I agree that Moore failed to show the problems of single payer systems. It's a relatively short film, and it wouldn't be possible to do justice to this issue in any short film.
I think all systems, all decent systems, have waits, unfair denials, and deaths caused by mistakes. My husband and I talked this over a lot after seeing the movie, and what we have come to think is that some sort of universal care would be optimal simply because of the huge cloud of worry it would lift from the poor, the lower middle class, and even the middle class. Right now it is possible for even a middle class couple with insurance to be ruined by health care problems, if they have insurance that caps out, or if they made some mistake about their coverage, which allows their insurance company to deny them. It seems to me a rich country like ours should try to alleviate those sorts of worries, and also, I think universal care is much more easily structured to attack preventative care, which is a type of care that we are sorely lacking in the US. The incentives in our system are geared to treating people with disease- very few companies make money on preventing disease. Preventing or curing diabetes, for example, would deal a huge blow to many companies- just look at JNJ and its profit centers.
While I am sure there would be problems with universal health care, I do think the benefits for trying it would far outweigh the risks. |
