On more than a few occasions, the subject of healthcare has come up in my discussions with friends, family, and acquaintances. With the upcoming presidential election, and in particular the Democratic Party debates, the topic of “universal” healthcare often comes up. This is not surprising, given the sad state of affairs currently encompassing our present structure of healthcare. The focus on how to fix the problem basically has boiled down to various options where the Federal government takes on an extensive role in the administration of healthcare, be it forcing people to acquire insurance in the private sector, to the all-out institution of socialized medicine. I have decided that I am in no rush to have the government take charge, either way.
If you remember the “X-Files”, there was a poster on Mulder’s office wall of a flying saucer with the caption “I want to believe”. And that’s my feeling about government managed healthcare – I want to believe that it would be possible for the government to provide us a means of affordable and effective healthcare. Unfortunately, awhile back, I saw an interview on a cable news show that convinced me that it was more likely we had alien technology in our government’s possession, than in the ability of our government to manage such an endeavor as providing reasonable healthcare to all in our great nation.
As I recall it, I was flipping through the various cable channels, and I happened upon Bill Maher being interviewed by Larry King. Bill Maher had complaints about the administration of the U.S. Military, complaints about how and when they are used (including the Iraq War), complaints about how much it costs, complaints about questionable contracts for equipment and services, and complaints about no-bid contracts to Halliburton, etc. (That’s basically what I got out of it, as I can recall, anyway). In other words, Maher was basically espousing the usual anti-military viewpoints that come from those of the liberal persuasion. In defense of Maher, many of those arguments are legitimate, and, of course, there is no better defender of the liberal view than Maher – he is funny, articulate, and thinks about what he wants to say to make a point clearly.
Before I continue, I don’t want to put words into Bill Maher’s mouth…he wasn’t speaking of healthcare…he just inspired me to think of it in a different way. Liberals often rage against the way the military is run (or even exists), and they are almost consistently on the side of “universal” healthcare, or, more likely, socialized medicine.
And that’s when it hit me: if liberals didn’t like the no-bid contracts to Halliburton, why would they like a no-bid contract to Merck?
Don’t think that a no-bid contract to a pharmaceutical company wouldn’t happen? Why not? If it happens in the military-industrial complex, why wouldn’t it happen when the government has a really big say-so in healthcare? After all, it’s the way the government rolls…it’s the way the government does business…
How upset would people be to find out that under government managed healthcare, a pharmaceutical would be chosen to treat a given disease, not based on its effectiveness in clinical trials, but on the basis of a powerful congressman pushing a bill down through Congress because the factory is in that Congressman’s state?
Further, from what I’ve seen on TV and what I’ve read on legitimate news websites, it seems to me that the “universal” healthcare proposals put forth by Clinton and Obama are merely expansions of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The government is often criticized for their failure to adequately deal with fraud, waste and abuse in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. If these issues haven’t been properly resolved, how much better can the medical programs being be proclaimed as solutions by the Democratic candidates actually be? Never mind the fact that a Democrat doesn’t seem to be able to tell the difference between a citizen and an illegal alien. 47 million without healthcare – is that 47 million citizens? Could be a big difference in costs…
Some people also seem to think that all the current problems of accessibility would go away. Obviously, as the government takes more responsibility for healthcare, they’re going to hire professionals that have been in the business. And they’re going to find means to cut your care, given a finite set of resources versus overwhelming demand. Would it make you feel any better if the rejection letter for your procedure came from Uncle Sam, instead of, let’s say Cigna?
It gets worse. If the government is your provider, I suspect that it may be just that much harder to sue them. When your private insurer makes a decision or a rule, you can attempt to sue them, and the judicial system mediates. When the government is your healthcare insurer, you’re not just challenging your provider, you’re calling into question the law of which they are bound to in their operation. The judicial system is also part of government. Easier to challenge an evil corporation, than challenge the law of the land.
Then it hits you in the wallet. The impression I get is that so-called “universal” health care means that those who have employment will stay high premiums, along with their employers, along with new taxes to cover the others. I don’t know much, but I know that as long as health insurance is tied to employment status, there will be problems.
Well, to summarize, the point here is that if you find fault with the military-industrial complex, why on God’s green earth would you think things would be any different if the Federal government was managing healthcare? I don’t understand how the liberals came to the conclusion that government running medicine is a great idea.
As Mulder’s flying saucer poster says, “I want to believe”. Unfortunately, in the end, all I see is a half-assed attempt at using the problems of healthcare as a means to further the cause of Marxism, i.e. putting government in charge of everything. Sadly, I see no actual solutions in sight.
P.S. ABC was foolish and imprudent in canceling Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” show.
