As promised, I am going to take on (head on) the health care "issue". Here is the portion of the comment from last week that prompted me to promise td do so:
"....(I come from a family with a handicap father, who had polio as a child and has given me the best and happiest life) but what about health care. Most families with a handicap person within that family (at least in my average normal MIDDLE CLASS family) as lots of issues with the health care system. I need to get my wisdom teeth out and I can’t. Why? Because my parents can’t afford to pay insurance on me anymore since they are both retired in their 60s and my dad has health issues"
I am aware of the specific problems with the above comment, and will point them out. However, I want to use this comment as a springboard to address the whole issue of the "central planning" solution of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT "guaranteeing" universal health coverage--in other words taking over our entire health care system and health insurance system.
We already have universal heath coverage. For the elderly, we have Medicare. For the poor, we have Medicaid, including the ridiculously unnecessary and stupid Medicare Drug Benefit Program (a "solution" in search of a problem). The poor have Medicaid. The single biggest employer in this country (the Federal Government, and if you lump all government together it is a significant portion of all employment) has health insurance for its employees which is probably way too expansive. Further, unlike private employers, the Federal Government NEVER cuts back on its insurance--no sacrifice there in "hard times"). Children are covered by the S-CHIP program. But what about people not falling in any of these categories? Aren't they lacking medical care? Don't be absurd. El Paso (a POOR city where I live) has R. E. Thomason General Hospital, which is the county hospital that even treats gunshot victims arising from the ongoing drug cartel war gating across the rive in Juarez, Mexico; I HOPE they pay). Thomason is now connected with Texas Tech Medical School, and really provides pretty darn good medical care to EVERYBODY--with a world class trauma unit. Nobody in this country is denied medical care, when they really need it. That does not even count private charities and STATE coverage and assistance plans.
You say that this is not FULL COVERAGE, and that emergency room treatment is inefficient when problems should be addressed before they get to the emergency room level? If you say that, you are confessing ignorance about the real issues involved here.
There is NO SUCH THING AS "FULL COVERAGE". Don't doubt me on this, I can prove it to you. "Full coverage" can only be defined as : "getting all of the medical care you want when you want it." That is an impossibility. Cosmetic surgery? Liposuction for the moderately overweight? Weight loss programs like Jenny Craig, including the food? Breast augmentation? Expensive efforts to try to get a short child to grow taller? Hari restoring "treatment", and "treatment" for baldness? Drugs like Prozac and Valium that make many people just feel better, even if they may be truly "needed" by many others? Hollywood style lifetime psychoanalysis for everybody? Sport Psychologists to help athletic performance? Chiropractic care? Normal dental care? Trip to Paris, or Vegas, to handle "depression" (Vegas, of course, may CAUSE that!)? Treatment for sex addiction? Sex surrogates to treat sexual malfunction? Prostitutes to treat loneliness? Hypnosis? Acupuncture? Going to Tibet to be spiritually healed, or Japan to learn Zen meditation? The RICH can afford ALL of the above. Why should they be denied to the poor?
I repeat, without fear of contradiction this time: "Full coverage" does NOT exist. Many of the things I list above, including things like "breast augmentation" and "cosmetic surgery" may be MORE important to the persons involved than removing wisdom teeth is to the college student quoted above. In fact, I have known women for whom breast augmentation clearly WAS more important, since they were willing to BORROW, and SACRIFICE, to get it done--something the above college student is clearly not willing to do to get his wisdom teeth pulled.
The point is: Choices MUST be made. "Full coverage" is not one of the available choices. Yes, it has been an ISSUE in places like San Francisco, and wherever leftist loons have influence, as to whether coverage should include SEX CHANGE TREATMENT. Birth control is often an issue. Abortion is more than an "issue", since people like me would regard REQUIRED coverage for abortion, and government paying for it, as making ME pay for what I regard as the moral equivalent of infanticide.
The first issue is: WHY should there be a CENTRAL PLANNING approach here? If San Francisco,, or California, wants to provide coverage for sex change operations, or abortions, let them. WHY should TEXAS, or the people in Texas, be FORCED to do the same thing. Leftists say they believe in "choice". They don't (which is why I NEVER use the term "pro-choice"). What leftists believe in is ABORTION. They don't generally believe in choice at all. They believe in "1984" and "Brave New World"--where UNIFORMITY is the rule and everyone is forced to do the SAME thing by a central authority. WHY do we HAVE to fund Planned Parenthood with PUBLIC money? If so many people believe in that truly evil organization, WHY are they not capable of funding it themselves?
I have discussed the problems with central planning before. Yes, "central planning" is the central concept of socialism and Communism (which is why I have called T. Boone Pickens a Communist in this blog--accurately as to his central planning, arrogant "solution" on energy, although I am well aware it is not an accurate description of his overall philosophy).
That is the first casualty of central planning: FREEDOM. It is amazing to me how leftists are so concerned about the possible monitoring of a few international phone calls, and yet advocate MASSIVE reductions in FRERDOM every time they advocate that the Federal Government FORCE the leftist "solution" to a problem upon us. The free market system is a FREE system. Socialism, or any central planning approach to a problem is a COERCIVE system.
