Quality and Availability
Socialized health care will reduce the quality of the nation�s health care. With the socialized system, expect to find a system of inherent laziness due to the shortage of motivation. Consumers don�t possess much of a real choice when dissatisfied with care providers today. The government supports employer health care plans through tax-free plans. There is not this support in public competing plans. Under these conditions, the consumer doesn�t possess the financial ability to choose his health plan without incurring a tax penalty. John Shadegg makes a similar observation; "Employer-provided health care is tax-free, while individually purchased insurance must be paid for with after-tax money. This makes the cost of buying a health care plan...30 to 50 percent higher." If consumers can�t choose their health care provider and the providers know it, there will be no motivation for them to provide higher quality services. Socialized health care will also reduce the number of available health care services as a result of patient overuse. (see "Dangers of Socialized Medicine") Under this type of system consumers "tend to view health care as �already paid for� or �free (Shadegg).� Barbara Amiel agrees, "When health care becomes a free commodity like air and water, it is treated less seriously. It is abused in major or minor ways. People go to see doctors for colds. My middle-class girlfriends go to see psychiatrists at public expense to cope with the problems of their love lives."
Sources:
- Shadegg, John, "My Turn", The Arizona Republic, 10-08-1999
- Amiel, Barbara, "How to preserve the health-care safety net." Vol 109, Maclean's, 12-02-1996, pp 13(1)