Swine Flu Pandemic And Why We DON'T Want Socialized Medicine

Start Thinking Right ^ | May 1, 2009 | Michael Eden

[Michael Eden]

Let's see. Obama unveils his socialized medicine plan just as the swine flu hits the headlines. The Teleprompter of the United States of America told Americans that the swine flu proved that $12.8 trillion of government spending isn't enough. You'd almost think there was a hand on a switch somewhere.

The left - being the ideological partisan demagogues they are - immediately engaged in a "YES WE CAN . . . . blame the Republicans" campaign.

If they didn't demonize, they wouldn't be Democrats. And when I talk about "the Dems," you know I'm referring to "the Demagogues."

As a matter of practical reality, the administration may be right in not wanting to take the economy-harming step of closing the border with one of our top trading partners (although there are LEVELS of closing the border - and we NEED to do a MUCH better job of protecting our borders). But their argument for not closing the border is absolutely pathetic. They claim that since the flu is now here, closing the border would be tantamount to closing the barn after the horse has left. The problem with the logic of their argument is that there are clearly way too many infected horses in Mexico who are infecting still healthy American horses.

Mexico is a country of over one hundred million people - and it is a country in crisis. The first "American" causality of swine flu was a Mexican child who died in an American hospital. And infected Mexicans are continuing to flow across the border and infect Americans.

The difference in how the swine flue has hit Mexico versus the United States raises a very simple question:

Swine flu worse in Mexico than US, but why? By MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer

ATLANTA — Why has the swine flu engulfing Mexico been deadly there, but not in the United States?

Nearly all those who died in Mexico were between 20 and 40 years old, and they died of severe pneumonia from a flu-like illness believed caused by a unique swine flu virus.

The 11 U.S. victims cover a wider age range, as young as 9 to over 50. All those people either recovered or are recovering; at least two were hospitalized.

"So far we have been quite fortunate," said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday, just hours before three new U.S. cases were confirmed.

Health experts worry about a flu that kills healthy young adults — a hallmark of the worst global flu epidemics. Deaths from most ordinary flu outbreaks occur among the very young and very old.

Why the two countries are experiencing the illness differently is puzzling public health experts, who say they frankly just don't know.

Conservatives know.

But . . . but . . . Mexico has socialized medicine!

By JAMES TARANTO APRIL 27, 2009

This is a Bicentennial Minute. Eleven Americans, ranging in age from 9 to 50, have come down with swine flu, the Associated Press reports: "All those people either recovered or are recovering; at least two were hospitalized."

In Mexico, however, the toll has been much worse. "About 70 deaths out of roughly 1,000 cases represents a fatality rate of about 7 percent," the AP notes. This is far higher than the 2.5% fatality rate from the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19, although the latter was many orders of magnitude more widespread, killing 40 million people world-wide.

"The Mexican rate sounds terrifying," the AP writes. "But it's possible that far more than 1,000 people have been infected with the virus and that many had few if any symptoms." Which is somewhat, though not entirely, reassuring.

The AP dispatch is titled "Swine Flu Worse in Mexico Than US, but Why?" There's no definitive answer, but here's one of the possibilities:

Access to medical care has been an issue in Asia, where a rare bird flu--which does not spread easily from person-to-person--has killed more than 200 over the last several years. Maybe Mexican patients have also had trouble getting medical care or antiviral drugs, some have speculated--even though the government provides health care.

Wouldn't this paragraph make more sense if it ended ". . . BECAUSE the government provides health care"?

You see, we have a successful health care system because we haven't allowed the government to ruin it yet.

When Obama DOES ruin it by having the government take it over, we'll be rationing our medical resources, too.

Obama inserted medical rationing into his porkulus package.

It was always such a no-brainer (so you'd think even our no-brain-no-pain liberals would understand): socialized medicine invariably leads to the rationing of health care resources. There were hard facts supporting this over a decade ago.

While Obama is saying, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" on socialized medicine, the very countries we are wanting to be like such as Canada have been saying, "This utopia isn't working out so well."

Do you recall the very recent death of actress Natasha Richardson on a Canadian ski resort? She very likely died as a result of socialized medicine, medical rationing, and poor diagnoses as a result of "the very finest care the government can provide."

As long as there is private competition, you can always take your business elsewhere. That has always - up until Barack Obama and his fondness for nationalizing - led to be tendency of the free market to provide the best services at the lowest prices.

California - yes, liberal, Kool-Aid-drinking California - recently rejected socialized health care.

