Who wants free health care?
We here at S&S know that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but we sure wish there was one. Also, we have been taught well by our parents to share, and that teamwork is a valuable skill that can benefit everyone. With teamwork, we can accomplish more together than we could ever do alone, right? Put these two truths together, and you can make a strong argument for socialized medicine. We can all pitch in and eliminate the red tape and the evil insurance companies at once, while providing care to every American citizen. We’d pay a reasonable fraction of our wages to support the system, and really help everyone out. Since everyone is equal and/or deserving, our country can really get a positive momentum going with this plan. What could go wrong?
Well…
#1 Why do we need socialized healthcare? The answer is that not all Americans have/can afford insurance, and some are non-insurable.
But why? Bad life choices (smoking, drinking, obesity, etc) cause all kinds of problems and some people don’t have enough money to buy health insurance.
Why don’t they have money? They either don’t possess enough education, refuse to work hard enough, or they’ve made enough bad choices earlier in their lives that they really never will have enough money (teenage pregnancy, STDs, breaking the law).
To recap, the people who don’t have health insurance boil down to:
Those who never controlled their own health,
Those who can’t hold a job for whatever reason,
Those who made bad choices that prevent them from having money,
and criminals who are unemployable. (Not a full list, but you get the idea)
#2 The government wil NOT eliminate red tape OR the elements of insurance that we hate. First, has the government ever made things easy for you in your life, or have they hit you with forms, fees, taxes, and wacked-out policies at every turn (IRS, parking tickets, change of address forms). We thought so. There is no evidence to suggest (and much to suggest the contrary) that socialized healthcare can be done with any less paperwork and BS than the corporate world uses.
Secondly, we all hate those men who decide that certain elements of our insurance plans are too costly. They remove our benefits “to better serve us”, of course. Sadly, these elements are present in every socialized medicine system in the world, and they are present in every proposal on the table right now from the Democrat Presidential hopefuls. They aren’t going anywhere, folks. The only difference is that you can change insurance companies. These adjustments to our policies will be made by appointed bureaucrats. They are never held accountable, nor are they escapable.
#3 The care is far, far worse. The average time to get a hip replacement in Britain is 6 months. Unbelievable. People in Canada walk around with torn ACL and MCL tendons for weeks or months, waiting for their fair role in healthcare. No thank you, we say. The UK strikes again when we read that patients are being instructed to pull their own teeth to save on costs. Wait, didn’t we start a healthcare system to avoid just that horror. Personally, I have no problem paying a fee to have a professional perform a procedure on me. That is the whole idea, but not with socialized medicine.
We will be stuck in lines behind every hypochondriac and illegal alien who feels that they may be coming down with the sniffles, unless we happen to be actively dying. The only way to get expedient care is to use a private practice and your own extraneous money. Sounds familiar? It should. Its the current system, widely regarded as the best in the world.
Let’s Boil this all down:
You will pay roughly the same money as now, unless you are wealthy, in which case you owe it to society. That’s communism, something we fought to defeat for decades. Now its used against heartless conservatives in a manner that wins votes? We used to prosecute Reds, and now we elect them?
You will pay so that every drug addict, criminal, overly obese diabetic, and teenage parent can have insurance as well. What’s the saying? Life’s not fair, but the liberals will save you? Is that right?
You will pay the same money (or more) for much slower healthcare run by shadow pencil pushers and the same insurance guys, but you won’t have a choice in the matter. Feel that sense of dread? That is the government saving you. We feel safer already.
The Politics of Personal Responsibilty (PPR) do not allow the staunch conservative thinker to fall into the trap of socialized medicine. We see it for what it is. Rich people footing the bill for the poor in a way that ensures economic and even personal destruction. This is a natural attempt by the government to gain control over us, just as a corporation seeks to gain more market share during growth (but corporations are evil, right?). They would own us unless we stand up for our rights. It is not our job to care for those who cannot care for themselves, despite being able bodied (handicapped not included). It is not our job to care for the underclass of society, rife with self-destruction and bad judgment. S&S feels sorry for their plights, but not sorry enough to sacrifice our own to throw them into the governmental black hole.
The Left has been consumed by socialism, and we must fend its attacks until our national hangover passes.
Christopher Graham said,
November 5, 2007 at 8:06 pm
“Its the current system, widely regarded as the best in the world.”
That’s a strange quote, as the WHO actually ranks the United States as number 37, right behind Costa Rica. (link)
Also of note are these pearly citations:
“The average time to get a hip replacement in Britain is 6 months.”
Funny. They’re number 18.
“People in Canada walk around with torn ACL and MCL tendons for weeks or months, waiting for their fair role in healthcare.”
Canada: number 30.
Things really fall into place once you realize that the United States is not “the best in the world” when it comes to health care; to believe that is to believe a fallacy of the Right.
regulusred said,
November 5, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Chris,
Thanks for the comment, buddy. Always good to hear another point of view. We disagree with the WHO rankings, however. We put little faith in any ranking that believes that the quality and availability of health care is better than ours, let alone any socialized system.
The question is simply the source. International bodies are nearly always biased against capitalist systems, and also America in general. The simple question is: Would you rather go to Costa Rica for a dangerous procedure, or here?
