California State Senator Sheila Kuehl recently introduced another version of her plan for the State of California to pay for health care for all citizens and non-citizens (SB 840). Everyone agrees that all people should have access to high quality health care. The difficulty arises when trying to determine who should pay for this high quality medical care. Ms. Kuehl would raise taxes substantially then ration care to limit the cost of health insurance in California. Ms. Kuehl models her plan after the Canadian health care system. Unfortunately, she does not explain that in Canada medical malpractice lawsuits are forbidden. Suing doctors is as American as apple pie. Since Ms. Kuehl is supported substantially by trial lawyers who profit from suing doctors, she is not proposing to end medical malpractice lawsuits. Canadian doctors and nurses are paid substantially less then their American counter parts. Granted, doctors in Canada do not need to pay for costly medical malpractice insurance. Still it is difficult for Canada to attract and retain skilled, high quality doctors and nurses. Tens of thousands of doctors and nurses leave Canada each year and move to the United States. Canada restricts research and development of medical procedures. As an example, the U.S. registers roughly twice as many biotech patents as Canada. Canada rations prescription medicine. Very few brand medications are available there. Those brand medications that are available in Canada are older, less effective medicines. Canadians do not have access to cutting edge medicine that has been newly developed by expensive research and development. Approximately one-third of the Provincial governments budgets are allocated to health care. Canadians pay 6 to 10% more in income taxes than due Americans. Also, Canada has a Federal 14% retail sales tax. So, Canadians pay a lot of taxes for a very limited medical delivery system. The higher taxes causes workers to lose incentives to work and hence there is lower worker productivity in Canada as compared to the U.S. Canadians wait about 17.5 weeks (about 4 months) on average for doctor recommended surgeries. In the U.S. many feel that health care delayed is health care denied. I believe that Senator Kuehl is blinded by her political ideology and unable to acknowledge the limitations of a single payer health care system. When questioned about this she glibly says "we'll do it differently in California." If she were intellectually honest with herself, she would not dismiss the huge problems of the system she proposes. |
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California Health Insurance |
Group Health Insurance in California |
Health Savings Accounts | |
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