The problem with doctors

I am sick of hearing the endless debate on Obama’s planned “health care reform.” However, you cannot compare “Red Roads” and a “socialized military” to the (inevitable) socialization of healthcare proposed by Obama’s plan. Increasing a civil engineer’s workload of building roads by 20 percent is not a life or death situation.

One of the main problems I see with his plan to cover 47 million more people than are currently covered is the fact that we simply do not have enough doctors and nurses to provide this extra care. With around a million doctors in the United States, a 47 million patient increase (approximately 20 percent) would lead to inadequate care for all.

The problem arises from the fact that you cannot just “buy” good medical care — it takes years to train doctors and nurses. You can spend more money on health care — however, that will not get you an instantaneous increase in the doctors needed to provide it. And of course, Obama has promised to cut the cost of healthcare, which will inevitably lead to limitations on compensation for doctors (something he’s already done with financial institutions).

Common sense would say that if the government is going to regulate doctor’s pay, people are less likely to enter into that profession, the exact opposite of what is needed. Classic economics would show an increase in demand and a decrease in supply would create upward pressure on price.

How would Obama deal with this upward pressure? The answer is government control over who will receive the services. The problem won’t be how to pay for it — the government has always been good at raising money — but finding the people to deliver the services.

To me, it would make more sense to start this process of covering more people from the opposite side. Create incentives to encourage young students to go into the medical profession. Let’s grow our resources before expanding coverage. After all, that’s where socialism runs into its fundamental problems — rationing limited resources. That’s the real problem with a real socialist issue — not our “socialist” post office.

Johnathan Tucker

freshman, general engineering

State-sponsored health insurance is not mandatory

“Should students be required to purchase state-sponsored health insurance?” was the question answered by four students in the August 20 issue of Technician. The short answer is no, students will not be required to purchase a specific plan.

I can help answer this question because I’ve been representing N.C. State in the development of a new bid request for a fall 2010 UNC system-wide insurance program. Everyone will have health insurance — either you will have a non-campus-based plan that has credible coverage (such as your parent’s plan) or you purchase the campus plan. Students covered on their parent’s insurance plan or their own plan can waive out of the system-based plan, thus it is called a hard waiver model.

International students will follow requirements from the NCSU International Scholar office and the US government.

UNC System officials, seeking better rates and better coverage for the 16 campuses, approved the hard waiver model at its Aug. 14 meeting. They believe better rates and coverage can be accomplished by leveraging the system’s buying power to purchase a base-line health insurance plan to be used on all campuses. The cost of the insurance would be taken into consideration when a student is applying for financial aid.

Additional information on this program will be forthcoming and I will be glad to answer questions or speak to interested groups.

Jerry Barker

director, student health services