One of the reasons I give money to Hillsdale College is that they not only refuse to take government money directly, they refuse to allow any of their students to accept government grants or loans. Hillsdale knows that once there is a penny of government money in their coffers, government will they try to tell them what to do.
If you look at such government idiocy as requiring cheerleaders to be at girls' sporting events as much as they are at boys' events, despite the fact that frequently neither the girls' teams nor the cheerleaders support that, you can see the type of micro-management, big-nanny government, that continuously impinges on our liberty. It may seem like a small thing, but it's just one more chink in the armor of freedom.
One of the biggest risks to our country from the Democrats, and particularly if we were economically suicidal enough to elect any of the current Democrat frontrunners to be President, would be their bringing the same destruction of freedom and quality to medicine that their meddling has brought to public education.
All we need to do is look at the UK and Canada where medical care is of mediocre quality, where waiting times are frequently deadly (I've read that the UK's health system actually instructed hospitals to increase waiting times to save money!), and where citizens come to the US for important medical care when they need it urgently and they can afford it.
A newly-released poll from England should cause even more worry as we see our elected representatives dip their toes in the dirty water of socialism:
see "Don't join NHS for a career, say doctors", UK Telegraph, 4/12/07
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/12/nhealth112.xml
In an online survey of 1,442 British doctors, 54% said that morale among doctors was "poor" or "terrible" and 69% said they would not recommend a career in medicine to friends or relatives.
Quoting from the article above: A spokesman for the British Medical Association said: "The survey shows how doctors believe constant Government reforms are taking them further away from their vocation - to treat patients."
Would you want to go to a doctor whose morale is "terrible"? I think not.
But what else could the outcome be of putting decisions about how to treat patients under the thumb of government's dead hand?
I said before that electing one of the current Democrat frontrunners would be economically suicidal. Now that I think of it, it could simply be suicidal, in the literal meaning of the word, at least for someone who has a serious medical condition.
The Democrats insane desire for government-controlled medicine (and I do mean insane, given the results of those policies in other countries) will cost money and lives if voters are not smart and aware enough to recognize the peril that Hillary-care poses.
7 comments
on 04/13/07 at 04:09
Would you elect to send mom or dad to Walter Reed for their care?
Walter Reed is not VA, at least not in the sense that most people think of VA. It's a place that active duty military go and it is supposed to be the flagship of Army, not VA, medicine. There is no excuse for what has happened at Walter Reed. It is truly shameful.
As for VA stuff, maybe we should deal with it in the way we deal with school reform: Provide vouchers that follow the veteran rather than just funding the VA. Let the vouchers be used at private medical facilities, HMOs, etc., and let those businesses compete on lower price and higher quality to get the business.
on 04/15/07 at 05:52
50% of your citizens have no health insurance. Your health care costs are the highest in the world for no demonstrable increase in quality of outcomes.
Mortality and morbidity in the US from diabetes in worse than in the UK.
There is little difference between the US & UK in terms of outcomes from coronary angioplasty and bypass grafting - in fact, some centres in the UK have better results than leading clinics in the US.
The newspaper article you use as the basis for your own article refers to the new training system forced on junior doctors by the UK government, against their will. This is what is causing all the ill-will in the UK.
SHO.
Get your facts straight.
Far less than 50% of our citizens don't have health insurance. Of the less than 15% that don't have insurance at any given time, the vast majority either A) get it again within a few months, because they're changing jobs, B) simply decide they are young and healthy and they don't need insurance, which is a rational and frequently correct analysis, or C) are eligible for government insurance plans but just don't sign up.
Additionally, just because any particular issue in one place is not perfectly dealt with does not mean that the same issue elsewhere is immune to criticism.
What is your response to the NHS having told medical providers to increase waiting times?
And if "some centres in the UK have better results" than some in the US, who cares? I'm sure something was better in Russia in 1930 than in England, or something was better in Germany in 1940 than in the US, but does that mean all aspects of Leninist or Nazi policy deserved to escape criticism?
Of course there are problems in the medical system in the US, but the answer is to move farther from the errors of the UK's nationalized system, not closer to it, and that is the main point I was making.
The problem is not from "trying to move" toward a free market, but from trying to make any adjustment within an unfree market.
Of course adjustments are going to be non-trivial when things have been a certain way for a long time.
But you can't blame moving toward individual's rights to make their own choices as causing problems. The problems are completely caused by being in a disfunctional system.
The California electricity crisis was a similar situation: Electricity prices went crazy and people on the left blamed government deregulation. But the government hadn't actually deregulated. They only deregulated part of the market not all of it, so the part that was still non-functional because of government made the whole thing non-functional. That doesn't mean that moving away from regulation and freedom was wrong; it was moving away from it incompletely that was wrong.
The same thing is true with medical care, education, Social Security (in the US), etc.
I live in the East Midlands. Having experienced the insane NHS wait times, the inability to coordinate care within the NHS (example: your consultant refers you to a physio who has a 3 month wait), I am glad that:
1. For recent surgery my private insurance paid for travel to the US; and
2. My private insurance allows use of private consultants.
If you like the NHS, you must not have accounted for the hidden costs: ever tried an NHS walk-in centre only to blow you entire day waiting to see a nurse (not a doctor)? What's the cost of that?
If anything, I think the US does not have ENOUGH free market in medicine. The cartel held by the AMA and major employers spoil the market function.
Cheers.
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