Even assuming that physicians would continue to receive their current pay, universal health care cannot be sustained financially.
A top-quality health insurance policy costs about $1000 a month. Even a stripped-down high deductible policy is between $600 and $700 a month.
There are roughly 100,000,000 households in the US, with an average of 2.5 people in each household above the age of 5. The cost for stripped-down coverage for everyone would be somewhere between $50,000,000,000 to $70,000,000,000 a month to cover every household, or $600,000,000,000 to $840,000,000,000 a year.
While one can argue that having such a large pool would reduce the rates of coverage, that argument is offset by the almost indisputable point that government bureaucracies are nowhere as efficient as private companies, and that any reduction in rates would be offset by the cost of the bureaucracies.
But what of the families who cannot pay the high deductibles? The system would have to somehow adjust for them by raising costs across the board, or going to a "progressive" system where those who make more money pay more into the pool. For those in the upper middle class or higher, the costs would be greater than purchasing insurance on their own.
It should be apparent at this point that our country can't afford to pay nearly a trillion dollars a year for health coverage, so something must be sacrificed. In Canada and other countries, that something is the quality and extent of care.
In 1990, my father--then 73 years old--needed quintuple bypass surgery. Fortunately he had a Cadillac insurance plan as part of his General Motors pension, and lived to 91 years old. Had he lived in Canada or another country with socialized medicine, he wouldn't have qualified for such surgery because of his age, and would never have lived the additional 18 years.
Even with the reduced level of coverage, the Canadian system costs more than the taxpayers can bear, so the cost is spread by taxing things like gasoline, milk, alcohol, cigarettes and other products. If you go to Sault St. Marie Michigan on a Friday night, you'll see the bridge from the Ontario side packed bumper to bumper with cars headed to the American side to buy just about everything for a lot less money.
Even ignoring the above points, the fact is that the percentage of people who lack health insurance is relatively small, and there are much less expensive ways to address the problem of the uninsured than by handing health care over to the same people who brought us the meltdown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
For most people, the problem isn't a lack of health insurance, but a lack of portability. People are stuck at jobs they'd like to leave but can't because they would lose their health insurance. McCain's idea of tax credits to purchase health insurance sounded positive, at least to the extent that any government plan to help pay for health care can sound positive.
The irony of this situation is that it's not the people at the lowest end of the economic ladder who are affected, as they get top-notch treatment at any hospital at no cost. It's those in the middle who are not on welfare but can't afford $1000 a month who are squeezed.
