I have just had it right up to here with the misinformation various special interests are spewing over healthcare reform in this country and the way folks are believing this tripe. What makes it worse is that they are ALL arguments from ignorance.
I was driving from my home to my apartment-near-the-office the other night - I heard some guy calling in to a NPR show on healthcare talking about how bad it would be if you had to go to a primary care physician in order to get referrals to specialists, calling it government interference in his choice. Umm.. no. Whats wrong about going to your regular doctor first and letting their knowledge and clinical experience determine where you go from there? Isn't that the way its supposed to work? Unless you're the kind that watches infomercials and goes to "ask your doctor if (insert latest patented and therefore expensive medication here) is right for you" I guess. How would you react if you did and the doc you've been consulting for years says "No, it's not right for you. That ad was trying to scam you into requesting something thats gonna cost you a bundle and do no better than the meds you're already on." You do trust your doc, right? if you dont why are you still going to them? You want to be able to refer yourself to busy (and expensive) specialists or decide what gets prescribed for you then put yourself through medical school, work your backside off as a resident and get yourself licensed to practice in your state - then you might have the knowledge to make the informed decision.
I've lost count of the number of times I've heard opponents of a public option quote waiting lists or arbitrary rationing of healthcare as a point in their favor.. What I havent heard is anyone who actually benefited from a publicly run healthcare system saying the same thing. Check out the username - I grew up in England and used to work in the healthcare industry. The NHS was a shining example of universal healthcare at one time but then Maggie Thatcher gutted it in her efforts to make it more like the American system. I was working in a major London teaching hospital at the time and I saw the numbers and the results. More and more aspects of the system were turned over to the private sector so that competition would "encourage efficiency" and "keep costs under control." What a disgusting sick joke. Without exception, whenever something was turned over to the private sector we paid more to get less. Wait times for appointments didnt go down, they skyrocketed. Oh, and of course they remodeled the executive offices and spent an ungodly amount of money to have a new corporate logo designed too. Even with all the damage that this process did, STILL nobody in England is bankrupted by health care costs. So to those arguing against such a system over here I say if you have no knowledge of a universal healthcare system just have a nice big mug of STFU. At best you are ignorant and at worst you are knowingly parrotting talking points that have more to do with politics than practicality.
You know who actually carried the main weight for keeping the system running in spite of all the damage done? Well, that goes back to the first paragraph of this little polemic. In the hospitals it was the junior docs and dedicated nurses working themselves into the ground because caring for folks was the job. Most folks never saw that side of it, but there was one thing they did see. Primary care doctors - general practitioners like my dad. They had ALL your records, they treated your entire family for years or decades and they knew your health issues. You never had to recap your history and hope you remembered everything, they HAD it and read it before you stepped into the office every time you made an appointment. None of this fee for service crap, family docs were "self employed" usually partnerships of a few docs that were paid a fixed sum by the government each year based on the number of folks registered with them. Out of that they paid the rent on their offices, paid office staff and a few nurses, covered operating costs and then they split whatever was left over as their pay. They didnt do it to get rich, they did it because they were doctors and thats what they were there for. When was the last time in this country that you called your doc at 10pm when your baby was sick and either he or one of his partners drove up to your door an hour later? My daughter is 16 now, but when she was a few months old I had to do that. I called the office number, it was autotransferred to the docs pager, he called me back in 5 min and was knocking on my door half an hour after that. It wasn't a big problem but as a new parent I was kinda panicking.. he knew that but he still came out. When I learned to drive I got experience driving my dad around on his calls - all hours. I've never forgot what he told me in the small hours of one morning.. "It doesnt matter. Even if you know that Mrs Smith is an elderly lady just missing her hubby who died last month and just needs her hand held and reassurance that its all going to be ok. You still go. Care isnt just examinations and prescriptions. Thats the job."
Healthcare is health CARE. The public option doesnt put the government between you and your doctor, it puts the doctor in charge, not the profit-driven insurance company.