Do I think that healthcare needs revised? Yes, but I’m not convinced that the government is the one to do it. They’ve made a pretty good mess of things by legislating damages against doctors to the point where I’m not sure any sane individual wants to go into private general practice. In my opinion, going into general medicine seems a lot like going into a teaching career. It isn’t something you go into for the money, because you are going to start way in debt and if you’re lucky you’ll manage to pay off the loans you used to put yourself through school before you retire.
Why don’t I trust the government to revise/enact socialized/universal healthcare? These people are reforming Social Security, but voted to put themselves on a separate retirement plan. If the Social Security System is going to be fixed, why aren’t they signed up for it? If they won’t eat their own cooking, why should I trust that it is good for me? As one executive put it "eat your own dog food before you sell it to me."
It isn’t only the insurance companies that are squeezing people, hospitals are too. My mother works in a hospital where the hospital’s staff doctor (the one under whom all procedures are performed) quit because she wasn’t willing to risk her medical license on the hospital’s level of care. Did you get that? It isn’t the insurance company taking short cuts; it is the hospital administration that is refusing to perform certain types of testing.
The idea that a noble man will want to take care of the less fortunate is as much of myth as the idea that morality can be legislated. We want to believe that good will and charity abound, but the proof of such has not materialized. The legislation of charity and morality does not work. Both are individual codes and governed by our personal thoughts. If I follow the law, it does not make me moral, it only makes me law abiding. In the same way, if I am forced to give money to those less fortunate, I am not being charitable; rather I am a part of a socialist system.
There are altruistic people and groups, but I believe that only a tiny fraction dwell without limitations in the “for profit” landscape. Individuals can be altruistic, but if they are fettered by a “for profit” infrastructure, their work will most likely be curtailed by the same infrastructure that funds their research. This is an issue lodged in the integrity of the system. When it came out that big tobacco funded research that led to the statement that cigarette smoking was not the only cause of lung cancer, the research results became questionable. This type of integrity is at the heart of the treatment versus cure debate. A treatment will cause an influx of money over the lifetime of the person. A cure will generate a one time payment. Whether we cure an illness or manage the symptoms, a “for profit” model will likely suppress the cure in favor of long term profits. If you want an example, look at panty hose. The technology for making panty hose that don’t run has existed for over 30 years, but noone will make them because there is no profit in making them. Why did the auto industry buy the patent for the first viable electric car battery, then refuse to manufacture it? They determined that making the technology available would lose them money.
Until healthcare is completely non-profit or completely free-market, I don’t see any of these problems going away. It is in trying to have both an entitled population and profits that leads to these problems.