-By Dan Scott
The new liberal mantra regarding the current drive to quote, reform our health care system, unquote, is that the current system is broken and furthermore, we have debated the idea for 40 years as thee reasons for change. On the surface, the sales pitch is compelling, but like all things liberals attempt to sell the public they are short on details and when those details are revealed, the whole system is found to be one big unworkable boondoggle. One thing we have learned over the years is that liberal assertions are nothing more than falsehoods waiting to be exposed. I don’t know about you, but once I determine someone is misleading me, I stop believing anything they say.
How is our health care system broken? Most citizens have health care via insurance or direct pay, 1. Employer sponsored plans, 2. A COBRA plan because they are unemployed (indirect pay), 3. An individual plan (indirect pay), 4. Medicare if you are over 65, 5. Medicaid if you are indigent or 6. The wealthy that for their own reasons pay the bill presented by any health care provider directly. The observed facts say the system works for the majority of users. For a system that is supposedly broken, thousands of foreigners flock to the US to receive health care they see as clearly second to none. The system is said not to work for illegal aliens, the young who choose not to have insurance and those between jobs who elect not to take advantage of COBRA or get an individual policy. Who are we missing here? Those people who choose not to prioritize monthly health insurance payments over that of their other personal priorities.
Just because liberals have wanted to change the system for 40 years doesn’t mean it’s time has come, it means the majority have rejected their ideas for 40 years because they are bad. One world government has been kicking around for a century, has its time come too? Socialism has been tried and failed for over a hundred years, it may eventually succeed if it is tweaked enough. Pigs will eventually fly, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for the outcome in the meantime. I would call this type of argument, the eventuality fallacy.
Let’s get to the core of the argument, health insurance costs too much. We need to face the facts why health care increases annually above the level of inflation. That reason is mostly because of Medicare and Medicaid forcing private health insurance and medical providers to increasingly pay more of the GOVERNMENT’S share of their obligation! On top of that stealth theft of your money via cost shifting, 13 million illegal aliens who don’t pay their health care bills leaving the rest of us to make up the difference. Given the demographics of our population, even with the increasing forced cost shifting by the government onto the private sector, the government-projected costs are ramping up into the trillions. In other words the government cannot keep its promises regarding the current level of health care via Medicare and Medicaid because they are loathe to cut other government programs. Now Obama and the Democrats want everyone eventually to be on a single payer government health care plan? Even liberals who accept that 2 + 2 = 5 on faith from their leaders must realize that it stretches credulity to accept the new answer to be 3 trillion (over 10 years or $300 billion/year). That is thee latest estimate derived out of the CBO to cover ALL the so-called 47 million uninsured under the Kennedy plan. You can play with the numbers all you want but in the end to insure each person with a modest plan it costs roughly $6000/year, now multiply that by the number claimed to be uninsured. 47,000,000 x $6,000 = $270,000,000,000/year ($270 billion) So the real issue becomes from where does this money come from? Not from the rich because that’s more than they make a year. Since there are 140 million people employed, you would have to charge every employed person $2000 a year to provide that coverage for the uninsured because that’s where taxes come from, the employed. Or you could cut government spending by that amount. You see how simple it becomes if you actually believe the uninsured are the issue, but they are not as demonstrated by the convoluted 1,000 plus pages of this bill before Congress. The bottom line and the hidden detail covered up by liberals however is we already pay that $2000 a year for the uninsured via cost shifting so why change the system to tidy the accounting? No, there is a hidden agenda and that is extending government control, it is NOT the public welfare.
Here’s another liberal assertion, if everyone is insured, the cost of health care will decrease. This is false on two levels; first as already exposed the money to pay for health care for those who don’t must come from those who can, i.e. you and me via taxes. Second and just as importantly, are the mandates the bureaucrats will demand as so called minimum qualified plans.
Abortion and other politically correct procedures will become covered items under insurance. Just like in RomneyCare which is sinking Massachusetts, once the government meddles in mandating any kind of insurance under whatever guise, they have the right to mandate the level of coverage. In doing so, the cost of coverage of necessity must go UP for everyone to pay for all the new goodies that weren’t covered before.
Speaking of RomneyCare and cost shifting, have you heard the latest news? The State is being sued by Boston Medical over cost shifting or as they call it under reimbursing. The State’s excuse? You have money, we don’t. Isn’t that Socialism for you, and this is why it always fails, when everyone else’s money runs out.
State officials have suggested that Boston Medical could reduce costs by operating more efficiently. The state has also pointed out that the hospital has reserves of about $190 million, but Tom Traylor, the hospital’s vice president of federal and state programs, said the reserves could only sustain the hospital for about a year.
“The magnitude of the loss here can’t be solved on the program-cutting or expense-cutting side,” Mr. Traylor said. Professor Parmet said the hospital’s dissatisfaction with the new law should be a warning to Congress that “insurance alone doesn’t solve the problems” of the health care system. In fact, she said, it might exacerbate the financial problems of safety-net hospitals in the short term.
Here in a nutshell is why Socialized Medicine cannot deliver sustainable quality care at an affordable price. If it could, then Canadians wouldn’t be coming here. A modest plan, i.e. catastrophic coverage w/o abortion and other social engineering mandates, would be doable, but that doesn’t fit in the liberals agenda.
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Dan Scott calls himself a “Member of the Global Capitalist Cabal preaching Capitalism and personal responsibility as the economic solution to world poverty.” He is also a member of the 14th Amendment Society — victimhood is a liberal code word for denying the civil rights of others. He is also a proud member of the Global Warming Denier Cabal, insisting that facts not agendas determine the truth.
Dan can be seen on the web at http://www.geocities.com/fightbigotry2002/ as well as http://www.geocities.com/dscott8186/saidwebpage.htm, And can be reached for comments at dscott8186@yahoo.com.
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