I’m scared for my country folks, which means, of course, that I’m going to rant for a bit. Sit back and enjoy the show, then feel free to rant back. What worries me is that there is growing support in this country for nationalized universal health care. There are sick people who can’t afford medicine, so we figure it’s time to let our heart bleed and pitch in. The reasons I’ve heard people give are twofold.
1) It’s cheaper. Going to the doctor would cost less money, less money is good. Health insurance covered by the government would mean it could stop coming out of my paycheck. Again, good idea but wrong. Let me explain why this second part is wrong. While the chunk of money your company takes out (or you pay individually) would dissappear. However, it would be replaced in spades by the increases in your income taxes. And guess what, now not only do you have to pay for your own health care, you have to pay for the health care of all those poor souls who don’t have it now. Which means your portion of the bill just went up. So much for cheaper…
2) Everybody would be able to get the health care they need. Sounds nice, don’t it? I’ll get back to it.
Those are the main reasons I hear. Now, here are my reasons for not liking it.
1) It’s cheaper. See, the part of the cheaper argument that’s right is that less money goes to the doctor. This bothers me. Because if doctors get less money, than fewer people will want to be doctors. My current lead hand says he likes this idea. He doesn’t want people who are doctors who are in it for the money, preferring instead a desire to do the job. An interesting point, that has worked so well for our educational system (a rant for another day, but short version, want better education – stop changing the testing and pay teachers better; you’ll get better teachers). But I fall under the Reagan principle that the best and the brightest can do pretty much what they want. They will follow th emoney. Thus he raised the pay of federal jobs to try and draw more of the best and the brightest to the government. If you lower the pay of doctors, the best and the brightest will go elsewhere and you’ll end up with dedicated doctors who weren’t smart enough to do something better paying.
2) Everybody will get health care. Sounds nice, like ending world hunger or something. But here’s how it works. Right now, if my child is sick, I call the doctor and make an appointment. The doctor fits my child in some time that day and gives us medicine to make the child better. Now, I’ve experienced universal health care in a microcosm of our society – the military. The way it works there is, when your child gets sick, you go to the clinic and wait a few hours (your sick child sitting in an uncomfortable chair instead of a comfy bed at home with some soup). After those few hours, the clinic informs you that the doctor simply can’t see you, could you come back in three months when they have an opening? So you go to the emergency room, where you sit for another 4-8 hours, usually to be told that this is a normal illness and must be handled by your clinic. Welcome to universal health care. Everybody can go to the doctor, so everybody’s there. Thus nobody gets taken care of well enough, if at all.
3) Universal health care means nationalized health care. Meaning run by the government. Name one government program that you think is run well. Social security? Enjoying paying all that money in every paycheck that won’t be there when it’s your turn to retire? Welfare? Like subsidising the life of people who have learned to work the system and subsist on a meager existence that other people pay for? Me either.
4) Universal health care means nationalized health care. Yes, I wrote this one twice. Yes, I did it on purpose. Because people like to skip over that word “nationalized.” Allow me to translate. FUCKING SOCIALIST!!! I grew up in a Cold War nobody else seems to remember. Remember the Communists (meaning a govenrment that runs everything and everybody pays for everybody else) were the bad guys? We won that war. When you win a war, you do not then adopt the strategies of the enemy you just beat. That would be stupid. Notice the lack of communist nations in the world now. That’s because Communism Doesn’t Work! Democracy may be flawed, but it’s better than Communism, so demonstrated by th efact that Communism has not managed to hold up a nation for 100 years at a stretch anywhere. And by the way, democracy is doomed to fail. Do know at what point democracy is doomed to fail? When the people realize they can vote themselves in all the free cake and circuses they want. It’s what killed the Roman Empire, shall we be next?
Your choice friends. Anyone for free cake?
Living in a country where we do have a healthcare free for all, well, I haven’t lived anywhere else so I can’t compare. Okay when I spent my year in florida I didn’t go to the doctor and heard about some people paying through the teeth when they did. There’s pro and cons to both I think. I have to admit I feel comfortable being able to go to the doctor and not being afraid as to how much it’s gonna cost me. *shrugs*
You argue that Universal Healthcare is frightening because it would be left to our governement to run. The stress point here is our, yes our government. When we find fault with what we have created it is our reponsibility to make changes to make our government run correctly. You ask to name one good government program…it’s hard to do that as you well know. But, is that the fault of the idiots running the show or the idiots who elected them? Our nation is by, for, and of the people and as a nation we have given up our voices and our power. When we leave it someone else to make sure we get what we deserve, often times we get just that. Our free cake is our just desserts.
The problem with anything in the universal-category for me is that it ignors another important factor. In a so-called ‘free’ system are always going to be people that will defraud ANY the system and that ends up bloating and increasing costs. Here in my state we don’t have universal but we do have Medicaid that was just revamped and changed (thank god) because it was going to bankrupt our state. I want to help people that need help, please don’t consider me uncaring. But when you have people that take an ambulance to the hospital for asprin for a headache just because they CAN (yes, it happens – I worked three years in an ER), because it is free… who do you think pays for it. Yep, me.