We all know about the Democratic position on health care. After all, it’s a right…. right? Up there with freedom of speech and freedom of the press… wait… maybe those two are slightly more negotiable. I digress.
Anyone with half a brain understands the astronomical costs of providing health care to the entire country. This is why it hasn’t been done yet. Hawaii tried it. Here are the results. From the AP:
HONOLULU (AP) – Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched.
Gov. Linda Lingle’s administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.
“People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free,” said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. “I don’t believe that was the intent of the program.”
Wait, people took ADVANTAGE of free health care? Imagine that. Who can blame them? Why pay for it when you can get it free? Yet people refuse to believe that it can fail.
“We’re very disappointed in the state’s decision, and it came as a complete surprise to us,” said Jennifer Diesman, a spokeswoman for HMSA, the state’s largest health care provider. “We believe the program is working, and given Hawaii’s economic uncertainty, we don’t think now is the time to cut all funding for this kind of program.”
We believe the program is working. It’s not, Jennifer, and this sort of denial is why we’re STILL having this conversation. It wasn’t shut down for the heck of it. It was shut down because it would no longer be funded. I’m pretty sure the state was clear. They thought it would work. People took advantage of it and bankrupted it. So they stopped it.
State health officials argued that most of the children enrolled in the universal child care program previously had private health insurance, indicating that it was helping those who didn’t need it.
That’s exactly the problem. It helps people who don’t need the help, which costs everyone more. Which is why our country cannot afford it. “Oh, but all developed countries have health care, whine whine whine,” says the left. Shut up. We also have the best health care in the world. There’s a correlation there. In addition, we also aren’t taxed 45%, like they are in Canada. I’ll take that trade off.
So, Tabitha, we know all this, you might say. Why am I rehashing it? Here’s why. Since there will never be a remotely fiscally responsible plan relating to universal health care, it will never get through Congress on its own. Therefore, Princess Pelosi and team have managed to slip it through on this atrocity of a legislation they forced through last week. From Newsmax:
Buried in the bowels of the stimulus plan the Senate passed Tuesday are key healthcare provisions that will set America on the road to socialized medicine, involve the government in your choice of a doctor, and inevitably trigger another funding crisis that will be used to justify still greater federal intervention in America’s healthcare industry, experts tell Newsmax.
Among the most controversial parts of the bill are new federal guidelines that will require the government, rather than a doctor, to decide whether a patient should get medical care.
Ironically, the stimulus bill that will cost more than $1 trillion will lay the groundwork for a massive healthcare funding crisis in the future, according to senior healthcare fellow Dennis G. Smith of the Heritage Foundation.
According to Smith, the stimulus bill contains over $100 billion of temporary Medicaid money. In an unprecedented use of Medicaid, that money will go to provide medical coverage for 1.2 million unemployed workers. What happens to those people in two years, when most of the temporary federal funding ends, is a major question. It will eventually lead to huge budget shortfalls when the federal spigot shuts off.
Fits with the pattern right? The government offers huge sums of money to industries that are struggling, accompanied by a list of stipulations. What does this do? Give them grounds to get involved when they start to fail again. After all, we can’t just let failing industries collapse!
The difference here is that the health care industry IS vital. It’s not like the auto industry. We can’t import health care from Japan the way we import cars, making a health care failure more complicated. The government would be FORCED to get involved… it’s a socialist’s dream.
Here’s what Betsy McCaughey from Bloomberg had to say:
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
Unreal. When is this going to stop? It’s starting to feel like a bad movie. If there are two things that I want the government to have no part of it’s my faith and the health of me and my family. This just turns my stomach.