Allow me to quote myself as to Obama's plan:

One thing is extremely important to understand: Obama’s health care plan is modeled on the Massachusetts plan. How are things going there? Well, in the three years of the program’s existence, the tiny state is now already facing cost overruns of over $400 million. Does that sound like a rousing success? Massachusetts is facing a projected 85% increase in its costs by 2009 - which should set up a serious red flag that such programs are MASSIVELY underfunded.

And Obama would take those massive cost overruns and multiply them like Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes.

Government run health care is based on a fool's premise: that the government can save money by employing the economies of scale. The simple fact of the matter is that government bureaucracies, government boondoggles, government hyper-regulation, government susceptibility to massive systemic fraud, and government mismanagement will always kill the golden goose of scale. One hundred percent of the time.

Which was why the Senate couldn't even run a damn cafeteria without going millions of dollars into the red.

The promise is that they will be able to cover millions more people for the same or less money by efficiency. But government is inherently inefficient. Which means they not only don't SAVE money, they LOSE money. And then they've now got millions more people to cover.

Hence rationing. Hence more people die.

[FormerACLUmember]

The Mexicans have Obama style socialized medicine, which is efficient only in killing Mexicans.

Are we as a nation so insane as to give up our healthcare?

[Michael Eden]

Whatever we do, let’s not let the left get away with calling for government health care because of the swine flu outbreak.

The reason swine flu is coming here is because of the FAILURE of government health care.

[Diogenesis]

Mitt Romney chortles, as he inflicts his socialized medicine (HillaryCARE=ROmneyCARE)
upon the Massachusetts citizens.

---

"Hospital patients 'left in agony'"
"Patients were allegedly left screaming in pain and drinking from flower vases on a nightmare hospital ward.
Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust over three years, a damning Healthcare Commission report said.
The watchdog's investigation found inadequately trained staff who were too few in number, junior doctors left alone in charge at night and patients left without food, drink or medication as their operations were repeatedly cancelled.
Patients were left in pain or forced to sit in soiled bedding for hours at a time and were not given their regular medication, the Commission heard.
Receptionists with no medical training were expected to assess patients coming in to A&E, some of whom needed urgent care.
Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, said there had been a "gross and terrible breach" of patients' trust and a "complete failure of leadership".
The Healthcare Commission's chairman Sir Ian Kennedy said the investigation followed concerns about a higher than normal death rate at the Trust, which senior managers could not explain.
He said: "The resulting report is a shocking story. Our report tells a story of appalling standards of care and chaotic systems for looking after patients. These are words I have not previously used in any report.
"There were inadequacies in almost every stage of caring for patients. There was no doubt that patients will have suffered and some of them will have died as a result."
Julie Bailey, 47, was so concerned about the care being given to her 86-year-old mother Bella at Stafford Hospital that she and her relatives slept in a chair at her bedside for eight weeks.
She said: "We saw patients drinking out of..."

---

"Paramedics told: 'Let accident victims die if they want to' in new row over patient rights (UK)"
Health Service paramedics have been told not to resuscitate terminally-ill patients who register on a controversial new database to say they want to die.
It has been set up by the ambulance service in London for hundreds of people who have only a few months to live so that they may register their 'death wishes' in advance.
It is believed to be the first in the country, but other trusts around the country are expected to follow suit to comply with Government guidelines which state that patients' wishes should be taken into account, even at the point of death.
Patients' groups and doctors have welcomed the scheme, but it has met opposition from pro-life groups who say it violates the sanctity of life.
The system would come into play if a cancer patient, for example, was in serious pain and rang 999 for help to alleviate the suffering.
But if the paramedics arrived and the patient was close to death, he or she would not be resuscitated if such a request was registered on the database.
This would also be the case if a patient on the database was being transferred between hospitals, and had a heart attack.
Dominica Roberts from the Pro-Life Alliance said: 'This is very sad and very dangerous. It's another step along the slippery slope, at the bottom of which is euthanasia as we see in Holland. 'Paramedics should be there to save lives. They should not be there to let patients die. The medical profession should not agree with someone's belief that their life is worthless.'"

---

"National Health Preview - The Massachusetts debacle, coming soon to your neighborhood."
"Three years ago, the former Massachusetts Governor had the inadvertent good sense to create the "universal" health-care program that the White House and Congress now want to inflict on the entire country.
It is proving to be instructive, as Mr. Romney's foresight previews what President Obama, Max Baucus, Ted Kennedy and Pete Stark are cooking up for everyone else.
In Massachusetts's latest crisis, Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues are starting to move down the path that government health plans always follow when spending collides with reality -- i.e., price controls.
As costs continue to rise, the inevitable results are coverage restrictions and waiting periods. It was only a matter of time.

