford insurance, you go without, make do with third-class care, go into crushing debt, or just die. Low life-expectancy in the US reflects the latter option which is freely available to so many in our great democracy. Lousy outcomes at twice the cost isn't clever. The health market that ideologues like Walberg see as the solution to all our ills doesn't work with health because the sick consumer has no power and the "market" is dominated by monopolistic insurance companies whose primary objective is to avoid claims rather than provide cover. The sort of "ethics" that apply in relation to motor insurance are even more inappropriate to health-provision. In France, provision is universal via "mutuals" (non-profit medical-insurance organizations owned by their members). The state provides cover for the indigent, and everyone deals with the providers (doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies) as consumers. Isn't it about time we dumped the ideologues like Mr. Walberg and just adopt something that has been proven to work in other countries in terms of results and lower cost? Or would that be too clever?

in response to petemurray: you clearly are a self-rightgeous, narcissistic liberal. let me get this right, anybody who does not agree with your views is 'an idealogue'? that kind of thinking, ironically, makes you an idealogue. I would prefer to make my own choices when it comes to my health and well-being. there clearly are problems with our healthcare system, but handing over health care to a bunch of inept bureaucrats is not the answer.

Well, John, I presume if you thought you had a good argument you would not have felt it necessary to rely on invective. Read my comment again. In France, financial health provision for most people is by way of private insurance - not state bureaucracy. Everyone deals with the health providers as private consumers. The difference is that the Frence insurers are owned by the consumers themselves and thus respond to the needs of their members rather than the very different agenda of third-party shareholders. Administration-costs of these health-mutuals are a fraction of the costs of those imposed by the inept bureaucracies that comprise our health-insurers. The difference is even more stark when you consider that much of this inept bureaucracy is dedicated to avoiding claims rather than getting value and service for the insured. Incidentally, the French state subsidizes insurance for the indigent, so that the children of the poor are not dependent on their parents having to decide between paying the mortgage or ensuring their kids have quality health cover. We insist on universal coverage for motorists. Why not for health too? Anyway, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, John. The French have better healthcare at a fraction of the cost. Another good idea from Europe is "community-rating" where every adult pays the same premium regardless of age. This means that the old are not priced out of insured health-care, and medical costs are amortized throughout the lives of the health-consumer. Incidentally, Mr. Walberg could hardly feel insulted by being called an ideologue of the right. Ideologues of the left run the failing British NHS. I'm not interested in ideologies. I'm for whatever has proven itself to work best. That's the America way.