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Socialized medicine. It's just this simple: If the government controls your health care, the government controls you. The true path to reform of our health care system lies in the private sector, not government. But if people are in charge of their own health care, how can politicians use the threatened loss of that health care as a scare tactic in elections? The game here is simple. Work tirelessly to make Americans more and more dependent on government. Destroy their individuality and their sense of self worth. Make them believe, as Democrats do, that America is great because of government, not because of the dynamic of free people working together in a system based on economic liberty and the rule of law. Make government the most important institution in the lives of every American -- every voter --- even more important than the Church or the family. Once you've created a dependency on government, all you have to do is threaten the voters with the loss of their government-provided security blanket and they'll follow you anywhere ... all the way to the destruction of the American dream.
OK ... back to the socialized medicine thing. Barack ... like virtually every Democratic/Liberal candidate ... is pushing the "universal health care" theme.
Know this. "Universal health care" is just a sugar-coated way of saying socialized medicine. The left has become very adept of late in coming up with clever words and phrases to substitute for words and phrases to which most Americans react negatively. "Liberal" has become "progressive." "Spending" is now called "investing." People might object to government spending, but who would object to some sound investments? Similarly, "socialized medicine" is now "universal health care." These people know they aren't going to get elected on the promise of socialized medicine. Democrats know that the best and most efficient way to deliver health care services to the most people in this country is through the private sector. There has been no economic mechanism in the history of mankind that does a better job of delivering essential services and products to people quicker and more efficiently than capitalism and the free market. Democrats know this. You know this. But there is a problem. When the free market delivers the services it leaves politicians on the sidelines ... with little power. This is completely unacceptable. The call for socialized medicine is not about a more efficient method of delivering medical care. It's about gaining even more power over the everyday lives of Americans. Once again, when you control someone's health care, you control them.
AND YOU WONDER WHY HEALTH INSURANCE IS SO EXPENSIVE. First of all .. what we have in America isn't health insurance. It's a health care payment plan. That would be reason number one that health "insurance" is so expensive. Most Americans believe (1) that their health care is the responsibility of their employer or the government; and (2) that they should only have to pay a few hundred dollars every year out of their own pockets to take care of their health needs. This failure of the American people to accept the responsibility for their own health care would be the principal reason why socialized medicine in the United States is inevitable. Before most of us travel on to the eternal celestial dirt nap we'll be able to experience what our cold neighbors to the north (along with much of Europe) have been experiencing for years ... long lines and waits for basic health care. Imagine what your automobile insurance would cost if it was structured like our health insurance policies. You would pay the first $500 in car care costs every year and then everything else would be covered by your car insurance policy. Oil changes -- tune ups -- brakes and tires -- windshield wipers -- maybe even a new motor! Just imagine the cost. Now there is a story out in the Washington Post that says 72% of all Americans think that health insurance policies should be required to pay for treatment for obesity. In other words .. we should be free to eat ourselves into blubberhood and then demand that our health insurance pay for whatever treatments we need to correct the consequences of our own poor behavior. Politicians are going to love this idea. Why? Because they know it will make health insurance even more expensive. When health insurance becomes more expensive, people drop their policies. They then join the ranks of the poor, poor pitiful uninsured. Pressure mounts for a government solution. The government solution is socialized medicine --- also known as "universal coverage", "Hillary Care" etc. Socialized medicine makes politicians more powerful. Powerful politicians are happy politicians.
Come on folks, wake up and smell the antiseptic! Another prime example was the mess at Walter Reed ... here's what you need to know. This treatment that was being delivered to our injured soldiers is the future of your health care. This is what you, if you're somewhat young, and most certainly your children have to deal with as the United States moves inexorably toward socialized medicine. Government health care. A recent poll in the New York Times shows that three-fourths of all Americans want Universal Health Insurance. That's right .... the people conducting the poll actually capitalized Universal Health Insurance. Let's dispel something right now. It's not insurance these people want, it's a medical payment plan. The purpose of insurance is to reimburse you for unexpected losses. The cost of regular health care, and this includes the normal costs associated with a pregnancy, are not unexpected. We should budget for these costs just as we would budget for the expenses of owning a home or a car. No .. it's not health insurance the American people want. What they truly want is for someone else to step forward to foot the bill. Their goal is to pay about $500 out of their own pockets every year, and then have someone else, either their employer or the taxpayers, be responsible for everything else. Another recent survey revealed that young Americans would rather pay their cell phone bill than use that money to buy insurance. These young workers said that they will just wait to get health insurance until they get a job where it is included in a benefits package. In other words, they make a conscious decision not to get health insurance ... and then fully expect the taxpayers to step up and fill in the financial gaps if anything serious happens. The American people are going to get what they're asking for.... Unfortunately........unless something changes drastically, it's coming. Everyone of us had better be prepared. The politicians want it because of the degree of power it will give them over the lives of their constituents. The people want it because they have been programmed to believe that their health care is the responsibility of either their employer or the government. I beg to differ...... it's our own individual responsibility.... just as the education of our children is 100% our responsibility and not the government controlled schools (and the biggest threat to America today..... the NEA).
