Free Health Care Shortages

Campus Report ^ | June 16, 2009 | Deidre Almstead

[bs9021]

Free Health Care Shortages

by: Deidre Almstead, June 16, 2009

Katie Brickell’s new life as a twenty-five-year old newly-wed was all but completely halted when she discovered she had cervical cancer, with only a few years left to live. Her hope for survival was placed in receiving cancer treatments through the United Kingdom’s government-run health care system.

Katie claims that her cancer could have been prevented or at least identified at an earlier stage had she been allowed a pap-smear, a common screening test for cervical cancer. Now all Katie can do is to continue to fight for the health care she needs, and dream of the lost life where she and her husband could “have children naturally.”

Katie’s story as well as the testimonies of many others were documented in a film produced by Conservatives for Patient’s Rights, a non-profit organization pushing for the establishment of a free market health care system. Americans for Tax Reform played host to a June 3rd screening of this documentary, followed by a discussion of the current and future health care structures in the United States.

The Obama Administration, in its passage of the stimulus package, created many government organizations and programs similar to those present in the Canadian and British single-payer health care systems. The appointment of Dr. David Blumenthal as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology assisted with the formation of a national, governmentally-run database housing the medical records of all Americans. In addition to this formation, the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (FCCCR) was established to “help coordinate research and guide investments in comparative effectiveness research funded by the Recovery Act.” ...

[Vigilanteman]

So what if “free health care” kills a few cervixal cancer cases now and then? Think of all the precious junkies they save with free methadone and repeated rehabs for cocaine addicts! < / sarcasm >

[CharlesWayneCT]

There are tests that are not “cost-effective”, meaning that the cost of the tests for every person are more than the total cost of treating people who get the disease and are diagnosed at a later time with other, cheaper tests.

So if you are going for the most “cost-effective” medical care, you would skip the tests, treat those who catch the disease when you later find it, and accept that some people will die as a result.

If however your goal as an individual is to stay alive, you will pay for the test that is not “cost-effective”, and therefore save your life.

If however you are a leech who refuses to pay for your own medical care, you will join the call for public health care, which WILL be “cost-effective”, and you will die.

[mjp]

Socialized medicine is an example of the evils of egalitarianism which encourages people to (1)do nothing and (2)demand everything. It is tantamount to abolition of causality in the earning of income and in the const of spending of income. To make something free to the individual, and chargeable to the group as a whole makes the consumption of the individual virtually costless.

Doctor visits that are virtually costless increases the demand for healthcare by the individual which increases the overall cost of healthcare to the group as a whole, and decreases the quantity and quality of actual healthcare received by the individual. This will lead to controls by the government which will lead to shortages which will lead to rationing.

[socialismisinsidious]

Socialized Medicine aka Universal Health Care PING LIST

FReepmail me if you want to be added to or removed from this ping list.

[fanfan]

Still waiting for a knee, and thanks for the ping.