Free Health Care is Not Slavery

I am a medical student; I’m gonna be a doctor in about 5 long, torturous years. People say the process will push me to just an inch away from insanity. And they say if I am to be a doctor, I will have to eat thick books everyday until I die or retire, whichever comes first. And they say doctors will have to deal with annoying patients, which seems to be the category three quarters of all patients fall into. Now, pardon me for what I’ve said. Whoever they are, they made me question the path I have taken so far.

Those stuffs I understand. What I never get is how Indonesians perceive free health care.

As an example, my high school teacher once said that “in the future, doctors in the country will work as public service; that is, they don’t get paid”. He continued on with his dreams of affordable doctor’s fees and drugs -and doctors that will not prosper when the utopian health care system fell down to Indonesia from the heavens. Uncharacteristically, I ignored him and was like “What!? Doctors aren’t slaves!” (regrettably, not out loud) What was he thinking? Sadly, many people share his view on the issue.

Well, I felt a strong urge to clarify one thing: “free (or affordable) health care means that the government comes up with a brilliant idea to manage its money (including your tax money) so that it can PAY some of your medical expenses, if not most of them”. It is the government who will pay the doctors and hospitals for providing their care. If you ask me about the government’s coming-up-with-a-brilliant-idea-to manage-its-money part, I cannot give a conclusive answer, though, since I’m not wacky enough to be a politician. On this occasion, I’m emphasizing the point that the government, instead of the literally sick people, will be the one rewarding health care workers. Raising taxes? Opting to provide minimal coverage only? Cooperating with private companies? I think our lawmakers already have the whole parliament building to wrestle around on this matter.

If the government wants to claim that it has provided health care to all Indonesians and use the claim for campaign material -if you think that I’m referring to our dearest leader SBY…well, I said nothing-, they must allocate enough money to hospitals and community health centers. Additionally, since we are in Indonesia, the government must also must also ensure that fund’s safe passage, lest it will be trapped in some bureaucratic bigwigs’ pockets.

The way I see it, our media today is quite unfair to hospitals. They kept complaining about critical patients being left untreated, some eventually died. They whined about babies “taken hostage” because their parents cannot pay the bills. It’s true that those were terrible tragedies that should’ve never happened in the first place. However, when the newspapers blame state hospitals, they forgot one thing: state hospitals still need money to serve their patients. That money, we understand now, comes from the government. So, when our state hospitals do not have any money, and thus they abandon the sick, it is really the government’s fault.

I could go on and on on this subject, but not now. Through this post, I just want to tell people what “free health care” actually means and prevent their being fooled by misleading campaigns.