November 17, 2007
"My Baby Cares
For Me..."
Vol. 2 Issue17
Is a song written by Walter Donaldson
with lyrics by Gus Kahn. It was from the
1928 musical
"Whoopie" staring Eddie Cantor.
If your baby is your government, do you
really want them caring for you?
Socialized medicine, as a noun, is
defined as medical and hospital services for
the members of a
class or population administered by an
organized group (such as a Government
agency) and paid
for from funds obtained usually by
assessments, philanthropy, or taxation.
Problems in our health care systems are
leading some to fall victim to proposals
asking for a
national government run health care system
like Canada's or Britain's. There are many
things that
need to be considered before falling for
these proposals.
The belief that 45 million people in
America are uninsured is not accurate. The
number is very
much less when you factor in the following
figures.
Fourteen million people
have been treated in hospitals. They were
seen in emergency rooms and
received the same care patients with
insurance would receive. If they were
admitted, they saw
the same doctors and were in the same rooms
that patients with insurance would enjoy.
The
problem is they are eligible for Medicaid
but have not applied; therefore, the
hospitals have no
way of being reimbursed for their expenses.
Some hospitals have personnel whose
assignments
are to get these people to sign up.
Eight million are young
and gambling with their health. In an
article for USA Today, Laura
Vanderkam writes about young people gambling
with their health. "Like most young people,
I
like to believe I'm invincible. Every so
often, though, an e-mail shows up in my
inbox that
reminds me I'm not. Another twenty something
acquaintance has suffered a ski accident,
appendectomy or electric-saw mishap. The
worst reports share a line: 'He doesn't have
health
insurance.’ Then I know this young person is
not only in pain, he's also wincing as his
hospital
time ticks by at $7,000 per day."
At least these young people can take
comfort that they're not alone. A third of
Americans age 21-
24 lack health insurance, mostly by choice.
Even though it may be a financial choice
more than
any other. A quarter of those ages 25-34 do
without health insurance. However, some
still drive
an expensive sports car and live a lavish
lifestyle.
Five million or more are
illegal’s who have been receiving medical
care paid for by tax dollars.
Therefore, if you do the math the number is
really closer to 18 million.
However, many politicians still pursue
socialized medicine. They have embraced the
Canadian
and British nationalized health care systems
as models for the U.S. It is a safe bet that
should we
ever develop a national system, they would
exempt themselves from what the rest of us
would
have to endure. What they do not tell you is
that the British have enjoyed a forty
percent tax
increase to pay for these services.
If you really want to know how bad
socialized medicine is, read on.
The London Observer (3/3/02) carried a
story saying that an "unpublished report
shows some
patients are now having to wait more than
eight months for treatment, during which
time many
of their cancers become incurable." Another
story said, "According to a World Health
Organization report to be published later
this year, around 10,000 British people die
unnecessarily
from cancer each year -- three times as many
as are killed on our roads."
The story is no better in Canada's
national health care system. The Fraser
Institute in British
Columbia has a yearly publication titled,
"Waiting Your Turn." Its 2006 edition gives
waiting
times, by treatments, from a person's
referral by a general practitioner to
treatment by a specialist.
The shortest waiting time was for oncology
(4.9 weeks). The longest waiting time was
for
orthopedic surgery (40.3 weeks), followed by
plastic surgery (35.4 weeks) and
neurosurgery
(31.7 weeks). Canadians face significant
waiting times for various diagnostics such
as computed
tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) and ultrasound scans.
Despite the long waiting times Canadians
suffer, sometimes resulting in death, under
federal law,
private clinics are not legally allowed to
provide services covered by the Canada
Health Act.
So what is a Canadian to do?
There is help for some Canadian patients.
According to a Canadian Medical Association
Journal
article, "U.S. Hospitals Use Waiting-List
Woes to Woo Canadians" (2/22/2000), "British
Columbia patients fed up with sojourns on
waiting lists as they await tests or
treatment are being
wooed by a hospital in Washington State that
has begun offering package deals.
A second U.S. hospital is also
considering marketing its services." One of
the attractions is that
an MRI, which can take anywhere from 10 to
28 weeks in Canada, can be had in two days
at
Olympic Memorial Hospital in Port Angeles,
Wash. Already, Cleveland is Canada's hip-
replacement center."
There is a cure for our health care
problems. That cure is not to demand more
government but less
government. I challenge anyone to identify a
problem with health care in America that is
not
caused or aggravated by federal, state and
local governments. In addition, I challenge
anyone to
show me people dying on the streets because
they do not have health insurance.
All experiments in socialized medicine
since 1911 when England first started
experimenting with
socialized medicine have failed. Just as
they have failed everywhere.
However, governments never admit they are
wrong. When government seizes power and
money
from their citizens in order to promote
their welfare and then makes matters worse
for them,
government will inevitably argue that it did
not have enough money or power to run the
system
correctly.
The problem with our over priced cost of
health care insurance may be the fact that
doctors are
not practicing preventive medicine because
they are too busy practicing defensive
medicine. This
has resulted in extremely high medical
malpractice insurance premiums for doctors.
The lack of proper tort reform in most
states has led to a surge of malpractice
lawsuits being
instigated against doctors. Therefore,
doctors are ordering tests and procedures
that they know
are unnecessary. They are ordering them to
cover their asses. So when the insurance
companies
pay for these extraordinary tests their
expenses go up and so do our premiums.
Some states are doing something about it.
Like Texas where "Gov. Rick Perry has laid
out a
series of corrective measures to fix the
medical lawsuit abuse crisis that is hurting
doctors and
hampering Texans' access to quality,
affordable health care. Health care
providers across the state
have recounted troubling stories of
malpractice insurance rates soaring as much
as 400 percent in
one year and of insurance carriers refusing
to renew policies for some doctors, even
those who
have never had a malpractice claim filed
against them.
The governor's plan includes a call for
meaningful lawsuit reform for the health
care profession
that caps non-economic losses to plaintiffs
at $250,000. More than 20 other states have
capped
non-economic damages, resulting in lower
liability insurance rates. California, for
example, limits
non-economic damages to $250,000 and has the
third lowest medical liability rates in the
nation."
Since the Texas plan was enacted the
number of doctors moving to Texas to open up
their
practice has created a twenty-three-percent
rise in the number of available medical
practitioners in
the state.
So where does that leave us? Hillary
Clinton wants to once again push her "Hilliarycare
Program." It failed in 1993 and it will fail
again. The question is at what cost to the
American
taxpayer.
If Hillarycare is ever enacted in
America, the people who may fear it most may
be the Canadians.
Where will they go for their health care?
The bigger question is, where will we go?
And, that is my opinion.
Michael Solomon
If you want to
help restore sanity to America, join the
Flag Day campaign.
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