Nurses Order: A National Health Service for the United States

A National Health Service for all of the people of the United States by the people of the United States for the people of the United States in is unimaginable by the Right Wing of the United States. Yet it is a caring service which is long overdue. Can you imagine doctors as civil servants earning $80,000 per year and having to give equal weight to what Registered Nurses say or suggest? Of Course not! Doctors are used to write orders and they expect nurses to carry them out. If the orders are not carried out then an Incident Report must be made and the Nurse must explain why the particular ORDER was not carried out. The raw data justifying the creation of a national health service for the US was published last week at:

http://newsflavor.com/opinions/why-the-united-states-needs-a-national-health-care-plan/

Nurses Order: A National Health Service for the United States of America

I am a Registered Nurse and the well being of all populations is my personal interest. Until I have focussed on caring for the sick person and have published many articles on how to care for an individual patient. These articles can be read at: http://newsflavor.com/opinions/why-the-united-states-needs-a-national-health-care-plan/ I am not the only person advocating for a health service for the US. Ordinary people and businesses are advocating for such a system. The news is full of such items. The link to one such item is attached below:   

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090710/us/usreport_us_healthcare_grassroots 

The pharmaceutical industry, doctors and insurance companies are opposed to a health care service because they cannot charge the prices they want or the fees they want. Their defence is usually, “Quality of care will decrease or you will lose the right to chose your doctor.” These are moot issues. In all countries with Health care systems the life expectancy is higher than the US and individuals have the right to chose their doctors. Special interest groups are driving their own agendas. If there is a National Health Care System then the insurance companies will have nothing to sell. This is the bottom line. They cannot rip off customers for their profits.

Many people quote figures which show that Americans donate the most amount of money to charities. They seldom refer to the fact that there is a big divide between the haves and have nots in the US. When I lived in the US I had two health care plans. One was paid for my wife’s employer and the other paid for my employer. The good thing about these plans was the fact that we did not have to make any copayment and we did not have to pay anything. Yes we were fortunate. We were both employed. We were young, we were upwardly mobile. However, a prescribed national health service is not necessary for people like me or my wife. A prescribed national health service is needed for Joe the plumber. Joe the plumber who came to prominence during the Federal election is not a typical plumber. A real plumber, self employed living in small town America needs a prescribed national health service. A Health Service for the rich, the poor, the unfortunate, the unemployed, the underemployed and above all the illegal immigrant and his family too.

Many Americans will scoff at the idea of a health service which includes the illegal immigrant. This is not unreasonable. Canada, UK, and the Australia provide care for all its people including the illegal immigrant. The illegal immigrants are people who contribute to the economy of the United States of America. Therefore they should be entitled to the benefits of this service just like they are entitled to police protection. Health protection is no different except in the minds of the self centred. If they are looked after well then they will return to the workforce and contribute more to the economy, an economy which has been built on the backs of immigrants since the arrival of Mayflower.

Americans are being greedy and self centred when they say that they are not a socialist state. I agree that America is not as socialist as Switzerland or Austria. However, it is a myth to say that America is a pure capitalist state. In America, the Federal and State governments have the right to seize and individual’s land when it is needed for the good of the people. Hence, the hard earned dollars are no exception. The Federal Government and the State Government have a collective responsibility to insure that every person has health care services.

Health Care is not a privilege which can be bought with US Dollars. Health Care is not a privilege of the rich and famous. Health Care is a RIGHT. It is right which is acquired by being born is the US of A or any other industrialized country. All industrialized countries have a health care plan for it’s citizens. Some countries have both a private and a public health care system. Canada has a universal health care system which looks after all it’s citizens. Private, for profit health services are not allowed. So when a patient presents to the emergency department there is no administrative staff who will ask for the name and plan of the patient’s insurance company. This layer of administrators and marketeers is completely eliminated. So the patient goes straight into the ER to be treated.

Since the Hospitals are not for profit the needs of the share holders need not be considered. The Doctors, Nurses and other professional persons are only interested in the wellbeing of the patient. There is no need to do timely book keeping to make sure that each needle is accounted for, that each tablet that fell on the floor is accounted for etc. Many individuals will not realize the amount of time and money which goes into book keeping, marketing and debt collection in the private sector. Ask the manager of a private hospital and you will learn that lots of money get spend on art, carpets, marketing, debt collection, promoting hospital services, legal services etc. In the public health system the people who want to make a profit are not there. There is no need to market the system, there is no need to have debt collectors, there is no need to have competition between the hospitals for a market share.

Nationalised Health Services in other countries have provided a superior service to the people of those countries. The life expectancies in the UK, Canada and Australia are higher than the USA. However, the USA claims to have a superior service. If the present health service in the US is so good why is it that the life expectancy of the people is low.

Image via Wikipedia. Affordable Health Service for all should be the National objective.

