In the ongoing struggle between freedom and government, there are just some of those who won’t admit when they have lost all reason. They have no real basis for what they believe. They’re like the greeners, or the truthers, or the choicers, who have adopted the cognitively dissonant attitude that only they can speak to a subject. They forget that the basic feature of an assertion is that they are structures of sentences which can be meaningfully called true or false. They have no deviation from their dogma so there is no real argument to be had. But to those who still think clearly: Why would you want government in charge of anything but what it does best – force?
Let’s start with this familiar, but sickeningly tired adage. “This is America and we can do anything!” Well, yes we can. That’s why we DO NOT need the federal government to do it. People talk like all it takes is “good intentions” to make things work. This is a feeble philosophy, because it ignores unintended consequences. Then we actually have people with the temerity to bring some flavor of patriotism to the table. The institution is not the country. The institution did not deliver unto the citizen anything they were not born with. If you actually believe the institutions can make your life better, maybe you ought to re-examine your institutions.
For example:
If an automobile mechanic breaks your windshield while fixing your car, he would never get away with billing you for the damage. But did you know, if the hospital makes a mistake, Medicare does not pay for patients injured in their care. And it isn’t just mistakes. If you get sick while in the hospital, government doesn’t pay for that either. Statistics show that nearly one out of every 20 patients gets an infection during their hospital stay and these are not related to the reason they came to the hospital. That’s close to 2 million people a year. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that approximately 99,000 patients die each year because of hospital acquired infections. And we’re not even counting visitors and health care workers in this grim statistic!
Medicare and Medicaid are not only killing patients, but they’re killing private insurance as well, underpaying to the tune of $100 billion annually and shifting that cost on to private insurers. The annual medical care spending for an average family of four is $1,788 higher than it would have been if Medicaid, Medicare, and private employers paid hospitals and doctors the same rates. But vast underpayments by Medicare and Medicaid have lead to significantly higher medical insurance costs for consumers and employers.
The more people are shifted onto the government insurance, the more we will all pay and the more we will all lose and the quicker the health insurance we all choose will go right down the drain. The knee jerk responses by leftists to businesses working to make a profit and provide a service are that of a mildly retarded child. Want to know what a medical plan looks like that doesn’t have to worry about making a profit and knows you have no place else to go?
Medicare does not cover: Custodial (non-skilled) care in a nursing facility; Custodial home care; Most chiropractic care; Dental care; Experimental procedures; Eye exams and eyeglasses; Hearing aids; Private nursing care; Routine preventative care including physical exams; medical history, and preventative foot care. And finally, unlike many other insurance plans, Medicare does not provide funding for routine prevention care. And those “so called savings” in administrative costs advocates crow about?
To reach that conclusion, they ignore many of Medicare’s administrative costs, in particular the ‘‘excess burden’’ or reduced economic output caused by Medicare taxes. Those costs are estimated at 20 to 100 percent of Medicare’s expenditures,dwarfing any administrative costs of private firms. And decades of reports by government watchdogs demonstrate that the main wayMedicare avoids administrative costs is by failing to scrutinize claims to prevent fraud or to ensure value. The Government Accountability Office found that in 2004 Medicare call centers answered providers’ billing questions accurately and completely only 4 percent of the time. It is no wonder, then, that the Department of Health and Human Services reports improper Medicare payments of $12.1 billion in 2001. Medicare’s avoidance of administrative expenses is a vice, not a virtue.
The government is there for a reason. To help us when we need help. When your insurance company refuses to pay for a treatment or drug you need, you turn to the government. The government is there to FORCE the rules to be followed. Who do you have left to turn to when the government refuses to follow the rules?
Now, lets talk about the FDA. The Food and Drug Administration. They will be the final authority on all health issues facing Americans. They already believe it. Just put government in control of your health care and give it to them completely, and see what happens. Frankly, I am going to start talking more about the FDA as being the principal bedfellow of every American and their health care decisions. That should put things in the right perspective since 80% of Americans don’t trust the FDA.
The FDA has a vested interest in controlling how people take care of themselves because more control is more job security. Three bodies of evidence indicate that the costs of FDA requirements exceed the benefits. The loss of life from the FDA delaying or not releasing life saving drugs is in the hundreds of thousands. If this was a company, that would be a national horror. But because its government – “Well, they’re doing the best they can and hey, if you’re not going to stand up for your institutions, what would Lincoln say?”
The FDA rejects Medical Marijuana. The FDA tries to tell restaurant what size portions to serve. The FDA banned silicon breast implants without any evidence they ever harmed any women. Last year, the FDA banned tomatoes for gods sakes. Think they can protect against an ebola outbreak?
“The American people no longer trust the FDA to protect their health,” said Steven E. Nissen, head of the Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Cardiovascular Medicine.
How many ways does it take to say “government in charge of your health care is not just a bad idea…”
… it’s also a dumb idea.
… it’s also a hateful idea.
… it’s also a deadly idea.
… it’s also a despicable, lying, cowardly, infantile idea.
This must be why every other industrial nation does it. Because it sucks and it can’t be done. You’re a moron.
“They have no deviation from their dogma so there is no real argument to be had.”
Well if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, I don’t know what is.
To quote blogger Terry Crowley: “The government is there for a reason. To help us when we need help.”
I’d suggest those folks with no health care or unaffordable health care need help.
Les Morrals
Absolutely. The particulars of Obama’s speech detailed those needs quite well! Unfortunately, the interests currently in charge of government have nothing to do with fixing or dealing with those problems. As I have outlined numerous times, in fact, they will make them worse.
Now, this is not to say that Republicans in power would achieve any better a result. As a conservative who has not been able to vote or register Republican for nearly 10 years, I would HOPE for better from them, and then point out where they were failing as well.