quelling the fears of "socialized" medicine

[sparkleydrop]

I'd hate to think that someone would vote for the Republican candidate, based on a fear of "socialized" medicine. So here are some common concerns, and my response to them:

#1 If health care was "socialized" smart people would no longer go into medicine.

You can make the same argument about HMOs/insurance companies--their stacks of paperwork and

Comments

[ricepaddy8]

Yay! Where at?

Well I heard that VA hospital does suck actually, but they have an awesome medical records system, and the outpatient system works very well.
As far as Navy hospital, as a student it may be annoying because some people are inefficient. I have had some of my best teaching at the Navy though and sometimes they go overboard, but it shows they care.

For the patient I think it's very good. Healthcare is "free" or cheap, same with medications (I guess the public pays for it).
For the docs: there is no malpractice in theory (my friend says patients can still sue), and patients are in general very healthy and compliant, coming from that military background. No homeless people (may be some at the VA). At the same time only certain drugs are on formulary, but that's same with private insurance. A negative for the patient is that they "have" to listen to the doc and there are ways to make them. I.e. kicking them out of the military, and some people do actually want to stay and it's sad when they can't.
Those are some random thoughts I have about it.

So America does have socialized medicine for certain populations.

[sparkleydrop]

Do you mean the nurses/ancillary staff are inefficient? I think one problem with our hospital at least, is that the nurses and ancillary staff are overburdened, so they seem inefficient, when really the problem is that we need more nurses/case workers/etc. I think this is one legit criticism of the "pay for performance" scheme...hospital systems that are underfunded and understaffed are going to do worse by virtue of that fact, and then punishing these systems by providing them with less monetary resources seems like an inappropriate solution.