How would Universal Healthcare impact the advacement of medicine?

Question

I think that unversal healthcare would be detrimental to the advancement of human medicine. Drug companies would tirelessly to develop a breakthrough drug or a cure for a disease because they know it would be a huge payout. Would they have such a large incentive if the government would be paying them?

Also, I heard that universal healthcare would result in everyone getting healthcare, but it would involve long lines. Everyone would get treated for cancer and not worry about the bill but they would have to wait 6 months for treatment.

What are your thoughts?

Answer 1

Stacy, exactly as RetroBlader put it, it's obviously very serious and "hot-button" issue for us as physicians and for patients.  Universal healthcare has clear advantages and other disadvantages for the patient.  The current system of medicine in the US leaves 47 million people completely without medical insurance to cover their care, this is obviously a serious problem.  Going from a system (that's in shambles, quite frankly, as we have under the current conditions) to one where there is universal coverage will be logistically very difficult and if it is advanced, it'll take many, many years to get it right.  It'll require a complete paradigm shift and huge change in infrastructure to advance, and as RetroBlader clearly suggested, there are very power special interest groups (namely HMOs/ Big Pharmaceutical Companies) which invariably will have strong political influence over if and how universal coverage can be effected.

It's a terribly complicated issue, and regrettably there are no quick fixes in the short term.

Answer 2

Since the drug companies became privatized, there have been far, far less cures than when it was government controlled. Drug companies only want symptom relievers, since they will be reused over and over, whereas cures are not needed once the problem is gone. No money in cures. Drug companies are more interested in Marketing. Obscene amounts go into marketing. At least thousands if not millions are spent on just pens, clocks, notepads, lunches, clipboards, and a ton of little practically useless stuff they give away for the sole purpose of having the name all around the dr. You should go in a dr's office and just look at the amount of stuff with a drug name on it. That is only a small fraction. The government should really take back the pharmaceutical industry, that would definitely lower regular health insurance prices.

If universal health care is brought in, it doesn't mean you can't get regular health insurance. Considering how very little the health insurances pay out ($0.67 on a $10 charge) I highly doubt that the doctors income would be impacted negatively.

I think universal health care would be a great thing. And this is coming from someone who would probably have to find a new job. You don't see the people who come in who don't have to money to get seen. People who are already sick, dying, and still getting harassed about payments. There are already tons of people who die because they just didn't have the money for a doctor. What is a couple of days wait to that?

6 months is quite far fetched. I was in the military, and the same type of system ran. Health care was FREE and there were no massive wait times.

The only valid complaint that I have heard is that you would not always be able to see the same doctor. Not exactly a big deal.

It could very well be that some doctors could choose to take more regular health insurance patients, and then you could have one of those for your regular doctor.

As atrocious as regular health insurance is, most doctors take most of them. Why? To boost the number of patients. Universal health care could work the same way.

Universal health care will certainly not stop the advancement of medicine. With a little less fear involved, it may even enhance it. Besides, that sounds an awful lot like you want to believe the US is the only place in the world who has helped medicine.  Nope.

Would you give up your career to keep universal health care from coming?

That's how strongly I support it.

Answer 3

Please send my congrats to the marketing departments of Big-Pharmas and HMO/PPO/etc -- clearly, their propaganda is working on SOME people....

Obviously, it really depends on how you defend health.  For many, it's something along the line of "live longer, live healthier, live happier".  I'm not sure the mostly-private, for-profit health care system in the US today is the way to achieve those goals.

1. Advancement of medicine

Look at the drugs introduced over the last 10 years -- how many were "breakthrough" drugs?  By far most were "me too" copies of existing drugs.  Yes, there were a few new antibiotics, but that's because we created super-bugs resistant to previous antibiotics.  Yes, there were a few new cancer drugs, but most of them lengthen life by weeks, not months/years (and they weren't "healthy/happy" weeks either).  In short, we have more drugs which are getting more expensive, but I'm not sure we are living longer/healthier/happier.

2. Waiting Time

Yes, countries with socialized universal health care (like Canada or most of Europe) have waiting lists for services, but those countries often have BETTER health indices than the US.  Looking at it another way, in the US you can get MRI in the middle of the night, but does that lead to people living longer, healthier and happier?  People still end up with late-stage cancer that creeped up on them.  People still have heart disease -- they can simply see it better.  Drug and health technology companies would LOVE you to believe that getting something fast means better health, but it's too bad life often doesn't work like that.

3. People actually get WORSE care in for-profit hospitals

Look at this article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2002 -- dialysis patients treated at private for-profit hospitals have HIGHER mortality: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/ful...

You say that's dialysis patients, not you?  Well how about this -- there have been 38 studies comparing health outcomes in various patient populations in Canada and the US, of which 5+9 favored Canada and 2+3 favored the US: http://www.openmedicine.ca/article/view/...

Anyway, believe what you want.  The truth is, no matter what you believe, Big Pharma and private health care providers have such a strong grip on the US political system that you will not see a change any time soon....

Good health to you.

Answer 4

I disagree, I think that the drug companies would benifit from  unversal healthcare, as instead of just giving the treatments to the "wealthy" they would now be able to give it to the poor, and get paid by government to do it.  However considering this,I also believe there would be a risk of fruad in the areas of medicine as bad or "worthless" drugs would be made just so the drug companies could make even more money.