Many Americans who are opposed to a national health service say that the present system is very good and that we should not fix anything that is not broken. Yes, the present system is not broken. Yes, the present system is very good. However, it is non-existent for a majority of the people. Surely they are human beings. Why are they being denied health care? My American friends tell me, “these people need to go out and find a job with an employer who will then cover them for health care.” This is great if you can find a job. Why should healthcare be a privilege of the employed? The unemployed are people too! This statement implies that the people who are not working are lazy. This is not necessarily the case. Obtaining employment is dependent upon many factors. Economic factors, skin colour, whom you know, education, personality, credit rating, criminal history, where one lives, skill mix, demand for skill etc.

The medical profession is opposed to a medical plan because more doctors will have to see more patients and more doctors will earn less per patient. Generally speaking when a National Health Care System comes into existence the people who have been sick but could not afford to see a doctor will take advantage of the new service. They will see a doctor because it is free and the patient needs the treatment. Because the government is paying fee per customer the government will generally be able to decide how much to pay per visit, per procedure etc. Most of the doctors I know do not like this aspect of a nationalised health care plan.

Cost of health care will go down! Yes, I mean it. The cost of health care will go down. Look at other countries with a national health care system. Canada, UK, and Australia spend between 5 and 10 % of their GDP on health care. The US spends more than 14 % of its GDP caring for only half of its population. Just imagine more people are card for at less cost. Sure some will argue that there will be long waiting lists and we will have to wait for doctors. A reality check can be done by looking at the health care systems of other countries. There are many other countries which have comparable standards of care, better educated populations, and more refined populations. I am sure some readers are going to ask me what I mean by “better refined”. I will deal with that when that time arrives.

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A 2008 report published by the Commonwealth Fund ranked the United States LAST in the quality of health care among the 19 compared countries. This is because more than half of the population of the United States is uninsured. America remains the only developed country without health care system for all it’s people.

The author has worked as a Registered Nurse in the United Kingdom, Canada, USA, and Australia. Here are some statistics to support a National Health Service in the United States:

1. The United States is the only industrialized country in which about half the population is uninsured for health care. All eleven countries listed here have a Nationalised Health Care system for all its citizens.

Table 1: National Average Per Capita Income

2. Infant mortality in the United States is worse than that of Singapore, Cyprus, Brunei, and Cuba. The United States claims to have the best health care system in the world. This is not supported by ground reality. The United States needs to look after its women, infants and children better. US health care system is controlled by profit motivations of insurance companies, the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industries.

The data below shows that New Caledonia, Cyprus, Brunei. Channel Islands and even Cuba, yes! The Devil State of Cuba too looks after its infants better than the United States of America. 

America spends the most amount of money on Health Care. Yes it meets the needs of Doctors, pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry. The greed factor is satisfied. Caring for sick people should not be associated with profit and greed. It is more about caring and nurturing, I thought we did that anyway. I did not realise this until I came to America and I realised that the dollar speaks. Now we need human beings to speak.   

Image via Wikipedia. Health Servic is a right not a privilege.

3. The quality of Health Care that Americans are receiving is grossly inferior to that of other countries. Look at the life expectancy of Americans. It is inferior to that of Japanese, Icelanders, Greeks, Swedes, Dutch, Norwegians, Canadians, Australians, Danes, Austrians, British, French, and new Zealanders. All of these countries have National Health Care System in place. The full statistics can be found at: http://newsflavor.com/opinions/why-the-united-states-needs-a-national-health-care-plan/  

Table 3. International rankings of life expectancy for 2000.

4. The United States is the second wealthiest country in the world. Only the people of Luxembourg earn more than Americans yet they do not have a health care system to care for its citizens. The US is the only industrialized country without a national health care system for all the people.

5. The United States does not score well on the quality of life index either. The table below shows that America is not the best place to live in either. Look at the table below and come to your own conclusions. A Health Care System will improve the quality of life index because most people consider health issues when deciding on the health index.

Table 4. Quality of life index. America is ranked thirteenth.

We are all individuals in our own right. However, we are also part of a larger whole. It is not good enough to say that each one of us should be able to look after selves. As a statement this is great. We as inidividuals pay taxes, share the roads, share and live in communities, municipalities, towns, states and countires. We are individauls but we are also a part of a larger whole. We have individual responsibility for our health. However, we are part of a larger whole therefore out healht is impacted by our environment. If we have good health the environmnet benefits from it. Government collect more taxes when we earn more because we are healthy. I therefore do not see anything in the government regulating health care.

Image via Wikipedia Nobody chooses to have bad health. In part, our bad health is due to the bad environment.

A health care system is long overdue for the people of the United States. They need to consider the good of the majority of the population. The good of pharmaceutical companies, doctors and the insurance industry has been catered to for too long. These powerful interests are as good as cigarette manufacturers who told us that cigarette smoke was good for the lungs and kept us riding horses and looking youthful. It is about time the people of the United States equipped themselves with the facts and looked after their collective interests.

I am a Registered Nurse and a patient advocate. I have not been paid or compensated by any special interest group. As a Registered Nurse I am committed to help individuals obtain better health care for themselves. My studies, life, and work experiences show that a National Health Service would be the much better and cheaper for the people of the United States of America when compared with the present strictly capitalistic model. Comparable systems have shown to be superior and less costly.