Jonathan Nelson (guest writer)
I’m feeling very grateful for the Spanish National Health Service (Salud). I was hit hard with some kind of flu (still unidentified) that turned into infectious pneumonia. On Dec. 20, after five days of being flat on my back, I saw the primary care physician at the local health centre. He took the wise decision of sending me straight to the Emergency room of the local teaching hospital. By 8 PM I was in isolation on the infectious diseases floor, hooked up to IV antibiotics and monitored several times a day by an attentive nursing staff.
The doctor took a lot of time with me most days, examining me and talking about possible causes and actual treatments, while the lab ran tests to try to determine the cause. She (my doctor) even brought in colleagues to do further tests. And of course a gaggle of residents poking and listening, ha ha. It’s a teaching hospital, after all. Though they never hit on a definitive cause, the treatment worked. I was in hospital for seven days, with a break for Christmas Day at home after the doc could see I was on the mend. I came home definitely on December 27.
Now, there are two important points here. First, whatever you may think of government health care (and it can be slow at times, and many people have heard, or think they know, horror stories), the fact is that they excel (at least Britain and Spain, the ones I know from experience) in critical care, with cutting edge technology and up to date knowledge. They do everything possible for the patient, yet do not over treat or over medicate, because there’s no profit motive driving them. For the same reason, costs are not exaggerated. My recent experience of care was wholly positive. Even the food was OK.
Secondly, government health care is not free. People who warn about “free”, “socialist” government health care are misleading us. Premiums are on the high side here, but affordable. I work a few hours each month (by agreement with my main employer) to cover my national health payments in Spain, since we have no coverage except from Spain. There are no deductibles or co-pays, and after seven days in the hospital I will be receiving no bills and will have no debts.
I pay whether I need it or not — and I’d like to hope I never need it again! But someone else will need it if I don’t, and it will be there for them like it was for me. If good health depended on personal effort and work, then maybe health care would be best administered on a merit system. But it doesn’t. Nobody knows if or when when they’re going to become ill. That’s why the only sensible thing is to pay when I don’t need it, and draw on it when I do.
This is not a limit on my freedom: just the opposite. With government health care, a person can make investment, housing, and job decisions without asking how it might affect health care coverage. It gives MORE freedom, not less, and levels the playing field of opportunities. (The same could be said, for example, about good, cheap public transportation, which gives the poor and young the same access to jobs and shopping options as the wealthy. More freedom, not less.)
Furthermore, nothing in the government system prevents me from having private health care if I want it and can afford it. In fact, private health care is thriving in Spain, and care is generally prompt because the public system carries much of the weight of day to day care.
The number of stories of people in the USA who are homeless or under crushing debt or who have died because they or a family member became seriously ill is heartbreaking. More than that, it should never have happened. Each one is an unnecessary personal tragedy. The grand irony is that nearly all Americans enthusiastically support free government health care — for members and ex-members of the military. The VA health system has been a tremendous boon for my Dad, and deserves a lot of credit for him doing well into his 90s.
Yet somehow it can’t be expanded for all, because the American individualistic works-righteousness mentality dictates that every good must be earned and every recipient of a benefit must be worthy. Somehow, if you get sick without health coverage, it’s your own fault. (You should have joined the military — ha!) How easy it is to think that, until it happens to you or a loved one. Tell it to my friend whose insurance premiums became unaffordable, and who, within a few months of dropping his coverage, found he had cancer. He died with heavy debts. Obamacare would have saved him or at least given him a fighting chance, but now we’re told that the new administration is going to kill it. If they do, they will be killing a lot more people like my friend.
Maybe you believe government can’t do anything right, so please don’t put them in charge of health care! Spain, whose government recently hasn’t worked well at all, is nevertheless proof that even an unhealthy government can run health care reasonably well, if the political will is there.
Furthermore, the USA is 50 states, not a single big government. Mitt Romney, a Republican of decent, though much maligned (and abused by Trump) character, found a way to make government health care work in his state of Massachusetts. Why not my state or yours? On the November 2016 ballot, there was a proposal to create a state health care system in my home state of Colorado. It lost heavily, but its presence gave me hope. It will come up again, and someday it will pass. Then Coloradans will be able freely to make life choices, independently of how they might affect their health care coverage.
Finally, maybe you’re “conservative” enough to think that government has no business making life better for its citizens. Perhaps you would do away with Social Security and Medicare, as well. Somehow, these programs have proved to be highly popular, though. And why is that? Because people tend to be uncomfortable when their lives feel like Russian roulette. Living as a nation where we bear one another’s health care burdens is simply a good thing to do…and it would help us all to sleep better at night (not to mention functioning with better health during the day).
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