Wednesday, September 3, 2008

A 25 Year Old's Attempt to Preempt Pain

The subject of 'failed healthcare' in America is worth addressing.

Indeed, American medicine is in a sad state, and needs fixing. What is the root cause of the failure of medicine in America? The platitudes being bandied about would have us blame 'market failure' and would have us regard socialized medicine as a necessity. To save ourselves, we must surely toss the healthcare industry into the hideous maw of complete governmental regulation. But the popular plans of politicians are best known for promising us the moon for free and letting future taxpayers work out the details of the bill. A simple consideration of voting demographics suggests why politicians are very fired up right now about giving you "free health services (for higher taxes)"... The ponderous population known as the baby boomers is getting fairly long in the tooth, and many of them worry about the infirmity of their aging bodies. Old people vote in disproportionately high numbers already, but the unscrupulous elders will be especially willing to vote for candidates who promise them a fountain of youth, overflowing with socialized medicine. In other words, the 'solution' of socialized medicine being offered by politicians is pure political pandering for votes. I guarantee the politicians worry more about voting demographics than the studies which truthfully detail the costs and missed opportunities resulting from a government healthcare system.

As a 25 year old who will suffer the consequences of regulations placed on healthcare now for the rest of his life, I must take issue with the idea of socialized medicine in America. In a just world, the sins of the father should not be visited upon the son. But that will be the way of it with socialized medicine, for future generations will suffer the consequences of our mistakes regarding healthcare policy now. Once medicine is socialized, a very strong constituency entrenching the bureaucracy will develop. This constituency will ensure that the bureaucrats associated with regulation of medicine will retain their jobs. We need only to look at the lobbying clout of the municipal employees labor unions and teacher's unions for examples of these powerful, entrenched special interests. To be sure, these special interest groups, once they develop in medicine, will not be lobbying to provide you with better healthcare at a cheaper price. Any changes back to a freer market in medicine we wish for in the future will be very hard to achieve, once we relinquish our freedom of choice in medicine.

And so, the big-government barbarian horde claws at the gates. The horde is demanding MORE regulation of a healthcare industry which is already burdened by mountains of regulation. Many folks do not seem to notice the direct correlation between centralization and stagnation. Industries infected by burdensome regulations just aren't as vibrant as those markets which are more free. Regulation in healthcare has been increasing for decades. Tax codes have resulted in insurance schemes which have all but severed the beneficial payment/service relationship between patient and doctor. It is the tax code which led to expensive employee-sponsored health insurance programs, as well as the increasing tendency for insurance to have to cover ALL maladies -- whether the insured wanted coverage for the specific malady or not. Costs forced onto insurance companies only drive up the cost of health insurance. Behold, the reason why many of those 47M Americans are uninsured: the government regulation made it too expensive for them, duh!

When the U.S. census bureau tells us that 50% of every dollar spent on healthcare comes from federal, state, and local government, but only 27% of the populace is insured under their schemes, we should rethink the idea that the government will make healthcare cheaper. Perhaps we should not be so quick to accuse the private sector for the flaws of the system, when the pitch of our screams has been proportional to political involvement. A historical perspective, showing the facts which prove that it is government regulation which has led to the ruin of American healthcare are detailed in this wonderfully informative article: ( http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-winter/moral-vs-universal-health-care.asp ). This email is just a double-barrelled blast of reality into your eye sockets. But that article is the napalm bomb of truth, ignited by the fire of justice. All of the weak undergrowth supporting the false arguments for rationed healthcare is incinerated by it. Take heed, if you support socialized medicine and choose to read that article, please prepare to have your dreams exposed for the nightmares they actually cause.

Proponents of socialized medicine believe costs can be whisked away to never-never land. If they didn't think they would get more out of the system than they were putting in, they would not promote it. But imagine that: proponents of socialized medicine hope to gain MORE from the system than they put into it... It is bad enough to promote a system of law in which you hope to benefit at somebody else's expense, but it's even worse to promote it under the artifice of an altruistic plan to 'help others.'

There was a time in America when those who wanted to help others reached into their own wallets.

Insurance companies are the special target of the proponents of socialized medicine. And insurance adjustors especially are villified as some of the most 'greedy, heartless' employees on earth. Why is it moral for an insured patient to claim what his contract guarantees, but immoral for an insurance company to pay what the contract guarantees? The adjustor is simply the person who ensures that the company will not be bankrupted by fraudulent claims. Ridiculing insurance companies for this behavior is irrational; every business faces the necessity of controlling costs. Getting emotional over Michael Moore's movie won't eliminate that fact, or the fact that it's the only thing which can prevent health insurance costs from spiralling out of control completely. It will be interesting to see what happens if we eliminate the evil, bean-counting insurance adjustors entirely. Surely a glorious day will result when we eliminate the only thing reigning in health insurance expenditure. As P.J. O'Rourke said, "If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it is free."

