Thursday, July 16, 2009

The Socialist Healthcare Agenda

First off, I am very sorry for dropping off of the face of the earth. Work has been unrelenting along with some special projects for friends, and searching for another job have all kept me too busy to read blogs, never mind post one.

There has been many stories in the news about making health care a right. There is a 1000 page bill being rammed through Congress right now about it. Locally in Boston we can see where this leads. Boston Medical Center is a merger between City Hospital and University Hospital. It's a non-profit hospital that treats the poor and uninsured of Boston.

Now that the government is cutting back on the money reimbursed, the hospital is not going to be able to keep treating patients without uncle sugar's help. Now B.M.C. is suing the State to keep providing free health care. So the state will have to tax someone more to raise the cash to pay for the free health care.

Now to guarantee health care as a right is so stupid it is beyond me. the US healthcare system would be unable to cope with the flood of new claims. Think about the level of entitlement that people have now. Add the right for free health care and watch everyone flock to the emergency room for every little boo-boo because they have a right to see a doctor.

Mien Gott, it's going to be a zoo. I can just see some woman yelling that her civil rights are being violated because it took 2 hours for a over-worked doctor in an understaffed ER to look at her sprained ankle. Watch the lawyers run through the streets like wild dogs to get that case.

We have our rights covered by the Constitution. If we add to these willy-nilly eventually everyone will have a right to a 50" plasma TV. Healthcare is very important, but it is not the State's job to provide it.

As a child my parents used discretion when bringing myself or my brother in. We had health insurance, but that's no excuse to go to the ER for every little thing. We got the care we needed including regular doctor office visits without any hassle. If we needed to go to the doctor we could get an appointment that afternoon or the next morning. No problem.

Now, to see my primary care physician, I need to schedule out 6 months in advance, unless I'm real sick then they tell me to go to the ER where I can wait all day before getting in. How is this better? Now my health insurance costs a fortune, and my doctor tries to schedule as many visits as possible so he can tweak the billing to the health insurance company without raising any flags. He overcharges for my care so it covers his loss when he gets boned out of payments on another patient. It's too screwed up to even describe properly. Health insurance companies tell doctors how to treat patients by publishing what they will pay out. So on a list somewhere it will say

Broken arm $5000

And even if it's a compound fracture with massive trauma, the health insurance company is going to point to the list and say $5000 not a cent more. So the doctors charge everyone the maximum amount so they can offset the losses. It is pure stupidity. No insurance company should dictate my heath care.

This is what these socialist policies will bring. The doctors will be unable to maintain their practices unless they can toe the line when treating patients. Talk to people from the UK & Canada about health care. Ask them why they come to America for major surgeries. There was just an article the other day about how arthritis treatments take 9 months to get in the UK. This is the Socialist agenda: shitty service for everyone. Turning a house of healing into the DMV.

3 comments:

Nairb said...

Hmmm, anyone remember a movie by the name of Logan's Run? At some point you will become irrelevant and unworthy of health care.

And don't forget what it will cost to pay all the lawyer's to ensure that we all get "free" health care.

Bitmap said...

The Constitution protected the peoples' rights by restricting the government.

Healthcare as a right is different because it forces someone else to pay for your "rights".

It is not a right so much as an obligation.

Anonymous said...

There are two problems that I see:

1. uninsured people using the emergency room as a provider of basic health care. When an uninsured shows up at the ER we all end up paying for it. Any way you look at it everyone has health care coverage. Whether they have insurance or show up destitute at the ER. Everyone gets care.

Definitely not the most effective way to deliver basic care to people.

2. Insurance companies are problem number 2, maybe even problem number 1. Insurance companies stand between providers of services and recipients while skimming off money for salaries, overhead and earnings that could otherwise go directly to providing care.

Then there are other issues like the acceleration of costs and how some folks get way too much care while others get way too little.

I like single-payer. The amount of money that would be saved just due to uniformity of forms and paperwork would be enormous. We also need KILL INSURANCE COMPANIES.

Natog - you live in Mass. what are the two tallest buildings in Mass? The PRUDENTIAL Tower and the JOHN HANCOCK Tower.

Insurance companies are parasites.

Health care as a right? Not sure, but we can definitely deliver services more efficiently than we do.

Re: Socialist healthcare agenda. I always like to say capitalism is when you get the government benefit i.e. mortgage interest deduction, deduction for property taxes, student loan interest deduction. Socialism is when your neighbor gets the government benefit and communism is when a stranger gets the government benefit.

Sometimes we forget about all the government bennies that we get while getting aggravated by the other guy's receipt of govt bennies.

Always end with a good quote:
"When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

Dom Helder Camara,
Archbishop of Recife, Brazil

Abraham