Source: "Don't Get Sick!" by: Gail Pellett, t r u t h o u t.org - 27 August 2009
[T]he federal government already holds sway over the health care system through Medicare, Medicaid and various insurance programs for children, veterans, military personnel and other federal employees. The federal government will account for 35 percent of the expected $2.5 trillion in health spending this year, and that does not include subsidies built into the tax code.
Source: "A Primer on the Details of Health Care Reform" By ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN - NY Times - August 9, 2009
Fifty-six to 60 percent of people in government-run Medicare rate it a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. In contrast, only 40 percent of those enrolled in private insurance rank their plans that high.
Multiple surveys back that up. For example, 68 percent of those in Medicare feel that their own interests are the priority, compared with only 48 percent of those enrolled in private insurance.
[T]he government has a particularly good record in medical care.
Take the hospital system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest integrated health system in the United States. It is fully government run, much more “socialized medicine” than is Canadian health care with its private doctors and hospitals. And the system for veterans is by all accounts one of the best-performing and most cost-effective elements in the American medical establishment.
A study by the Rand Corporation concluded that compared with a national sample, Americans treated in veterans hospitals “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.” The difference was particularly large in preventive medicine: veterans were nearly 50 percent more likely to receive recommended care than Americans as a whole.
"If other health care providers followed the V.A.’s lead, it would be a major step toward improving the quality of care across the U.S. health care system," Rand reported.
As for the other big government-run health care system in the United States, Medicare spends perhaps one-sixth as much on administration as private health insurers, although the comparison is imperfect and controversial.
[F]oreigners regularly express bewilderment that America may reject reform and stick with a system that drives families into bankruptcy when they get sick. That’s what they expect from the Central African Republic, not the United States.
Source: "Health Care That Works" - By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF - NY Times - September 2, 2009
After [former Senate majority leader Republican Bob Dole's] body was shattered during World War II, he underwent seven operations in veterans hospitals and three years of rehabilitation. "I had good treatment and it’s probably why I’m still around," he said in an interview. He has been working on the issue since the 1970s, and admits now that "we probably should have passed the Clinton bill, but it got so politicized."
As for the defeat of the Clinton plan in 1994, Mr. Clinton, in a new interview in Esquire magazine, blamed presidential politics.
"And we now know, and I’m surer of this than anything: We just couldn’t do it as long as Bob Dole was running for president," Mr. Clinton told the magazine. He said that Mr. Dole was "really good on health care for a Republican" and that the two had mapped out a strategy for compromise.
"Then," Mr. Clinton said, "he gets Bill Kristol’s famous memo that says, you know, ‘If you let Bill Clinton pass any kind of health care bill, the Democrats will be the majority party for a generation, and you can forget about your presidential hopes. Your only option is to beat anything. Kill it off.’ "
Mr. Dole followed the advice, declaring back then that "there is no health care crisis."
Source: "Dole, Politics Aside, Pushes for Health Care Plan" By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE - NY Times - September 11, 2009
Bob Dole, who admits that he's "probably still around" because of socialized medicine -- the Veterans Administration -- working hard to politicize healh care reform and kill socialized medicine for the rest of us in 1996
Source: Ruth Fremson/Associated Press via NY Times - 09/11/09