The reason central planning has FAILED (including in Katrina--the RIGHT lesson of Katria) is that all of your eggs are in one basket. Stalin forced Lysenkoism on Soviet agriculture and tens of millions of people DIED. There was no flexibility--not way to turn back from the central planning decision until DISASTER had happened. The free market is self-adjusting. Central planning is arrogant (we know the "right" solution, and we insist that everybody do what we want--the T. Boone Pickens attitude again) and will ALWAYS fail in the end. Now there are some functions ONLY the Federal Government can do. But if it is possible, the decentralized, free market/federalist approach is the superior, freer system. It IS possible in health care. The central planning approach in health care is just a recipe for disaster.
Let us get concrete. Consider Massachusetts. Ted Kennedy has said that if Massachusetts can do it (universal health care), then the nation can do it. That is upside down logic. The correct logic is: IF Massachusetts (Romney) can do it, SO CAN OTHER STATES. Somehow, and this is the real reason leftists want to impose their "solutions" though the Federal Government--beyond their arrogance that they know THE answers to be uniformly imposed everywhere, people have gotten the idea that Federal money is FREE. That is absolutely wrong, and a truly dangerous concept. Federal money comes from the individual states--people in the indificual states. The states can tax their people just like the Federal Government can, without sending the money on a wasteful round trip through the Federal bureaucracy. However, on a state level, the COST is obvious. On a Federal level, the COST is HIDDEN, to the maximum extent possible.
Thus, there are some indications that Romney's health care program is driving Massachusetts toward bankruptcy. It is certainly a COERCIVE program, where EVERYONE--including people like the 22 year old student quoted above--is FORCED to PAY for health coverage (if they can "afford" it). Medicare, and the Medicare Drug Benefit Program force people to PAY for the coverage. Yes, the coverage is SUBSIDIZED, but it would certainly be cheaper for the student above to pay for his wisdom teeth, than it would be for him to have even government subsidized health coverage. The Clinton and Obama healt care "plans" both would not provide "free" Federal health care for everyone (single payer. without even the payments required by Medicare), even though that is the ultimate leftist goal. I digress (sort of).
California COULD have passed a state bill for universal coverage--a bill favored by Governor Arnold. Last I heard (I don't keep up with California), the California (DEMOCRAT controlled) legislature had KILLED the bill because the state could not afford it. Now if California cannot afford it, why can the country? California is a RICH state. The answer, again, is that Federal money is regarded as "free", and state money as "real". What is the difference between California and Massachusetts coming up with their own healt care plan, and the Federal government imposing a UNIFORM plan on everybody? If you don't see it by now, I am probably wasting my time.
The difference is CHOICE, flexibility, and response. If Massachusetts finds finds that its health care plan is TOO EXPENSIVE, it will be able to respond MUCH faster than the behemoth Federal Government, and the inefficient Congress. Further, the COST will be obvious in Massachusetts. The COST of the Federal plan may not be obvious until it is really too late. Further, Massachusetts can make the CHOICES it wants. If it wants gay couples covered as "married" couples, it can do so. If it wants to FORCE coverage on everyone, to avoid the healthy young taking a risk with the knowledge that their emergency needs will be taken care of while the sickly rush to sign up, then Massachusetts can do that. If California wants to force coverage for sex change operations, and breast augmentation (for would be film actresses, you know), then it can. The idea is DIVERSITY and CHOICE, while the consequences of your choices are more obvious and suject to needed correction. The ultimate diversity and choice, of course, is the FREE MARKET, with such measures to take care of those who need help as individual states choose.
Edn of Part. Part II will happen some time next week, and include the TRADE OFFS that are involved in any central planning, Federal Government "solution". The idea that the cntral planning "solution" means that people are treated the same (rich and poor), and no one falls through the cracks, is such an easy target myth that I will enjoy destroying it.
In the meantime, consider that quote above, that I started this entry with. How much can it cost to remove wisdom teeth? $500.00? $1000.00? $1500.00? Or the student could join the army like I did, and get them pulled for free. (lof). Now I don't want to be unkind here. I don't have so many people making comments, which I welcome, that I can afford to drive one away. I still have to call them the way I see them. I don't buy that a COLLEGE STUDENT cannot get his wisdom teeth pulled, if he really wants to . If he can afford to go to college, and do the fun things that most college students do, he can get his wisdom teeth pulled. It may involve SACRIFICE. It may involve spending less money on GIRLS, or a girl. It might involve even a loan. But I refuse to believe it can't be done. Now I realize this does not address the larger problem of "health care coverage", which is why I did not ridicule the example as a way of evading the real issues. But the example is not very compelling, is it?
That is why I perceive as the problem. It is not that I am losing the argument. I think I am WINNING the argument. But I am losing the war. The above quote explains WHY I am losing the war. The attitude has taken hold in this country that the Federal Government is responsible for "taking care of us"--for "solving all of our problems. Even Republicans have bought into the overall concept (hence things like "No Child Left Behind", and the Medicare Drug Benefit Program). Republicans really don't argue much that the Federal Government, and the central planning approach, is NOT responsible for solving all of our problems, and should not be. Instead, Republicans accept the premise and argue about the details. The temptation to do this is obvious, as Republicans realize how pervasive this attitude of wanting to be "taken care of" is. All I can do is fight the battle of reason as best I can. However, there is no escaping that I am fighting against the tide here. At times, as when McCain was nominated and when President Bush pushed the Medicare Drug Benefit Program, it depresses me.
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