Socialized medicine in the U.S.? Try the Veterans Administration. All of the facilities are owned by the government and all of the health care workers are government employees. Medicine doesn’t get any more socialized than that. as a Vet, I’ve used the VA health care system and here are some of my observations. N.B. I’m pretty sure that they would apply to all iterations of socialized medicine.
1. I have found that there is significant variability in the quality of care from facility to facility around the country. Some are pretty good and some are pretty poor. In some, the staff is helpful and friendly, in others the staff is surly and rude.
2. Almost all of the facilities have very long wait times for appointments. Even emergencies can have a significant waiting period.
3. Triage is extensively practiced both in chronic care and emergencies and, generally, young acute cases take precedence over older, chronic cases. If you’re in your 70s and need treatment, you’ll wait for the 40 year-olds to get treated first. This is a characteristic of all of the Government health services I’ve encountered, the ones who need the most care generally have to wait the longest for service.
4. You won’t find the latest treatment techniques and equipment in VA hospitals. For instance, if you have prostate cancer, you’ll get standard surgery with all the usual negative after-effects instead of the latest robotic and radiological systems that minimize them.
The underlying problem with the VA and other socialized health care systems in underfunding and lack of accountability. The system is run by bureaucrats that have no direct responsibility for the quality of the service. Their performance is rated on the economy and efficiency of the system, not on the quality and expediency of the care. You can’t sue a bureaucrat for malpractice. For that matter, you can’t sue a VA doctor either, any more than you can sue a specific policeman or any individual government functionary. For all the expense and nonuniformity of the current Fee for Service medical system in this country, each doctor and facility is, and can be held, personally responsible for the care delivered.
The down side of government run or mandated systems (e.g. Canada’s single payer system) may not be so obvious when the population is relatively young and the demand for care is low, but as the population ages and require more and even more care, the cost rises and the flaws in the system become painfully obvious (figuratively and literally).
