A US NHS universal medical system could become America's largest employer

[FourScore]

A US NHS universal medical system could become America's largest employer
by Democrats Ramshield
Fri Feb 11, 2011 at 05:38:06 AM PST

(Written by an American expat living in the European Union)
There are 59 million Americans who don't have medical insurance. There are 132 million Americans who don't have dental insurance. What if there were an alternate United States where everyone was medically and dentally insured? Well it just so happens that I live in what some call the United States of Europe otherwise known as the European Union and here everyone that I see everyday is fully medically insured. They live on average longer than we do in America and they pay less for their medical system than we do in America, even though they insure 100% of their populations. Why can't the Teabaggers see this? If they could see it, would it change anything? Would it change you? It changed me. It is possible to change America, one person at a time. All we have to do is get the word out that universal medical works in every major industrialized country in the world, therefore it can also work in America not only to provide health care but also to become America's biggest employer with jobs that pay a living wage that can't be outsourced.

The Case Against Universal Medical
The case against universal medical that the Teabag crowd is trying to use to repeal the progress that has been made in health care reform is that it is a "job killer". Now I am not any kind of an economics professor, I am just a working stiff with an MBA degree but even I know the economic argument that says universal medical systems can be a job creator. Case and point is the British medical system known as the National Health Service (NHS). It turns out that its not just Britain's largest employer, its one of the biggest employers in the world. Additionally it provides cradle-to-grave medical care paid for purely through taxes from the British population wherein they spend less on medical and live longer than we do in America.

The NHS is one of the largest employers in the world, along with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the Indian railways and the Wal-Mart supermarket chain. The NHS in England and Wales employs around 1.3 million people. This is approximately one in 23 of the working population.
Source: http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/NHS60/Pages/Didyouknow.aspx

SNIP

...If the British national health care system is one of the world's biggest employers, couldn't an American national health care system become the world's biggest employer?...

MUCH MORE AT: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/2/11/942757/-A-US-NHS-universal-medical-system-could-become-Americas-largest-employer

[rfranklin]

1. the "job killing" was a Frank Luntz label...

they didn't believe it, they just knew it would create negative feelings that worked politically, just like the "Obamacare" label. (Which now that I think about it was playing to the racist feelings toward a "black man" in the White House.)

[ehrnst]

2. Their Meme is - People shouldn't think of the Government as an employer..

Except the politicians spouting this drivel.

[Octafish]

3. Chamber of Commerce members would have to compete with fair salaries.

And there wouldn't be anything wrong with that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. The British NHS is just one model for universal health care

Under the Canadian system, health care delivery remains in private hands, but the government is the sole payer.

Under the German system, both health care delivery and insurance are private, but the insurance companies are on a choke chain and can't pull the nonsense that they pull here.

[FourScore]

9. There is a government run public option in Germany. n/t

[Octafish]

5. It's a great idea whose time is way past due.

There'd be jobs from more doctors to more nursing home orderlies and all points in between.

Best yet, people who need care would get what they deserve: professional quality service.

[Maine_Nurse]

6. If it was anything like the British system, I'd quit being a nurse on the spot.

[rfranklin]

7. Why is that?

Just wondering.

[Maine_Nurse]

8. I have no urge to kill someone from being exhausted.

Its really not that simple, but we have a nurse that came from England a year or so ago and some of the "standard practices" are pretty horrible.

Our system sucks a lot, but going to something like Britain's would really mess things up here I think. Americans want the "cutting edge" (part of the reason why things are so expensive now) and wouldn't settle for anything less even if it is 50% of the cost and 99.9% just as effective.

[rfranklin]

10. How many Americans get that "cutting edge" care?

And yes, we spend so much more for worse results than many other countrise with a national health system. One never hears about the possibility of taking what works from the other systems and implementing it here because so many people have a vested interest in keeping the same half-assed system we've had.

[Maine_Nurse]

11. "Gold Standard" would have been a better term for me to use.

Much of the care that is considered the gold standard of care, is only very marginally "better" than the next, less expensive, tier down. Much of what is done is done for defensive medicine purposes, even in places like Maine where filing a frivolous malpractice suit is very difficult to do.

There are some uncomfortable truths in modern healthcare, one being that it is pretty much gambling and educated guessing. Given the extensive training and such, that is a gross oversimplification, but it is true. You might be able to increase the odds of being correct by 0.01% if you spend the extra $5000 on an extra set of scans and tests, but that is going to detract from the $$ available for others (either directly or indirectly). That testing might help a handful of patients per year nationwide, but when you spend $50,000,000.00 in overall testing for these rare situations, is it worth it? And do some of the extra testing results even change anything?

A good example was my own knee surgery. I destroyed my knee. The cheap old x-rays showed the top of the tibia was fractured and would need reconstruction. Even though it didn't show much detail on soft tissue, it was pretty obvious that cartilage damage had to be involved and possibly ligaments and tendons. The doc wanted $9000 of MRI before surgery. I questioned this since surgery was needed anyways. Once you are in there, it will be obvious. I asked him if he'd be able to repair the ligaments in question if he got in there and found they were damaged. His answer was yes, it would take a little extra time and he could have the extra gear brought in in about 5 minutes. I declined the MRI, he did the surgery, found a severed ACL and repaired it while in there for a lot less $$ than if he'd have added the MRI. If the ligaments weren't damaged, the $9000 would have been wasted too.

I'm a nurse and it is my instinct to want to do everything humanly possible to get a correct answer and apply the correct treatment, but we simply can't always do that without bankrupting the entire nation.

I agree that it would be great to pick and choose what works and what doesn't and implement it, but do you really want politicians deciding what is best for your health? The current half-assed reform measure doesn't cut it and will probably make some things much worse in the long run. The previous ways also sucked. When we do it, we need to do it right and all at once, without half-assed measures that will be tied up in politics and court forever. I don't have any answers, it is a massively complex problem. In my ideal nursing world, we'd be able to just shitcan all the insurance companies, go to a Medicare/Medicaid (with some much needed corrections) plan for everyone in the country as the interim step, then let medical professionals and medical administrators hammer out a final solution that allows medical professionals to earn enough $$ to cover their overhead and insane student loan debt and make a decent living for busting their asses trying to help others.

[pampango]

12. Not sure that we're culturally ready for a government-run "army of doctors".

It would be a good alternative and perhaps a long term goal, but we should probably aim for a Canadian-style system in the shorter run.