Can doctors and nurses open up their own private pay as you go practice and not work under Universal Health Care? What say you? Or will government force them to work under their health care system, what say you? That's what they do in many other countries that have Universal Care. The government reimbursement sucks, so they take cash only in the private sector.
This is already a problem in the mental health field, where the reimbursement rates are so low docs can't make a living off them. SO they go private, and millions can't have access to a qualified doc because there simply aren't enough accepting insurance or government reimbursement (medicaid). Yes, and all the great doctors/nurse practioners will not work for universal healthcare. They will start their own private practices.
How many government employees really like their job? There could be a two tiered system or it could be only one tier. Hillary tried for one tier in the 90's. She tried to make it illegal for you to get privately funded healthcare.
Any system that removes the free market is going to be more costly either to us as patients or taxpayers.
bg The Government will force all to work under "their" health care system. who knows...access to health care is not the same as having insurance /fed program...Md's chose patients loads & whether they are self employed or work for an employer.. Depends on what plan is picked. Canada tried to go with no offering your services for a fee IF it was an area covered by their insurance. That has bombed miserably.
Because 鈥渋llegal, for-profit health-service centers鈥?have 鈥減roliferated鈥?in Canada and are so accepted that the head of one became the president of the Canadian Medical Association (鈥淚ndividual Freedom vs. Government Control,鈥?1 August 2007, nationalreview.com).
From a Canadian physician (now in the US):
"Dr. Jacques Chaoulli is at the center of this changing health-care scene. Standing at about five and a half feet and soft-spoken, he doesn鈥檛 seem imposing. But this accidental revolutionary has turned Canadian health care on its head. In the 1990s, recognizing the growing crisis of socialized care, Chaoulli organized a private Quebec practice鈥攑atients called him, he made house calls, and then he directly billed his patients. The local health board cried foul and began fining him. The legal status of private practice in Canada remained murky, but billing patients, rather than the government, was certainly illegal, and so was private insurance.
...Baker isn鈥檛 a neurosurgeon or even a doctor. He鈥檚 a medical broker, one member of a private sector that is rushing in to address the inadequacies of Canada鈥檚 government care. Canadians pay him to set up surgical procedures, diagnostic tests, and specialist consultations, privately and quickly. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have a medical background. I just have some common sense,鈥?he explains. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 need to be a doctor for what I do. I鈥檓 just expediting care.鈥?
...Baker isn鈥檛 alone: other private-sector health options are blossoming across Canada, and the government is increasingly turning a blind eye to them, too, despite their often uncertain legal status. Private clinics are opening at a rate of about one a week. Companies like MedCan now offer 鈥渃orporate medicals鈥?that include an array of diagnostic tests and a referral to Johns Hopkins, if necessary. Insurance firms sell critical-illness insurance, giving policyholders a lump-sum payment in the event of a major diagnosis; since such policyholders could, in theory, spend the money on anything they wanted, medical or not, the system doesn鈥檛 count as health insurance and is therefore legal. Testifying to the changing nature of Canadian health care, Baker observes that securing prompt care used to mean a trip south. These days, he says, he鈥檚 able to get 80 percent of his clients care in Canada, via the private sector.
...Another sign of transformation: Canadian doctors, long silent on the health-care system鈥檚 problems, are starting to speak up. Last August, they voted Brian Day president of their national association. A former socialist who counts Fidel Castro as a personal acquaintance, Day has nevertheless become perhaps the most vocal critic of Canadian public health care, having opened his own private surgery center as a remedy for long waiting lists and then challenged the government to shut him down. 鈥淭his is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week,鈥?he fumed to the New York Times, 鈥渁nd in which humans can wait two to three years.鈥?br>
And now even Canadian governments are looking to the private sector to shrink the waiting lists. Day鈥檚 clinic, for instance, handles workers鈥?compensation cases for employees of both public and private corporations. In British Columbia, private clinics perform roughly 80 percent of government-funded diagnostic testing. In Ontario, where fealty to socialized medicine has always been strong, the government recently hired a private firm to staff a rural hospital鈥檚 emergency room."
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_ca...
Britain always kept the private pay option.
There is private pay in MANY of the UHC countries which is why they still have doctors and why there has not been a TOTAL collapse for lack of any care available.
I think if Americans were foolish enough to go with UHC that they'd insist on private pay. As all the powers that be would want their own docs, they'd probably agree to that. |