They're trying to manage the huge costs of the subsidized middle-class insurance program that is gradually swallowing the state budget.
The program provides low- or no-cost coverage to about 165,000 residents, or three-fifths of the newly insured, and is budgeted at $880 million for 2010, a 7.3% single-year increase that is likely to be optimistic.
The state's overall costs on health programs have increased by 42% (!) since 2006.

What really whipped along RomneyCare were claims that health care would be less expensive if everyone were covered.
But reducing costs while increasing access are irreconcilable issues.
Mr. Romney should have known better before signing on to this not-so-grand experiment, especially since the state's "free market" reforms that he boasts about have proven to be irrelevant when not fictional.
Only 21,000 people have used the "connector" that was supposed to link individuals to private insurers."

---

A Very Sick Health Plan; Bay State’s ‘Grand Experiment’ Fails [RomneyCare]
"The Daily News Record, Harrisonburg, Va. - 2009-03-31 "
"For folks increasingly leery of President Obama’s plan to radically overhaul America’s health-care system,
or 17 percent of the nation’s economy, all this could hardly have come at a better time —
that is, fiscal troubles aplenty within Repubican Mitt Romney’s brainchild, Massachusetts’ “grand experiment” in “universal” health care."

"Initiated on Mr. Romney’s gubernatorial watch in 2006, this “experiment” has fallen on hard times, and predictably so.
Even though the Bay State commenced its program with a far smaller percentage of uninsured residents than exists nationwide,
“RomneyCare” is threatening to bankrupt the state. Budgeted for Fiscal Year 2010 at $880 million,
or 7.3 percent more than a year ago, this plan, aimed at providing low- or no-cost health coverage to roughly 165,000 residents,
has caused Massachusetts’ overall expenditures on all health-related programs to jump an astounding 42 percent since 2006.

So what does Mr. Romney’s successor, Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, propose as a remedy for these skyrocketing costs?
Well, whaddya think? The standard litany of prescriptions (no pun intended) — price controls and spending caps, for a start, and then, again predictably, waiting periods and limitations on coverage.
As in Europe and Canada, so too in Massachusetts. And, we feel certain, everyone from Mr. Romney to Mr. Patrick said, “It would never happen here.”
But then, such things are inevitable when best-laid plans, with all their monstrous costs, run smack-dab into fiscal reality.

---

"The Horrors of Socialized Health Care" Imagine a modern, first-world country where there is such a shortage of dental care that patients are reduced to pulling their own rotting teeth. This country is the United Kingdom—where ordinary citizens encounter primitive and barbaric dental care practices and experience nightmarish ordeals.
You’re probably wondering how can this be? Before we explain, please read one Scottish man’s horrifying account of dental care in Scotland.
As you read the horrors that this Scottish citizen is going through, please remember that this is a national phenomenon he is describing. See for example this news account.

The United Kingdom provides public, socialized dental care. Socialized care creates shortages and reduces both quality and the rate of innovation.
One of the most basic principles of economics is that if you reduce the price of an item or service below its market price, a shortage of that item is created. In health care, we see this phenomenon in the emergency rooms of hospitals. It is commonplace for patients who are not paying for their care to show-up in emergency rooms with illnesses that do not require emergency medical attention and frequently do not require any medical attention at all. You can wait a long time in an emergency room—there is a shortage of emergency room services.
In the United Kingdom, teeth are still routinely filled with poisonous mercury amalgams. To a citizen of the United Kingdom, innovations, like laser dentistry or one-step dental implants, would be possible only in a science fiction story.

As I read accounts of United Kingdom dental care, I felt compassion for those who go without basic necessities. Be it food, shelter, or medical care, there are still too many deprivations all over the world.
The economically illiterate believe these deprivations can be solved with more government involvement. As I read accounts of UK citizens queuing-up for substandard dental care, I remembered accounts of citizens in the former Soviet Union queuing-up for substandard food.
I thought of our own socialized educational system. We usually don’t think of it as socialized—instead, we call it public education. But the same principles operate.
We pay through the tax system and then, except if you are fortunate enough to have extra income to buy your child private education, you’re forced to use the public school no matter how low the quality is.
Consider inner-city families whose public school doesn’t even provide a basic level of safety for the children. Telling the parents that they should send their children to private schools is an inconceivable possibility.
Similarly, for poor or middle class United Kingdom citizens, private dental care is just not possible. The gentleman whose account you read earlier is clearly thoughtful and caring. I have exchanged views with him on his blog and on my own. Despite all of the suffering that he is experiencing, he still seems to believe that the failures of socialized care are due to to failures in implementation. He does not see that the failure of socialized care is due to a faulty concept.
This is not unlike the former Soviet Union, where the answer to their food problems was always a new five-year plan. It is not unlike the United States, where the answer for the failures of the public schools is always seen to be more money.
In this rush toward socialized services, many imagine that they will get top-notch care while paying less than they do right now. Nothing is further from the truth. For most, the “price” will go up in many ways—new taxes to fund a new healthcare bureaucracy, shortages of services, stagnation of innovation, and reduced quality of car"