It's coming ... and it's going to be ugly as hell. The long waits for simple diagnostic tests that have become commonplace in Canada and many European countries will become the norm here. I personally know many of my parents' friends from their neighborhood in their winter home in south Florida. A very large number of them are from Canada. They have told me that they actually put off as much of their healthcare needs as they can throughout the year when they are in Canada so that they can have their needs taken care of here in the U.S. It may come to the point ... and most likely it will come to the point, that you will be assigned to a doctor just as your child is assigned to a school. Remember Hillarycare? Under that system if you decided to take your own money and go hire your own doctor outside of the Hillarycare scheme (somewhat like taking your child out of a government school and putting him in a private, charter, or homeschool) you could be charged with a crime. It may be necessary to adopt that policy again after people discover what a disaster their precious "universal health care" is going to be. Go visit your local Veterans Hospital. Check out a Social Security office. It's coming folks. You asked for it. You couldn't handle the responsibility yourself, and the politicians damned sure weren't going to present you with private sector free market options unless you demanded them.
Socialized medicine is part and parcel of the effort to make people dependent on government. Recently I read a piece about some young high school athlete in Canada being put on a three-year waiting list for simple arthoscopic knee surgery. And what is happening to his knee in the meantime? This surgery is very common place here in the U.S. And the average waiting period...... minimal. One can see a specialist on one day and actually have the surgery performed within a week to a week and a half max! What will happen to your health, or that of your spouse or child, when you or they are forced to have to await government appointed healthcare providers? Unfortunately, I feel that you will see the population actually decline..... I sincerely hope that I am wrong. The facts are there folks! I encourage you to seek them out for yourselves! Give the Democrats a chance to bring their socialized medicine to pass in our country and the wait will be months, if not years here.
Do you recall back in 1993-1994 when Hillary Clinton as first lady was put in charge by her husband of the health care task force? The group met in secret, and the goal was simple: the government takeover of our health care system. The proposal went nowhere...and, as a result, not only did Hillary never get anything passed, but the Democrats were booted out of office in part because of it.
Now fast-forward a dozen years. Hillary is back...this time as the Senator from New York. She thinks the public might be "back in the mood for socialized medicine". You know, rather than people actually paying for things themselves, or purchasing private insurance...the government (i.e. the tax payers) would pay for everything.
She just might be right. The disastrous Medicare prescription drug plan took effect. This will lead people to expect the feds to pay for their pills. Already we're seeing stories about how the Medicare prescription drug plan (and it's $1 trillion+ price tag) is not doing enough. Hillary says she's going to fix it. She also says "I'm determined to do the same with access to affordable health care as well." Whenever you see the phrase "access to affordable health care," that is a code phrase for government takeover and rationing of health care. And boy, it's worked so well everywhere it's been tried! Not.
The private market place has a mechanism to handle affordable health care. They're called health savings accounts, or HSA's. A person in need of insurance buys one, puts money into it, pays for their own small bills, and the major medical insurance covers large, unexpected expenses. But Hillary doesn't like that either. Speaking about the whole issue of health care, The Hildabeast actually said: "Now, I've had some experience with health care. I know that making health care more accessible for every American family will not be easy." Yeah.... She's an expert alright!
It will be easy only if people let her get away with it. Be afraid...very afraid. And keep that woman as far away from the Oval Office as possible.
Why do you think your employer can deduct the cost of a health insurance policy it provides to you, but you can't deduct the cost of a health insurance policy you buy for yourself? Why is that? Come on, folks. THINK for a moment. Why? It's easy! Because the politicians want you to adopt the attitude that it is always somebody else's responsibility to provide you with health care, never your responsibility. This is all to soften you up for the idea of socialized medicine. Make no mistake......... I am repeating myself here, but politicians love socialized medicine. The political class knows full well that when you control someone's access to health care, you control that person. A government that can tell you which doctor to go to, and when; a government that can threaten to put you in jail if you dare to go to a doctor on your own without the requisite government stamp of approval; a government that can control your access to prescription medicine .. that's a government that has you by the short hairs. To the Beltway crowd, it's all about making you weaker and government stronger. Strength equals power ... and power is a political aphrodisiac.
There are many free market reforms that could be made to our health care system that would increase competition, expand availability, and decrease costs ... but the problem is that they are free market reforms. Returning free market economics to our system of medical care doesn't enhance the power of politicians, and thus it is a non-starter. The political goal here is to make people dependent on the Imperial Federal Government for their medical care. Once that is accomplished you can almost write the Democrat campaign commercials for them. "Vote for Joe Republican and you're going to have to pay for your own medical care."
