Though he usually provokes visceral political reactions, most people have been pulling for Senator Ted Kennedy's recovery from his recent problems with brain cancer and subsequent surgery for it.
Despite the demonization of Kennedy and many others in his party, he had access to the best health care system in the world right here in America. He got an MRI right away, and within a couple of weeks was operated on to remove the tumor.
Our free market system can be expensive, but you usually get quick, quality service. Having lived three years in a socialist country with a nationalized health care system, I can tell you that "free" medicine simply can't compete in speed or quality. And that is the system Kennedy and other socialists in the Democrat Party are trying to force on us all here in the United States.
NewsMax points out that the socialist "reforms" being pushed by Kennedy and his party can prove deadly to the average person:
Those reforms would include universal healthcare coverage, and countries with such a policy “always wind up cutting corners simply to save money,” Goldberg observes. “People with Kennedy’s condition are dying or dead as a result.”
The expert cites the example of a 22-year-old woman in England — which has universal coverage — who complained of headaches for months, but had to wait a year to see a neurologist.
She then had to wait more than three months to get what Britain’s National Health Service decided was only a “relatively urgent” MRI scan.
Three days before the MRI appointment, she died.
The article also points out that the drug Temodar which Kennedy is being treated with was deemed by the British National Health Service as not worth the money.
Even today, only a handful of people with brain tumors can get Temodar, and Brits who want to pay for the drug out of their own pocket are forced to pay for all their cancer care — about $30,000 a month, according to Goldberg.
No, the answer is not more government intervention in health care, but LESS. We already have too much government involvement (Medicare, Medicaid) and too much government regulation.
The Democrats' solution to health care is like grabbing a bucket of gasoline, running into a burning building and throwing the bucket on the fire in an attempt to put it out.
Of course, the Ted Kennedy's of the world will never have to live by the same rules they impose on average Americans. As it was on George Orwell's "Animal Farm," some animals are always going to be "more equal" than others.
In order to get our ailing system back on track, we need to reduce government meddling, increase insurance and medical competition, and most of all get the consumer fully involved in the process, i.e. making cost vs. benefit decisions to help control costs.
America was founded and rose to economic greatness largely in part because of our free market system. We need to return to what we know works, not cast our hopes on utopian schemes that deny economic realities and human nature.
4 comments:
About this article. I think it is rather inapplicable to say that since Senator Kennedy has money to have exceptional care, somehow he is a hypocrit when he cannot offer the same care to everyone in the country which he gets. Senator Kennedy cannot use magic to get bills passed or build hospitals. He is working with what we have and what we can do. He cannot give people the utmost care in the world how is that possible? We always assume that the care people will get at most hospitals is good care regardless of where they are being treated. But one thing; why on earth can't Senator Kennedy do for himself what is best if he has the means? What he is trying to do is get people health care, opposed to no healthcare. In my mind this is admirable, and to insult the Senator or insinuate anything other than the fact that he has helped the health-care legislation more than any other lawmaker in Washington is ignorant and wrong. Thank you. Mark Giolli
I agree with a lot of what you said, Mark.
If Kennedy has the means to buy the best care, more power to him. That's the free and American way.
What I have a problem with is that he would IMPOSE lousy "free" medical care on the rest of us with a socialized health care system.
The power elites will always find a way around this, even if they have to fly to another country to do it. But the rest of us saps are stuck in a one-size-fits-all system that really fits no one. I lived under such a system in England for three years; it blows chunks.
Better to keep our free market system and free it (and consumers) to make it the best it can be in an imperfect world.
The argument for and against socialized medicine are related completely to the pain it causes in one's pocketbook. If there were a raging fire engulfing a city, then all means would be taken to save lives and property. If there were an attack on our country, then all means would be taken to ensure our survival and safety. But because we are all in a collective state of denial while we are healthy, we simply refuse to believe we need to address the costs of health care. We should accept that health care costs money, and cut out insurance companies and sales commissions, and actuaries, and the cost of litigation from the price of medical care, and simply leave medicine to the doctors and nurses who care for the ill and dying. People, why you cling to the idea that quick service is tied to a privatized system is ridiculous. The system can deliver quality, quick and beneficial services if we want it to. No one professes that the federal government should run the medical industry. It just means that they distribute the funds to pay for it. This is a double-edged sword as politicians can't help meddling with our money and filling their cronies pockets... but the answer to that is (1) term limits and (2) getting rid of gerrymandering. Otherwise... let's just provide universal health care... rather than having the uninsured use emergency rooms, which are the costliest form of medicine... which we pay for anyway.
Anonymous, you live in a fantasy-world tailor made for the naive if you think the government is just going tax us to the gills, pay for health care, and everything is going to be wonderful.
That's the first problem: taxation to the gills. Health care is expensive. It gets more expensive when it's "free" because people use it more frivolously than they would when they saw the direct cost, so the overall cost of health care would skyrocket--which means everyone's taxes would be even higher.
Second, the government isn't going to just blissfully fork over tons of cash to the health care industry without gobs of bureaucracy, regulation and interference. It JUST WON'T HAPPEN. And in a sense, it only makes sense: if government is going to pay for it, they ought to have a say (a big say) in how it's being run. Which means a government health care system like they have in Canada, England and several other countries.
And a look around at any government system ought to tell you that you don't want the government running anything more than they already do-especially when your health is concerned.
I lived in England under their National Health Service for three years; please, please take my word for it if you don't believe the multitude of reports coming out of Britain that it's grossly expensive and grossly inefficient: I've seen it firsthand and we DO NOT WANT THAT HERE!
There are no easy solutions. But running toward more government intervention is like running toward a bomb that's about to go off; you need to be headed in the other way.
Post a Comment