[rovenstinez]

Dr. Manning is green behind the ears. He doesn’t know what he is talking about. We don’t do statistics in Mexico at ALL like they do in the USA. We use the metric system, for building houses, and the liter system for buying gas. So what ever DEATHS per thousand..Mexican’s die MORE! Probably has more to do with statistical count. Like they ‘modified’ the number from 132 deaths..to 7.
Shucks I’ve been to dozens of village in Mexico where they have several above the age of 100, they have teeth, no breasts removed, no heart by pass, no prostrate removal, and no knee replacement. Because they WALK long distances, and don’t consume much sugar, these mountain people are STRONG and resillient, and I doubt a little of Obama’s Swine Flu he brought to town will take them down easily.....Mr. Manning.

[Michael Eden]

Socializing medicine means dumbing down the entire system so more people can get the crappiest care imaginable.

Obama has spent more money than every president from George Washington to George Bush - and we’re supposed to believe that he really gives a flying frog about lowering the cost of health care.

He has already nationalized the auto industry and the banking industry.

Now he wants to nationalize health care (1/6th of our economy),

to effectively nationalize education,

and to massively take over the energy industry in a frankly fascist fashion.

[Tax-chick]

What kind of “pandemic” is a few hundred cases, worldwide, of a usually mild illness? Some people are just nuts.

[Michael Eden]

It is a pandemic by the definition of the term “pandemic.”

Pandemic: An epidemic (a sudden outbreak) that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world.

It’s not the deadliness, or the number of cases, that constitutes a pandemic. It is the spread. There are confirmed cases of swine flu all over the world, making it a pandemic.

I would agree that ebola would be a far WORSE pandemic if it started spreading all over the world.

[Tax-chick]

Oh, I see. So basically everything is a “pandemic” these days, since all it takes is a few Spring Breakers to carry disease X from Pesthole Y to Countries A to Q.

[Brad’s Gramma]

bfl

[Michael Eden]

That may be. And there is very likely a political angle to it.

Basically, on damn near every level imaginable, a group of elites can push some buttons and create a crisis.

And then use that crisis to advance an agenda.

And then use that agenda to gain more power.

[Tax-chick]

Excellent observations.

[DvdMom]

Ping

[Salamander]

And Maryland just passed the same law.

We “the people” did not get to vote on it or have any say in it whatsoever.

In fact, Blue Cross/Blue Shield [our provider] is 100% behind it.

I am scared spitless.

[and *no*, I can’t afford to move away]

[LegalEagle61]

We have always had crooks and losers in our government, but now we have pure evil residing in the White House and Congress, none of this stuff is to “help people” as the liberals want everyone to think, it is all part of something very sinister, just wait and see. I am convinced that like God has his people here on earth, Satan also has his and they are called Liberals.

[Michael Eden]

The more liberal big government fails, the more liberal big government will use the resulting chaos to seize still more power.

[Salamander]

Just posted this on another thread so you’re preaching to the choir, FRiend.

---

I simply can NOT understand how any true Christian did not discern what he is.

Lord knows I’m [often monotonously] on the record *here* as practically shrieking my warnings of “EVIL INCARNATE!” for *months*.

If a pathetic, sinful, perpetual penitent like myself can see it plain as day, I don’t know how “better” Christians missed it.

---

I absolutely believe that Satan’s minions are very, *very* busy now, either inhabiting or influencing “useful idiots”.

“Villainy wears no deadlier guise than that of Virtue”.

We here do not speak his name, we just call him The Dark Man, a la “The Stand”.

[and in a rare bit of tragic irony, now we end up with with a weird, shifting antigen ‘super flu’. Life imitating art?]

[Michael Eden]

I have a feeling we’re on the same page:

If we could afford to move to a “rightwing conservative” state, where every single county voted “Red,” we’d do it.

I wish we could split into two countries: God bless America and God damn America - and people could pick up and move to the one they chose (and have to STAY there afterward).

I’d bet the liberals (i.e. God damn America) would have completely destroyed their country and be begging to come in so they could ruin ours within a generation.

[Salamander]

Just so long as *we* keep the Appalachians, I’m good to go...:)

[Salamander]

The Hegelian Dialectic.

Old and very effective tactic.

I’d say everyone should go research it but all we have to do now is wake up every morning and watch it happening in real time.