The following was submitted as a letter to the editor of the Lebanon Daily News.
 

Senator Folmer has it 110% right when he stated in a recent article that socialized medicine, does not work. It does not even work if you try to disguise what it is by calling it a “single payer, universal health-care system”.  It has never worked because it produces severe rationing and even denial of care in some cases; inadequate funding for state-of-the-art medical equipment; and overall deterioration in the quality of care. Even as it is being tried statewide in Massachusetts, it has failed miserably to insure their uninsureds, and the costs are now expected to exceed budgeted amounts by $10 billion dollars over the next 10 years. This is similar to the system Governor Rendell would like to force on Pennsylvanians.

 Dr. Bill Davidson, a staunch proponent of socialized medicine, recently attacked Senator Folmer’s position which is to fix the known problems in our current system and maintain our high quality of health care. Davidson goes on and on about the cost of healthcare in the U.S. versus other countries. Well, sir, there is an old adage that applies here as in most things; you get what you pay for. When a loved one is in need of the best medical care available, that quality of care is still available in the U.S. That is the system of care that socialized medicine would destroy. 
 
There is a vast body of current studies comparing health care in the U.S to other countries. Here is a small sampling:
 

• Wait time to see a doctor in Canada has risen every year and is now at 18-weeks. That’s Four and one-half months.
• Wait time to see a neuro-surgeon in Canada is 31.7 weeks
• On a per capita basis, the United States has 8 times more MRI units; 7 times more radiation units; 6 times more lithotripsy units; and 3 times more open-heart units than Canada.
• Canadians pay 112% more for generic drugs than do Americans
• The cost of Canada’s socialized system, while less than ours, is rising at the same rate as ours while their national health care system continues to deteriorate; they too are getting what they pay for, or maybe, less.

The above information and many other studies and reports are available on-line at info@fraserinstitute.ca, an independent Canadian research organization. This data proves to any thinking person that we don’t want anything like Canada’s nationalized health care. 

Survival rates of men and women with all forms of cancer is higher in the United States than Canada or England since the delays in diagnosing and treating cancer are universally longer than in our country. This data is contained in the largest ever, international study of cancer survival rates, the Lancet Oncology 2007, No. 8; pages 784-796 and is available online.  And a very recent study by the American Cancer Society places the 5-year survival rate of U.S. men with prostate cancer at 99% versus those in the U.K. at 74%. This data is available on Google.

But for Davidson to use the spurious and erroneous argument that 25,000 people die each year because they don’t have health insurance is preposterous. No such correlation is possible. Having health insurance does not keep you alive when a truck hits you and not having it doesn’t kill you if you are healthy. And to attribute 1 million bankruptcies singularly to medical bills is equally absurd. This would imply that these 1 million people had no other debts. 

Nothing in our Constitution guarantees that every U.S. citizen must have the same level of health care any more than it guarantees that we should all have the same level of housing, transportation, retirement or education. Taxpayers already fund many forms of health care through Medicaid, assistance to lower income citizens, health insurance for children and other programs. And by law, anyone requiring emergency medical care must receive such care whether they have insurance or not.  

If you were to have a cardiac emergency and be admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital when Dr. Davidson was on call, you would receive the same outstanding care that I received from him when I was admitted under these circumstances just one year ago, even if you had no insurance.  He is an outstanding physician but I completely disagree with his frequently aired position that the U.S. needs socialized medicine.

The problems with our health care system are very well known and addressing them could drive the cost of care down by as much as 50%. None of the fixes are revolutionary and many of them have been implemented in other states with outstanding results. Taking these actions would make health insurance affordable to far more people who want it. 

Senator Folmer believes that a free market system and choice in health care are far more preferable than government controlled rationing being used to arbitrarily limit health care costs while degrading the delivery of care. I totally agree with him and wish him well and God speed in his attempts to preserve the best health care system in the world. 
 

Stan Alekna is a founding member of Vote For Integrity based in Lebanon County, PA.

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