Again, socialized medicine in the United States is inevitable. There are two basic reasons: (1) politicians want the power. (2) individual Americans don't want the responsibility. The great American "love of freedom" is now pretty much limited to freedoms not coupled to responsibility (we have become, in large part, a nation of wussies, afraid and/or too lazy to stand up for what is right and a society of wanting ..... wanting everything immediately and not willing to work for it). Americans have been taught by the political class to believe that a person's health care is the primary responsibility of either the government or that person's employer.
A John Stossel piece dated: February 14, 2007............. Schwarzenegger's Folly
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants all Californians to have medical insurance. So he's going to force them to have it.
Schwarzenegger abandoned his opposition to mandated employer-based health insurance and embraced the idea as his own. "Everyone in California must have insurance. If you can't afford it, the state will help you buy it, but you must be insured," Schwarzenegger said last month in the Washington Post.
Of course, his "solution" won't solve the problem. By making medical care look cheap to people, expanded insurance will push prices up even faster. Everyone will end up paying more. But politicians benefit because the costs will be hidden.
The governor also wants to enlarge the state's coverage for children by including people with incomes as high as $60,000 for a family of four. Imagine that: You can make $60,000 a year and put your kids on the dole.
This ought to dispel any notion that Schwarzenegger is a believer in small government. Here he is following former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney down the path of state socialized medicine. Romney said compulsory insurance would cost a person $2,400 a year. But now we know it's at least $4,650.00 (reference Robert Samuelson piece in the Washington Post at web address: <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001666.html).
">http://www.washingtonpost.com/...R2007013001666.html).
</a>This is not to say we don't have a medical mess on our hands. We do, but the problems have their roots in existing government activity. More of such activity is unlikely to make things better.
The root of the problem is that few people face the true cost of medical care. Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries don't because taxpayers pay their bills. People with employer-based medical insurance don't because insurance policies shield them from it. Since they pay only small co-pays when they see a doctor, they don't ask, "Do I really need that test?" but rather, "Does my insurance cover it?" Does this sound familiar to anyone at all? Honestly think about it.
People who don't face the full cost of their choices don't act like cost-conscious consumers. Higher prices are the result because of this.
With a rational government policy, people would save money for routine medical care and buy insurance for solvency-threatening illness. After all, we don't buy auto insurance to pay for oil changes and worn-out windshield-wiper blades. But today, people expect medical insurance to cover routine physical exams because someone else seems to pay the premiums.
All this hurts people who buy their own insurance or people who don't have it. It would be good if they could buy a basic high-deductible catastrophic policy. For a healthy young person, such a policy would be relatively cheap. But because of special-interest lobbying, most states mandate that insurance cover things that most people would never buy if they were paying the cost openly -- things like Viagra and substance-abuse counseling. The Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI) reports that states have imposed 1,824 mandates on insurance companies. This makes even a high-deductible policy absurdly expensive in many states.
Government further harms us by not permitting cross-state competition. For example, as a New Yorker, one can't buy a cheap policy sold in Iowa, a state with fewer mandates, because the individual may only buy from companies that are subject to New York's costly regulations. That's nuts!
The upshot is that, however well intentioned, government regulation of medicine and insurance brings us mostly headaches, and Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan will bring Californians even more. But that should be between him and them. They should have the right to fail.
Many disagree with that. The "normally wise" Wall Street Journal editorial board says the courts should strike down the governor's plan because of ERISA, the federal law that presumes to supersede state law on worker benefits.
But forbidding California to pursue dumb ideas is a mistake. For the American founders showed their genius by dividing power between the states and central government.
Let the states experiment! Universal coverage is a feel-good idea that many people want Washington to impose. Better to have models of failure in individual states so we all don't have to suffer! We need living reminders of collectivism's faults. Without the Soviet Union, I fear that Americans will forget its horrors.
So states should be free to demonstrate the horrors without interference from Washington.
The feds should let us learn.
Some Interesting Links/Addresses:
Web Address To Canadian Institue For Health Information: <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/dispPage.jsp?cw_page=statistics_a_z_e#W
">http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/...ge=statistics_a_z_e#W
</a>
Web Address To Canadian Health Care Private Clinics: <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.canadian-healthcare.org/page6.html
">http://www.canadian-healthcare.org/page6.html
</a>
Link To CT and MRI Scan Wait Times: <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/en/media_07mar2006_fig3_e.html
">http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/...07mar2006_fig3_e.html
</a>
Hiding Health Care Costs: <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001666.html
">http://www.washingtonpost.com/.../AR2007013001666.html
</a>
Recent Mark Steyn Article: <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/opinion/nationalcolumns/article_1756372.php
">http://www.ocregister.com/ocre...s/article_1756372.php
</a>
The Bottom Line Is That The Information And The Examples Are Out There...... As For Me, The Choice Is Crystal Clear.... You Decide For Yourselves!
Have A Wonderful "Socialized Medicine Free" day!
Kind Regards,
Scott......... Zoe's daddy
