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Americans have been having a great debate about the perceived benefits of socialized healthcare versus the very real benefits of an open market system based on choice and competition.

John Stossel ascertained that socialized medicine was not the way to go when he did his 20/20 special “Whose Body Is It Anyway?”, which aired on ABC on September 14, 2007. The bottom line for Mr. Stossel was competition within the medical sector is a good thing. In fact, Stossel spoke with one Canadian woman who had to wait so long for necessary heart surgery that she sought treatment in the United States. If she had waited for treatment under the Canadian Health Care system she would have likely died. She is no fan of socialized medicine.

Stossel also pointed out that some American doctors are opting out of accepting insurance in lieu of cash. They do this by setting a routine discounted price list for consumers and this method is actually lowering healthcare costs for your everyday aches and pains. The reason is simple – this creates competition therefore rates automatically go down. Another example of this is lasik eye surgery. When lasik first hit the market it was expensive, but with competition, not only has the eye surgery improved, costs have gone down.

Today John Stossel wrote a follow up on the topic in Health Insurance Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be with the byline, Mandating Medical Coverage May Sound Good, but You’ve Got to Read the Fine Print.

‘m appalled reading the results of the ABC News poll on health care:

“Nearly eight in 10 favor a federal requirement that all employers offer insurance to their full-time workers. Nearly two-thirds favor such a requirement for part-time employees as well.”

Note that he isn’t talking about socialized medicine here, but rather the government intrusion on businesses and the attempt to expand the role of employers in providing healthcare to all employees. Can you imagine what this ill advised attack on businesses would do to the industry, not to mention small business owners, wages and prices on products?

Why on earth would we want mandated insurance from employers?! Do our employers pay for our food, clothing or shelter? If they did, why would that be good? Having my health care tied to my boss invites him to snoop into my private health issues, and if I change jobs I lose coverage. Employer paid health insurance isn’t free. It just means we get insurance instead of higher salaries. Companies only provide it because of a World War II-era tax break that never went away.

There is an important part of the poll that Stossell is referring to concerning attitudes, common sense and the Democrat effort to ram their way down American’s throats.

The ABC News poll suggests that people understand that. When asked about “consumer directed plans,” “nearly eight in 10 Americans think that allowing people to shop around for their own medical care would be an effective way to control costs.” But many people still want a free lunch: “Consumer-driven care looks less popular if it’s accompanied by the risk of higher out-of-pocket expenses.”

This opens the door for socialized medicine and explains why Hillary’s wager may not be such a bad bet after all. Democrats are kings at giving hand outs and people grab them up no matter what the ramification is on the other side (nobody said that these people were smart). Yet those handouts don’t usually improve people’s lives. They simply hide the pea and move it somewhere else; generally resulting in higher taxes, lower standards of service, less choice and a bigger burden on the rich.

But this is really just an introduction to the real topic at hand. Politicians like Hillary Clinton always seem to talk about the grand benefits of socialized medicine but they never talk about the downside of actuall implementations that have serious problems. It’s like getting that great Christmas toy only to find out that batteries aren’t included. Worse though you have to buy that special battery, the one that doesn’t work anywhere else and must be ordered online, only to find out that it’s back ordered. This is what socialized medicine would be like.

England is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.

A new report says that the English are pulling there own teeth and performing their own dental work because the government has failed at providing even a system of dentists that is reliable and within reach. The British government can not afford to fund dentists, thus resulting in a lack of available dentists to meet patients needs. It has become so bad that some dentists are leaving public practice and opting for a practice within the private sector. As of right now private dentistry within England is very expensive leaving most out in the cold, but as more and more socialized dentists leave, prices will go down.

Why do I say this? Because it is a categorical fact that competition in the market place lowers costs and often produces a better product; in the case medicine.

According to the AFP:

Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.

Others have used superglue to stick crowns back on, rather than stumping up for private treatment, said the study. One person spoke of carrying out 14 separate extractions on himself with pliers.

More typically, a lack of publicly-funded dentists means that growing numbers go private: 78 percent of private patients said they were there because they could not find a National Health Service (NHS) dentist, and only 15 percent because of better treatment.

Hillary Clinton along with some other leading democrats may want socialized medicine, but it is reports such as Stossels and the AFP that indicates that Socialized Medicine is yet another failing government program.

We should stick with what we have, improve on it in any way we can that still adheres to the standards laid down in an open market system; one that spurs innovation and fosters research. Competition and capitalism works. Democrats, in their ultimate quest to undermine that model are once again proving that socialists are short sighted ideologues that would sell snake oil to your grandmother as long as the rainbow at the end gave them more money and power.

See Also: Hot Air – Glorious British health care system lets father know joy of delivering his own child, Wizbang

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