Posted by
David Bollinger on Friday, June 12, 2009 4:59:43 PM
Ladies and Gentlemen of the CAN,
Sorry about the lull. Those of you who are teachers know what the last few days of a school year are like. Then, selfishly, I took a few days to rest.
I'm sure you've been watching the news and thinking about ongoing events. Here are a couple of things that are on my mind.
The President's push to get his health care reform, although we don't yet know for certain what that reform is, are terribly worrisome, especially if you're sneaking past middle age. We do have rumors and leaks. That information forms a picture that eventually leads to the end of the private insurance company and a single-payer government-run package made mandatory for every American.
I know I don't need to warn you of this, but listen carefully to the words the Democratic Socialists use to describe the plan. There has been mention of fines to be levied for failing to enroll in the plan. There's the words and there is the practical result. A fine for failing to comply is just another way of telling you that the act is mandatory and the penalty for failing to comply with the law is a fine. In this case, since they intend for this to apply to every American, it is also a tax.
A little like that "voluntary" income tax system we all pay into...and face fines for failing to pay up on a timely basis and in which, if we push hard enough, we get to greet an armed US Marshall at our door one fine … night.
If health care is taken fully out of the free market system, consider the result.
No more research effort into new drugs. The rigid "market" in a single-payer system wouldn't produce the return on investment needed to finance such research. Consider this: we are the only place left of the planet with an economy that can support that research. If it stops here, it stops every where. If, like me, you are holding on for a cure for what ails you, well, never mind.
If you are a man, and getting' on in years, know that there is a much better than even chance that you will have prostate cancer, eventually. In England and Canada, if you are more than 65 years of age and have prostate cancer, the state will not treat the disease. You are no longer within their cost-benefit parameters. Get into your 70's and heart disease and cancer in general fall off the chart as well. One wonders if the Democratic Socialists aren't planning on fixing their Social Security woes by letting us die off as quickly as possible.
On the same cost-benefit issue, consider the cost of devices like CT scanners and other, more sophisticated machines coming along. These things are expensive. If the single-payer system can't support new drug research, why are we to believe it will support new hardware or even technique research? Or, suppose the Democratic Socialists fix that by offering big grants to the university system. (That's where much of this research takes place now, but the building and implementation of these machines is pure free market capitalism.) The research might get done, but the money to build, buy and install these devices will not be present. Unless, of course, the government takes on the task of financing that as well. Say bye-bye to yet another chunk of the free economy.
Certainly our letters and emails to our Representatives can help, but the real voting block whose ox is about to be gored are your doctors. Please, on your next visit to one of your doctors, talk to them about this. Tell them of your concerns. (OK, terrors.) Ask them to pressure the AMA to take a direct and firm stance in opposition to this health care catastrophe. And urge them to write letters of their own.
You might even urge them to contact us.
For more information, check out Docs4patientcare.org