WHY THE US RATIONS HEALTHCARE-AND WHY WE ARE AFRAID TO ADMIT IT

A common objection by critics of single-payor healthcare (and really anykind of healthcare reform in general) is that it would require the "rationing of healthcare".

But as anyone that has spent five minutes thinking about the topic knows, the nation already rations healthcare. It rations it on the basis of the ability to pay. No pay, no care.

This Sunday's edition of the New York Times features an article by Princeton professor and bioethicist Peter Singer entitled "Why we Must Ration Healthcare". The article cogently sets forth the rationing that currently takes place in America and why rationing based upon cost-benefit analysis is is neccessary to allocate the scarce resource of healthcare dollars.

QALYS REVISTED

The Singer article describes QALYs, or Quality Adjusted Life Years and the analysis of figuring out just how much is it worth to spend on one year of additional life. The Author has written on this topic several times, most recently in May of 2008.

The Singer article is worth an intense read by all Americans, especially those that oppose single-payor healtcare reform. And it pounds down the canard that large numbers of Brits and Canadians are dissatisfied with their respective healthcare systems. Here is how Singer concludes his article.

One final comment. It is common for opponents of health care rationing to point to Canada and Britain as examples of where we might end up if we get “socialized medicine.” On a blog on Fox News earlier this year, the conservative writer John Lott wrote, “Americans should ask Canadians and Brits — people who have long suffered from rationing — how happy they are with central government decisions on eliminating ‘unnecessary’ health care.” There is no particular reason that the United States should copy the British or Canadian forms of universal coverage, rather than one of the different arrangements that have developed in other industrialized nations, some of which may be better. But as it happens, last year the Gallup organization did ask Canadians and Brits, and people in many different countries, if they have confidence in “health care or medical systems” in their country. In Canada, 73 percent answered this question affirmatively. Coincidentally, an identical percentage of Britons gave the same answer. In the United States, despite spending much more, per person, on health care, the figure was only 56 percent.

IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL, UNLIKE THE UNITED STATES, WE DO NOT HAPPILY SPEND MORE MONEY ON LESS CARE THEN CALL IT THE "BEST IN THE WORLD"!