You also cannot forget that insurance is so cheap compared to any major procedure that you may have done for any reason, it makes little sense to pay for every procedure that anyone may have, rather than managing your own risk. We at S&S do not feel responsible for the rock climbers, over-eaters, or violent criminals when they need care.
You call our opinion of health care a “fallacy of the right”, yet we notice that you haven’t endorsed another system. What is your opinion?
Thanks for stopping by,
S&S
Christopher said,
November 6, 2007 at 1:01 am
I support a socialized system, as that is the best way to get the best care to the citizens of the United States.
You can choose not to believe the WHO’s ranking as much as you want; it’s your prerogative. Unfortunately, however, that places you into an intellectually isolationist state. Your belief that America has the best health care system does not make it a fact, and I can guarantee that I do not stand alone in the argument that our health care system is poor when compared with others (in fact, I’d say it was around number 37
).
In other words, by leaving out the WHO’s report, you lose a lot of credibility in your argument. Perhaps a better approach would be to accept the WHO’s findings, and instead of writing it off as anti-American sentiment search for a solution to the problem that so obviously exists.
Most importantly, remember that the selfish attitude of not feeling “responsible for the rock climbers, over-eaters, or violent criminals when they need care,” gets no one anywhere. It’s nice that you have all the means you need under the current system to maintain your health; the fact remains, most Americans do not or at least have difficulty doing so.
Insurance may be cheap in comparison to major operations, but statements like that are byproducts of narrow thinking: neither the insurance nor the operations are cheap when compared to other, better health care systems.
Again, until S&S can provide substantial, non-anecdotal evidence (as is in the WHO report) to the contrary, America does not have the world’s best health care, and cannot under the current system of overcapitalization.
For those reasons, yes, I would rather go to Costa Rica. In fact, I’d probably have to; I wouldn’t be able to afford our terribly-inflated health care costs.
Thanks very much.
regulusred said,
November 6, 2007 at 10:27 am
Thanks again for joining the fun,
We do not support socialized medicine because not everyone should get health care, in our view. We’ll not rehash that, as we clearly disagree on a philosophical level.
We do agree that health care costs far too much these days, but socializing the system will not fix that problem. Hospitals will charge the same, we’ll just be paying the government for it instead of the insurance companies. Prices are not about to go down, regardless of what the government tries, and I’m afraid that capitalism is here to stay, regardless of who the new President is.
If you were to forcibly lower prices through government means, you will see an exodus from the public health care fields. They will most likely set up private firms to escape the price controls, leaving many Americans paying into a system that doesn’t possess the medical abilities it should. Prices will be the same. This argument also completely lacks the acknowledgment that care is much slower in a socialized system. At least the weather in Costa Rica will be pleasant, because you’ll be waiting in line for any non-life threatening procedure.
The answer, as we see it, is to streamline many of the procedures done in hospitals today. If we can shorten hospital stays and control a great deal of malpractice suits, the insurance for doctors will plummet, and costs will be shorter.
Capitalism is the answer, as it always has been for this country. Socialism has failed all through history, and it will again, but this time it drags our economy with it. At least the coming recession will not be blamed on Bush, not to mention the thousands of health insurance jobs that suddenly disappear.
Christopher said,
November 6, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Well, you said it best in your first statement: we disagree on a philosophical level; no amount of point-counterpoint will solve our dilemma.
I will say this: don’t confuse Socialism (often associated with the USSR) with Western Socialism (the system of France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and others). Western Socialistic countries are very successful, and some, like Switzerland, boast a higher GDP per capita than the United States. None of them could be described as failures. It’s the use of Socialism as a blanket term that allows you to make such brash assumptions.
Once again, “the acknowledgment that care is much slower in a socialized system” is anecdotal, and not in agreement with the findings of the WHO. We’ve already established that you have a habit of leaving them out, so I won’t dwell there.
A move to Western Socialism is not a move from Capitalism; the two coexist quite nicely, as evidenced (in part) by the countries I have mentioned. The difference is that our populace will be far healthier than they are now, which benefits everyone, whether they feel that “not everyone should get health care” or not.
And lastly, the coming recession will be blamed on Bush, as it should be. This country had a surplus after President Clinton, a surplus which is now nonexistent thanks to President Bush and his illegal war in Iraq. Certainly, this fact may not be directly related to the relatively poor state of the economy, but it does illustrate Bush’s innate ability for economic failure due to his perversion of Reaganomics (which didn’t work in the first place).
Have a good day. Thank you for the dialog.
lunawolf said,
November 7, 2007 at 9:18 am
You are so very blind. The middle class hard-working Americans are losing jobs and homes because of trauma or unexpected illness, not because they aren’t smart enough or healthy enough. Yes, not all people make healthy choices, but do you think health insurance companies are going to support preventative education when they can just wait and get more money down the line? I don’t think so.
You wish to reserve the ability to see a doctor to the wealthy because you think you know everything about everyone’s situation with their bodies. You list three reasons for the health problems in America. With 300 million people, you don’t think it could be a bit more complex than that?
People like you disregard “socialistic” health care programs such as you find in Canada, but you know what? I’ve actually talked to people that have used that system and they loved it. A friend of mine spent six dollars for an overnight stay after she had her baby when she lived in Canada. Another friend of mine is going to have a co-pay of $400 dollars a night when she has her baby here in three months.
Disbelieve all you want, but you can’t argue with results.