A good summary of the nature of health care insurance and socialized medicine at the American Thinker:
Indeed, health insurance fundamentally is designed to shift the cost of providing health care from those who need it but can't afford it, to those who don't need it but can afford it. When people complain about a lack of national health insurance, in other words, what they really are saying is that someone else should be required to pay the cost of their medical care. Not only is this a radically irresponsible and immoral position in itself; but also, as a practical matter, few people, even in a society as rich as ours, have sufficient personal resources to pay out-of-pocket for the very best health care our medical industry has to offer in all contingencies. (Just as very few people can afford the nicest homes or fanciest cars or toniest prep schools.) So trying to shift the cost to other people through a scheme of national health insurance, ultimately, can't work. Whether individually or as a nation, we cannot consume more health care than we can afford.
HT to Free Republic.
1 comments:
I have a physician working with me for awhile who is hoping to get into an American training program. Although Dr. G. has had several years of experience, she is new to American medicine. She is from Kazakhstan and trained in the old Soviet system. She remarks constantly how wonderful American medicine is and how much we can do. She recently was found to have a small skin cancer on her face and saw a plastic surgeon about getting this removed. Having no insurance, she asked the doctor about the cost and was shocked that it would be $12,000!
In my Urgent Care office we see virtually everything from hang nail to heart attack. We turn no one away. We don't even ask about insurance or payment until after care is rendered. Naturally, many patients come to us knowing our policy and with full intention of taking advantage of "free" medical care. The average day includes at least 30% of patients who are unable or unwilling to pay for their care. Many of these are for problems such as chronic back pain or "fibromyalgia" and the patients are simply hoping to get prescriptions for controlled substances such as OxyContin or Vicodin.
Our office is staffed 12 hours per day, seven days per week with physicians, nurses, lab techs, X-ray techs and secretaries. Most are Christians, all are dedicated professionals who truly want to help those in need. Unfortunately, none of us can afford to work for free.
So every patient that demands free care as their "right" is demanding that others pay the bill. Hence, the $20 Tylenol and the $100 office charge for an ankle sprain.
There are serious problems with the health care system that need serious solutions, but interposing a huge new bureaucracy and shifting costs to the country’s middle-class is indeed doomed to fail.
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