Judicial Health Care

Yesterday I had the opportunity to appear as a witness at an administrative hearing on whether a man with a bad heart problem was wrongfully denied disability treatment by the Social Security Administration. It was interesting for me to see how the federal government handles this sort of situation.

Afterwards I started to think about what I had just seen. It raised a fascinating image of the future in my mind.

If and when we ever have government run health care, I have serious doubts that people needing elective procedures will wait in line for years like they do in Canada.  http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/02/11/pittsburgh-has-more-mri-machines-than-canada/

No, I have a bold prediction as to what will happen. Those who have the financial resources will have the best care available, just as they do now. But, what about those who are forced to endure the long waits caused by rationing?

My guess is that the country that the country that gave the world fast food and the drive through is not going to all of a sudden become accustomed to standing in line like they do across the pond or in Canada. Waiting around is not the American way. Also, when Americans don’t get what we want, we hire lawyers. If you blend these factors together, you can come up with a credible prediction of what would happen.

My guess is that if some form of socialized medicine were to be introduced, after a year or two there would be scandal after scandal either reported or rumored. People would believe that the way to get to the top of the list would be through the local office of their representative or senator.   An inquiry for a congressional office on why a constituent was forced to wait for a procedure would give the health care bureaucrats shudders. Initially the lines would be circumvented by raw politics and all of the negative perceptions surrounding it.  That would lead us to the second stage.

After the scandals and the inevitable legislation, the Congress would pass a very stringent set of laws designed to remove health care from political influence. The laws and the inevitable regulations would be larger than the current Internal Revenue Code and its regulations.

Inevitably, there would be a provision in the law to allow people to challenge their placement on the list for elective procedures. A new legal specialty would develop centering around the protection of the rights of patients to receive elective care. Television would be flooded by ads from these lawyers all offering to help speed up your wait for elective care.

Inevitably as well, the ultimate outcome of this mess would that judges–most probably a new group of administrative law judges–would make the decision as to where one should be on the list.

Knowing America’s inability to wait for things and our inevitable tendency to sue if something bad is encountered, would not that result be inevitable? So, instead of having medical decisions made by medical people, we would have a system where judges would determine who received care and who waited. It is as American as apple pie.