There are few things truer than the fact that government managed anything is ruinous to our health and/or our pocketbooks. Examples abound all around us such as Public schools, Social Security, publicly funded highways and transport systems, bridges and government regulated airports just to name a few. Well with the Democrats spouting on about how they will socialize medicine to save us from the malevolent doctors who train for years to become the best at what they do it is urgent that we have a real discussion about what it would really mean to have bureaucrats in Washington dictating something as personal and vital as our health care decisions.
A series of very important short films (Free Market Cure Series) directed and produced by Stuart Browning and Blain Greenberg, examines this folly. Uninsured in America "examines the conventional wisdom that 45 million Americans cannot get health insurance and consequently do not have access to health care.” It explains how this 45 million uninsured figure is a canard to get us all up in a tizzy about the shamefulness of it all. But actually if one examines the number closer a different picture emerges. Mainly, that the number is closer to only 8 million people that slip through the cracks such as drug addicts and the homeless. These are the people who “refuse to participate in society”. Those people who appear at the emergency services get care regardless of whether they are insured even the illegal immigrants!
So if one can get something for free why should he bother to purchase health care? They even found out that among these “45 million” are the 18 to 35 year olds who choose to spend 500-800 dollars or more on eating out rather than purchasing health care insurance! I have to pay to cover these people? I think not!
In 1965 Lyndon Johnson signed medicare and Medicaid into law and this is what set the stage for Americans increasing dependency on the state to take care of them. But we forget that health care is not something that falls out of the sky. It has to be provided by other people – people who have decided to dedicate an extraordinary amount of blood, sweat and time to study the field. Why should doctors want to become employees of the government? Do you think the best and the brightest will choose to enter this field? You and I both know that the answer is probably not.
Why should health care be different from architecture or plumbers or veterinarians or scientists? What is it about health care that’s different from any other commodity that one has to purchase? Why do doctors qualify to become slaves at the whim of politicians? Are we to follow the model of Cuba and Canada (go here to see what Canadians think of their health care system and why they cross the border to stay alive).
As Americans living in the land of the free and the brave we must ask ourselves: Do we want to depend on the State to deliver vital life preserving health care to us and do we really want to ruin the medical profession by making doctors employees of the state? I hope the answer is no.
Just remember the Soviet Union, Cuba and Canada and let's learn from history.
1 comment:
Good post. I linked to it at my blog.
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