Interesting point of view there. You have raised a very important issue, and I am tempted to respond to it by giving my personal perspective.
My understanding of the reasoning for license / registration renewal requiring malpractice insurance is to ensure that OTs as a regulated health profession (same as medicine, dentistry etc.) OTs are able to defend themselves in terms of legal costs. I think malpractice insurance in this context is able to sustain public accountability by allowing OTs as regulated professionals affordability of legal and other costs in the event of a lawsuit. So I don't see either as hyper-regulated socialism. In fact I see it as helping the OT profession to be a truly regulated profession. If *legislated* public accountability cannot be upheld by any regulated/licensed profession, then why have regulation or licensing at all. In fact I see this whole notion of requiring malpractice insurance as more a free market (or even capitalistic) notion rather than a socialist notion, since it carries the covert implication that the professional can be sued, resulting in a financial settlement if the lawsuit is successful. At another level, it also benefits the OT profession here because regulation allows us to state that we are more accountable than some of the other professions that we compete with here i.e. Kinesiology, Recreation Therapists, Art Therapists, etc.
As even if we were to look at the general notion of socialized medicine or universal healthcare as a healthcare option, even there I am personally convinced that equal access to healthcare for *everyone* is any day a superior national alternative to healthcare for those who can afford it. I have lived both in the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S. I lived both with insurance coverage, as well as without. Based on the insurance plan I had, I found that I had to go through a maze of rules to walk into a doctor's office or avail of a health service. I think that is more akin to hyper-regulation because it is providing health care services by wearing out the individual at every step with a maze of rules and paperwork. The individual suffering from an illness or long term disability in a private insurance run profit generating national healthcare system, is strait jacketed into quiet submission, while those at the upper end of society are able to access any or every service they wish to because they can afford to. In fact I firmly believe that healthcare is one area in any kind of political or economic system which must not be run with a view to generating profits. And where this is not done the citizens of such political or economic systems who are most in need of healthcare are also typically the ones who are either deprived of it or made to suffer endless humiliation in order to avail of it. This is a sad comment on any society in the name of a free market economy. And for healthcare professionals to help support such a system is, in my opinion, either misguided or irresponsible or both.
Undoubtedly, there are softer applications and elements in all healthcare systems which are truly speaking optional or *enhance* quality of life goals, like massage therapy, alternative medicine etc. which could continue to be profit oriented or at least not covered by a universal healthcare system such as the one in Canada and some of the European nations. (In fact I believe it is mostly the Scandinavian countries which have universal government funded national healthcare systems.)
What I have said above does not mean that universal healthcare like that in Canada is without its problems. Because it certainly has its own inherent problems like wait times for certain kinds of tests and treatments. But overall I consider it clearly a better option than a profit oriented healthcare system. I know of too many instances in the U.S. where HMOs and private companies have bought out large facilities across the U.S. which were initially run by non-profit organizations, where quality of care, the kinds of tests and services provided changed drastically based on the fact that they were costly. One often hears of medical doctors in the U.S. who find themselves straitjacketed in their decision making and screening of clients, because they cannot refer more than a given number of clients to certain high end services (costwise) and are encouraged to "blow off" clients. Needless to say many of these doctors are opposed to such profit oriented practices, but they need to make a living too and either succumb to the profit oriented practices or move into another area.
My suggestion to those who label universal government-funded healthcare as overregulation, interfering with ones democratic freedoms and privacy take a closer look at the impact of profit oriented healthcare around them. Even in the years that I have lived in Canada the effects of the privately run profit-generating healthcare system are very palpable. To give one recent statistic, I forget the source (but perhaps it was "60 Minutes") there are 30 Million people in the U.S. who do not have access to healthcare. That is about 10% of the U.S. population. Needless to say this statistic does not reflect the ease of accessiblity to required vs. actually provided healthcare services to those who have health coverage at the lower end of socio-economic spectrum. Which may be quite another story, and also be a telling indicator of the true extent to which profit generating healthcare has worked its insidious way into the everyday lives of such individuals. So much for insurance lobbyists in Washington. I for one do not wish to empower them.
Biraj
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Well, Biraj, I know this will not be a popular position on this list, but in my opinion that is just one more reason I don't want to live in a nanny state. The USA is taking strides regularly toward hyperregulated socialism a la Canada, the UK and Europe. -- JodyIn a message dated 06/27/03 5:37:55 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Hey Ron:Hmmm it sounds like you guys in the U.S have a choice whether or not to have
malpractice insurance.Here in Ontario (Canada) we cannot get our annual license / registration
renewed if we do not have malpractice insurance. While paying our annual
registration dues we need to quote the certificate number and insurer if it
is a company other than the primary carrier through the provincial (read
state) OT Society.Biraj
