Basis for best health care systems:
By Walter sorochan, Emeritus Professor, San Diego State University

Components of a responsible health care system:

1. there is no single best health care system in the world
2. need to look at the total population of a country and not at a few disgruntled individuals
3. each health care system is unique to its culture
4. health care system is based on spending and is often covered under the umbrella of social welfare, retirement, old age pensions, as well as research, public health, health care and so on
5. health care systems in each country are going to be in a constant state of flux and change; best systems adapt to the cultural values, the economy of the times, and so on
6. health care systems are based on expertise that is not politically or economically determined
7. health care systems do not allow anyone to make profit on sick or disabled or indigent people
8. Portability or allow coverage to follow person from job to job & location to location
9. the most economic systems are those that have a single payor provider for the health care and options for additional minor ones
10. the argument that a health care system may be socialized medicine or free enterprise is childish and uninformed.
11. Most health care systems are based on the pocket book

12. health care systems are evolved with social justice in mind:
  • the group is more important than the individual [ this is not socialized medicine ]
  • universal coverage for all [ everyone is covered ]
  • Comprehensive coverage [for all disorders, diseases, dental, mental illnesses, etc.. ]
  • Variety of treatment options [ emergency rooms, hospice, elderly care, baby sitting care, retirement homes, public health, occupational health, emergency room, ]
  • economic incentives for everyone so as to keep costs down
  • No one makes a profit on sick people
  • Health care is a right of everyone
  • Priorities of who gets health care first [ e.g. children, teen-agers and pregnant women ]
  • Everyone waits in line for her/his turn [ this is not rationing or limiting health care ]
  • Choice: everyone has same choice of doctors and care
  • Economic incentives for doctors to provide better health care [ bonus for fewer smokers, less obesity, exercising, lower blood pressure, etc. ]
  • Economic-cultural incentives for everyone to practice healthy lifestyles
Now you and others can disagree on these principles. Doing so is like shopping for an automobile while choking on emitted auto pollution and then driving the polluting car. This shows disrespect for expertise [ such as Gerard Anderson, professor at John Hopkins School of Medicine and a leading expert on international comparisons; Alain Enthoven, Emeritus Professor Sanford University and an advocate of economic incentives; and the Lewin Group, prestigious analysts of medical socio-economics, who have shown that changing to the Canadian health care system would save appreciable money ], balancing the budget, respect for others having quality of life and so on.