The blanket accusations of insurance company's dishonest thievery are tantamount to the ridiculous racist scare tactics of the past. "Insurance company employees are out to rip off unhealthy people." That implication underlies seemingly all of the media 'news' stories which I've read about healthcare. This is nothing more than scapegoating populism. Hitler said the same sort of things about the Jews. It is precisely this blanket disrespect which has led to DECADES of legislation piling up on insurance providers -- which has only increased the cost of insurance to consumers (refer to that article). What has happened to the defense of freedom of association, voluntary trade, and the sanctity of contract? It is only competition and a judicial system protecting contracts which will eliminate any ACTUAL frauds from the healthcare industry.

Did you know that an elderly person in Canada can wait two or three years for a knee or hip replacement, while Canada's free market in pet healthcare can get their dog a new hip within a week? Funny, if it weren't true. Wake up, America. This is not something we can promote simply because 'We feel it would be nice' if everybody had 'free healthcare.' This is a matter of life and death. The amount of suffering, waste, and pain which will occur under a nationalized healthcare system will be stunning for those who have to suffer from it. How will the benevolent bureaucrats learn when they've made a mistake in rationing us our portion of The People's Healthcare? When people start dying, of course. The following is a quote from the "Canadian Medical Association Journal" (CMAJ):

"During the 1999 election campaign, the New Democrats promised to keep cardiac surgery programs operating in both hospitals. However, attitudes changed when people on the waiting list started dying — there have been 11 deaths since 1999 — and both the Liberals and Conservatives demanded Chomiak's resignation. The last straw appears to have been the death of Diane Gorsuch, 58, who died in February after spending more than 2 years awaiting surgery. Thirteen days after she died, the review was announced."

The bureaucrats learned their lesson a little too late for Ms. Gorsuch. And why not? Politicians and bureaucrats in a democracy only really have to worry about pleasing the majority -- who do not need the care that she did. That is the cold, simple explanation for why patients in nationalized healthcare systems have such miserable access to specialized services. Quite a few more gorey details about the Canadian healthcare system are in that linked article above. Ahh yes, but why should we bother worrying about Ms. Gorsuch? We've got pretty ideas about a free healthcare utopia to implement, don't we?

Her case is just one specific example of how governments fail to allocate services as efficiently as the free market can. How could we have known that cases such as Ms. Gorsuch's would happen? It's not like it wasn't predictable, it's basic economics. When bureaucrats direct the industry instead of prices, they'll inevitably fail at their jobs:

"The significance of free market prices in the allocation of resources can be seen more clearly by looking at situations where prices are not allowed to perform this function. During the era of the government-directed economy of the Soviet Union, for example, prices were not set by supply and demand but by central planners who sent resources to their various uses by direct commands, supplemented by prices that the planners raised or lowered as they saw fit. Two Soviet economists, Nikolai Shmelev and Vladimir Popov, described a situation in which their government raised the price it would pay for moleskins, leading hunters to get and sell more of them: 'State purchases increased, and now all the distribution centers are filled with these pelts. Industry is unable to use them all, and they often rot in warehouses before they can be processed. The Ministry of Light Industry has already requested Goskomsten twice to lower purchasing prices, but the "question has not been decided" yet. And this is not surprising. It's members are too busy to decide. They have no time: besides setting prices on these pelts, they have to keep track of another 24 million prices.'" -- Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics.

If thousands of healthcare industry workers are only able to deliver healthcare to us out from under a mountain of regulation at the prices we pay today, what makes us believe a few elected saviors can carry us off to a utopia of free healthcare? Socialized medicine in America: I hope you are as excited as I am to hurry up and wait in those healthcare rationing lines. Rationing is the only way governments can reign in costs for any industry they monopolize. Waiting lines are going to happen to us, just as they did in Russia for all commodities, just as they're happening right now in every country with national healthcare.

I hope I will be able to survive the wait.

I'm here to tell any reader who promotes socialized medicine: implementing the grandeur of your vision is not worth the cost of Diane Gorsuch's life. She was forced to pay taxes all her life to support a system which permitted her death. They failed. She died. The results will be no different, once these 'dreams' are implemented here and we start suffering their nightmare effects. It is high time for the aspiring healthcare dictators to answer the most important question:

What really matters: the perceived nobility of your vision? Or actual human well-being?

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