MaineBusiness.com

With health care reform making its way through both branches of Congress, we are starting to see propaganda telling us that the current path to reform will provide us the best of both worlds – it will lower costs and maintain the same level of care. Before jumping on the bandwagon, I would consider this piece of information from John Mauldin’s article on May 29th which briefs Dennis Gartman’s eponymous letter:

"Canada is a wonderful place to have a nasty gash on one's forehead stitched, or to break one's nose in a game of pick-up baseball; but have cancer, or need eye surgery, or want an MRI, and the business of medicine in Canada and/or the UK breaks down badly in favour of medical care here in the US. For example... and we wish to thank The Investor's Business Daily for the data noted here this morning...

"... here in the US men and women survived cancer at an average of just a bit better than 65%. In England only 46% survive. In the US, 93% of those diagnosed with diabetes receive treatment within six months; in Canada only 43% do, and in the UK only 15% do! For those seniors needing a hip replacement and getting one within six months, 15% get it done in the UK; 43% get it done in Canada ... and in the US 90% do! For those waiting to see a medical specialist, 23% of those in the US get in within four weeks, while 57% in Canada have not yet done so, and in the UK 60% are still waiting after four weeks.

"When it comes to proper medical equipment, in the US there are 71 MRI or CT scanners available per million people. In Canada there are but 18, and in the UK there are only 14! Ah, but the best figure of all is this: 11.7% of those 'seniors' in the US with 'low incomes' say they are in excellent health, which in and of itself sounds rather low ... rather disconcerting ... and an indictment of the system itself, doesn't it? But in Canada only 5.8% do!

Based on my interpretation of what is passing through Congress, we are looking at the Massachusetts model care system (a.k.a. Romneycare) that is already experiencing budget problems. As a result, the push has begun in Massachusetts to begin cutting costs by limiting care. Does anyone see any correlation between this and what Dennis Gartman described above?

Now I believe the health care system needs to be reformed, but I believe a sweeping overhaul like the one emerging is not the solution. The current path will only not only complicate one bloated entitlement system (Medicare) with another, the level of care will regress and we may see direct improvement in our direct health care costs, but will only be replaced by higher stealth costs and taxes. Maine and Massachusetts have tried, but they have not proven that a government run option will work. I find it interesting that Maine blocked legislation to have their residents be able to go outside the state to shop for insurance. Were they looking out for our best interests or is it really because they don’t want to be embarrassed that their altruistic government intervention over nearly twenty years has been an utter failure? It would be interesting to see the flight that would have occurred to these out of state providers.

The most important thing to take out of this is that nationalized health care reform would be great – as long as you don’t get sick. You can’t put a price tag on that.