David Trinh

A few months ago I posted an article and some commentary on the Timothy Dwight Blog, arguing that we should pass universal healthcare not only because it would provide higher quality care at a lower cost but also because passing universal healthcare could relieve some businesses like Mory’s which are hindered by high healthcare costs.   Well, Mory’s is apparently coming back in the fall, so no need to worry about them but I’d like to think that my original point still stands that universal healthcare would be cheaper and better.

Unfortunately, not many people buy my claim-everyone from my schoolmate Spencer Bradley (who took me to task for daring to think the government could do something better than industry) to John McCain seem to think that a government run plan would turn into a bureaucratic morass.  Indeed, John McCain recently claimed that “the idea that somehow the government can administer health care in a more efficient fashion than the private sector I think flies in the face of examples of other countries that have done so.”

The problem is the senator is badly mistaken.  According to Ali Frick of ThinkProgress, via Matt Yglesias, the United State’s ‘free market’ approach is really, really bad:

Compared with five other nations – Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom – the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives.

Efficiency: On indicators of efficiency, the U.S. ranks last among the six countries, with the U.K. and New Zealand ranking first and second, respectively. The U.S. has poor performance on measures of national health expenditures and administrative costs as well as on measures of the use of information technology and multidisciplinary teams. Also, of sicker respondents who visited the emergency room, those in Germany and New Zealand are less likely to have done so for a condition that could have been treated by a regular doctor, had one been available.

I know this is counterintuitive but it turns out that the Veterans Health Administration, which for all intents and purposes actually is socialized medicine, is, dollar for dollar, the best provider of healthcare in the nation.  You can quibble about rationing care or about whether government control of the healthcare sector is just one more step down the road to serfdom but please, let’s drop this tired rumor that the government-run care is grossly inefficient.  Thanks.