The Government and Medicine

Today, let us talk about the growing movement to nationalize, or should I say "standardize" the medical field. The Obama Administration has laid out plans to spend at least $634 billion (page 67) over the next ten years to expand health care in the nation. In it's budget, half of the "down payment" will come from raised taxes and revoked tax write-offs from those earning $250,000 or more a year.

Before I get started, however, we'll go over a few facts. Obama claims that 45 million people in this nation don't have health insurance. In other words, 85% of us do, and 15% don't. When the numbers are put that way, it doesn't sound like such a crisis, huh? Of those 45 million, 18 million make $50,000 or more a year, 10 million of those are at atleast $75,000 a year. 10 million more aren't even U.S. citizens. Finally, of those remaining not already covered, 14 million qualify for Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP, but simply aren't signed up. But that's ok, American's should have to sacrifice for those too lazy or cheap to get around to providing for themselves.

New York Post

What was it that the most liked member of the Kennedy dynasty said? "[S]o, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." Too bad that idea was flushed out to sea with Johnson's Great Society, bringing entitlement programs to many and a "couldn't care less" inclination to most.

1986 can be looked at as a year in which Congress openly invited illegal aliens to flock to our giving nation. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act guarantees anyone, no matter their legal status, funding - anything - access to medical care, even with foreknowledge that payment cannot or will not ever be paid. Free emergency health care.

Wait, what about the Hippocratic Oath; doctors would never deny a person in immediate need, right? On one hand, no. If treatment was pertinent and necessary, doctors are held to a moral standard to save lives, but this law required them to perform any emergency task without even the chance of being remunerated.

Welcome, citizens of Mexico, who snaked your way through Arizona backcountry with a child who broke his leg on the way through; we'll pay your bill to fix him. Welcome, Mr. Canadian, who could no longer wait the weeks to get a doctor's appointment in your own country because of nationalized healthcare, but instead crossed in to Minnesota to back up our emergency rooms even more. Welcome, unemployed high school diploma holder, who instead of going to college, decided to provide for yourself by stealing and reselling copper wiring and sheeting from construction sites and lacerated your arm jumping over the barbed wire fencing around your crime scene; we'll stitch you right up and send you out the door, no cost to you.

Now, do we feel sorry for these people or for the doctors and hospitals losing their profits? Neither, the hospitals pass on the lost income to those who do pay: the patients with health insurance, the patients with the capability to pay their way. Thanks, Congress.

So far, we've seen how the federal government involving itself has done nothing but clog our health system and consequently indangered our health and safety, but that's the past. We now have to look forward for CHANGE.

Even with all the Fed interventions, we have seen our life expectancies climb up to near 80 years. Also, because the government has been blocked out of the research and development of drugs and medicine, private companies have been able to venture, investigate, and experiment with a huge variety of sciences in attempts to increase the overall health of the nation to even higher grounds.

Now, we have government intervention. And it is only beginning. $634 billion in a down payment. $634 billion over the next ten years of the government intruding in to the private sector. That doesn't even count the billions included in the stimulus bill just passed going to the computerizing medical records. The most difficult thing about this, is that Obama refuses to even say where the money is truly going and how "universal health care" will be dealt with.

1. For those of us with our own insurance, do we lose everything we've paid in to it and are forced to join some government program? If so, are medical records (now conveniently available on a computer network) going to be reviewed by government employees tasked with sending certain patients to certain doctors at certain times? Do we lose any privacy we once had with doctor/patient confidentiality?
2. Those without insurance, are they going to be the ones who have to buy in to the government program? If so, we the taxpayers are paying their way, correct? If that's the case, then we, as the guarantor, should have the ability to regulate the actions of the guarantee, i.e. you can't smoke, you can't drink, you can't engage in risky behavior, you can't be sexually promiscuous. With that, those individuals right's have been compromised because they are limited. So therefore, restrictions cannot be placed on individuals buying in to the government's universal health care. Since that can't happen, there will be no responsibility on the guarantee's part to maintain a healthy lifestyle and the guarantor will be giving away his income to pay for the irresponsible actions of others.

It is a long held belief that $1 in an individuals hand will be spent more efficiently and effectively than $1 in the government's hand. As such, if the government wants better health care for all, it should reform malpractice laws, which will lower doctor's overheads, which will then through the competition of the market, lower health costs, and finally lower insurance premiums, allowing more individuals - if they so choose - to buy in to health insurance. All this without the government really needing tax dollars.

If it truly wants to use it's might, perhaps revamping Medicare into a competitive market between a variety of companies and allowing seniors to purchase in at a rate of their choosing, i.e. more or less coverage, the "government" will be providing health care, saving senior citizens money, the taxpayers money, and encouraging economic growth by increasing health plan companies interaction in this growing market.

There are many more facets of concern facing the Obama Administration and its plan to change the American medical field. It's one thing to fix a broken system, but when the system represents the most productive, efficient, and profitable system in the world, government tinkering should be kept to a minimum.