Socialized medicine, pathway to poor care.

0:00 Speaker 1 With us is Sunday morning. Is doctor Mark Siegel a good friend and we spent some time together a few days ago and he was very very much concerned about the medical system and what’s going on. Doctor Mark Siegel tell us about it.

0:17 Speaker 2 When we spend time together. You were receiving yet another award, which is well deserved, and you know, because of your community service and everything you do for people. Jing Right now, so let’s talk about a warning sign for the I call it the apocalyptic future of healthcare in the United States.

0:35 We have only to look across the pond to see what’s happening with the National Health Service in Britain, where they had a good idea in nineteen forty eight, let’s make sure everybody has healthcare. And one of the things that Democrats in the US keep getting wrong is they keep calling it health coverage. Well, here’s what health coverages.

0:53 You got a card that says insurance on it, but there’s no doctors around, nobody’s taken it this nine months waits. You even can’t see a nurse practitioner, you know. So health care and health coverage are two different things. But in the UK they had the idea of giving out healthcare, doctors, nurses, hardworking as can be, you know, the whole health system.

1:14 But here’s the problem. The weights are beyond belief. I mean eight million people waiting in the UK right now for healthcare waiting, and John forty percent of them are waiting more than eighteen weeks now. I actually can’t think of a medical problem you could wait more than eighteen weeks for. And fourteen thousand people died in the ers

1:35 last year in the UK waiting for care. Waiting is the word waiting doesn’t fit with the word healthcare, because if you have a health problem, you need to be seen right away. We’re heading in that direction here. We spend close to a trillion dollars on Medicaid, close to a trillion dollars on Medicare, and they’re talking constantly about

1:55 how do we make it cheaper, how do we let the government negotiate prices for drugs, leaving out the most important thing, which is innovation that we’re heading towards, personalized solutions for people that are very very expensive, artificial intelligence, and the thing that Trump was getting at when he was in office, which is the lack of transparency. You

2:17 know this as one of the top businessmen in the country. John, if you don’t have transparency, the prices can be rigged up the wazoo. This middleman drawing profits pharmacy benefit managers drained profits off of our healthcare system and providing very little service.

2:33 Speaker 1 Understood and the people, the American people, have to realize that. I had a similar problem with a good friend of mine who lived in Toronto, and even though he was high up in the government, he couldn’t get any anything done for his health. He had to come to New York to get it done.

2:51 Speaker 2 And that’s because he knew the right people in New York. Because we have major medical centers in New York. You, for example, are on the board of one of our top medical centers. That’s no accident. I mean we have the ability. I have the ability to get people great care here. You as well, But that is in jeopardy

3:10 right now because the system is not supporting doctors right now. I call it a headless horseman. Our healthcare system is becoming a headless horseman. We’re the head. Doctors are the head doctors, and healthcare providers are the head.

3:26 Speaker 1 Well, doctor, Mark Siegel, You’re one hundred percent right, and we have the greatest hospitals in the world in New York. I hope, I hope the people advocating look medicare and is needed, but let’s not destroy the private system.

3:43 Speaker 2 The private system. Also, I forgot to mention the most important thing, which you also know better than me, which is competition. If you have transparency, let’s put it together with competition. If you have something new coming out and different parties are making it, they’re going to make the price as low as they can so they sell more

4:00 than the other guy. We’ve lost that completely. If prices are fixed, then nobody’s doing that. So I’m all for everybody being able to get the drugs they need or the care they need. But for the system to be healthy, there has to be competition. The more the government takes over, the less competition there is. And the government is not

4:20 known John for putting out the best product, are they.

4:23 Speaker 1 Well, definitely not. And right now since COVID, I understand, eighty percent of the federal workers do not work.

4:32 Speaker 2 Full time, you know, And that’s another thing. That’s another thing. The federal government was floundering after COVID, and then of course came the Inflation Reduction Act, which Furthered the American Rescue Plan under COVID. So all of that stuff that was put in place by the Biden administration as an emergency suddenly, to no surprise of ours, became, you know,

4:54 became more permanent. And I think that it into fears with basic health care and healthcare needs. It’s not the insurance car that you carry, it’s what it buys you that matters. And note what happened to health savings accounts.

5:09 Those are where you could actually put money away for the rainy day and use it later on. And I want to emphasize at one point you made, which is despite all this, we still have the best healthcare system in the world. We still have the best innovation in the world. We have the best medical centers in the world,

5:24 and right here in New York we do. That’s true. We need to foster that and support it in rnership.

5:31 Speaker 1 Thank you so much, Dr mok Siegel. God bless you and God bless America. Keep advocating the right thing for all Americans and we’ll catch up again real soon.

5:42 Speaker 2 Good to be on with you, John, Thanks for having me. Happy Sunday,