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Peace of Mind: Life Under Australian Universal Health Care

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If you have private health insurance in Oz you get three main benefits.

1) You can choose which doctor treats you. I don't mean at the family practitioner level. This refers to being able to choose a particular surgeon or other specialist.

2) When and if you go to the hospital, if your have 'private insurance' then you get a private room. Those without private insurance are sometimes given private hospital rooms, but this is not guaranteed. (I wonder how many who pay for very expensive health insurance in America can always get private rooms).

3) The third benefit is often very important to those who buy private insurance: private insurance means that you do not have to wait for what are termed 'elective surgeries.'

Elective surgeries are those which are not considered absolutely necessary. People who do not have private insurance sometimes have to wait two years (perhaps more) for routine operations like hip replacement. Hips wear out slowly. With some advance warning, operations like this can be arranged to coincide with acute need. Also, 'vanity' surgery undertaken for purely aesthetic reasons may not be covered for the general public at all, while private insurance will be more likely to make these procedures available.

For reasons I cannot understand, this situation is commonly used in America – and by CNN's Dr. Gupta – as a fear-producing argument against 'socialized medicine.' You won't hear about the wonders of single payer health care in more caring (civilized?) countries like Australia or Canada. What our media does mention, again and again, is that "People in Canada sometimes have to wait for some procedures!" In the US, I regularly have to wait 5-10 weeks for appointments with specialists. I never experienced wait-times like that in Australia – but then, I haven't had my hip replaced there, either. No matter which single payer system you look at – as it flourishes in every developed nation except ours, you can be assured that all essential care is immediately available.

Why we Americans have so little interest in obtaining this kind of inexpensive, effective and compassionate health care for our own families – and for everyone in our nation – is one of those mysteries of the American psychology that eludes me completely. It is operational almost everywhere else, it would seem. It works. It is far less expensive. It utilizes the same hardware and technology that is used by the American system. It serves essential preventive health functions in countries that have universal healthcare, thus minimizing down-range health costs at individual and national levels. Anti-AIDS campaigns, breast-feeding encouragement, sunscreen campaigns (etc.) can all be rationalized (and paid for) by the Medicare system. And nobody (except big pharma and the cancer and vascular disease industries) could argue against prevention as the most effective way to reduce and contain the costs of providing health care at a national level.

I realize that, as Americans, we are all pretty certain that our way (of anything) is the best way. Lately, however, our falling world standings in virtually every category of health care (infant mortality, birth-related maternal mortality, obesity, life-expectancy, etc.) might be inviting us to take a long look at our national obsession with believing that "We are number 1!" In some things we simply are not. Personally, I happen to believe that Americans 'deserve' health care that is as efficient, as effective, as inexpensive and as broadly offered as anywhere else in the world. Why do so many Americans seem so rooted in insistence that "We have the best healthcare in the world," when we so obviously do not?

Of course, you can believe what you want – and for Americans that seems too often to be what they want you to believe. But the truth is that in Australia and elsewhere, government-paid healthcare is working and working quite well. You will certainly not hear it from Dr. Sanjay Gupta and you will probably not see it on CNN. But I raised a family under the protective shield of Australian universal health care and, having walked that road, I want to share with you that while you may be impressed by hearing how many tens of millions of dollars your managed care company spent on some new piece of technology, having access to that technology is another story altogether. And in this country, whatever we have, we do not have Peace of Mind that our system will be there when we need it... for every individual and every family in America. And in this lack, we are all living under a stressful horizon that we never even see... until we have the chance to learn how others are doing it so much better. And even learning what is possible elsewhere may be the beginning of your own peace of mind.

 

 

 

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Jai Daemion (MS, MEd couns) explores a meta-perspective that integrates realms of psychotherapy, psychophysical integration and the study of culture and consciousness, using eastern-western and inner-outer tools. Still holding (more...)
 
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