Posted on 06/20/2007 10:16:47 PM PDT by goldstategop
I'm going to make a little prediction.
In a few days, Michael Moore's latest mockumentary, "Sicko," will release nationally.
It is an indictment of health care in the U.S. and a paean to systems in worker paradises like Cuba.
But given the notoriety and box-office success of some of Michael Moore's other agitprop fare, I predict it will be rapidly followed by the introduction of major federal legislation that will, in effect, attempt to nationalize and socialize medicine in the U.S.
In my own meager effort to pre-empt this well-orchestrated plot, I would like to bust a few of the myths that are already being spread about health care in America.
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The big scare figure bandied about by the Moore-style alarmists is that an estimated 25 million to 35 million people in this country have had no health insurance for a year or longer.
Keep in mind that is just about 10 percent of the population. So, another way to look at this equation is to say 90 percent of the population has made responsible choices with budgets to make health insurance a priority. Considering that at any given moment about 5 percent of the population workforce is unemployed, is it really shocking that 10 percent is without health insurance?
Furthermore, I know some of those people – perhaps as many as 1 or 2 percent – are very wealthy. They don't bother with health insurance. They simply pay their doctor bills as needed. So now we are talking about 8 or 9 percent of the population without insurance.
Does that mean they don't get health care?
No, it does not. In America, no one – insured or not – is turned away from emergency care.
Now let's reintroduce another hot topic into the equation – illegal aliens. We are told there are 12 million in the country at any given moment. I strongly suspect that figure is too low by half. But let's use the figure the amnesty advocates themselves use – 12 million. If we subtract just that number from the total of uninsured, we're back down to the unemployment level of about 5 percent.
Keep in mind with an unemployment figure at 5 percent, very few people are chronically unemployed. Economists would explain that this figure largely represents transitions from one job to another. About 5 percent of the public is between jobs – meaning they recently left one and are seeking, and likely to find, another.
Again, is it surprising that the percentage of uninsured would roughly correlate with the number of unemployed? It is neither shocking nor a crisis.
Another claim of those who would trade your freedom for their empowerment is that health-care costs are out of control. They explain the current system is inefficient and involves enormous administrative costs.
For once, the alarmists are actually right – to a point.
The system is broken. Administrative costs are too high. And this is a direct result of the inroads the health-care socialists have already made with programs like Medicaid and Medicare. Even private insurance programs result in radically higher costs for medical care because patients themselves are not paying the piper. Patients choose to have procedures and tests – necessary or unnecessary – they might not have if they had to pay the bill themselves.
But understand this: Further socializing the system, making it less accountable to the consumer and spreading the costs around will only send health-care fees through the roof.
This may sound cold and cruel, but it is nevertheless true: Health-care insurance is affordable for every single working family in America today. It's simply a matter of priorities.
Let me put it to you this way. Does the average American family spend more money on food or health-care insurance? The answer, of course, is food. Now, why is it that food costs are not skyrocketing like health-care costs? The answer is because food producers and retailers have to answer directly to the consumer. Health-care providers do not.
If you really want to bring down the cost of health care, insurance programs would provide only for catastrophic illnesses and injuries. Routine doctor visits and hospital treatments would be paid directly by consumers. Government would be taken out of the equation altogether.
The more you spread the pain, the more pain there will be.
That's why the real Sicko is the one who promotes government control of health care.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Additionally, the high salaries tend to attract the “best and brightest”. If you take away the financial incentive for medical professionals (which offsets the *years* of costly training), you’ll end up with a shortage of healthcare workers and, at the same time, a surplus of people lining up for “free” healthcare.
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(Please FReepmail if you want on, or off, this list. I certainly have no desire to increase anyone’s stress-level. Thanks!!!)
I certainly agree. I will accept government subsidized premiums for PRIVATE healthcare insurance for the very poor. (Universal health care.)
But no more going to the emergency room instead of the doctor. And don't even bother going to the hospital without insurance. If you get hit by a car and don't have insurance -- who's supposed to pay for that?
If sick people show up without insurance, they should thrown out to die in the street. It's cruel, I know. But, what's the alternative? The broken system we already have.
We must stop caring for poor (or negligent) people who do not have insurance (including their kids and preemies) -- or we will ruin our health care system and drive costs even higher.
I’ll believe he’s in the mainstream when I see the pictures of his carcass face down in the East River. Thanks SB.
My prediction is that sicko isn’t going be anywhere near as big as F911. America’s healthcare system is still by far the best in the world. Nothing comes close and most americans know it.
Michael Moore released F911 and became the leftists darling claiming it would cause Bush to not get re-elected. Liberals rushed out to see it and gave Michael Moore two hundred million dollars in box office reciepts and dvd purchases. Well Bush won the re-election and Michael Moore disappeared for years. Then it came out that he owned engergy companies like Haliburton in his stock portfolio.
I bet the fat communist has owned the stocks of for-profit healthcare companies as well.
Even the dimbulb leftists are starting to catch on that they have been scammed by a limousine communist.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
LOL! Thanks for the chuckle. That’s definitely a keeper. :o)
We need to simplify the whole medical system. Pay as you go and cut out the freebies for the indigent and illegal.
i agree. socialized medicine would be a socialist’s dream, the end of a free market;
and a feminist dream, the curtailment of judeo-christian culture.
with this said, our current medical system SUX.
you wouldn’t believe what a doctor did to my father recently, or another surgeon did to a friend, or a store clerk’s failed operation by a surgeon.
a medical license is a license to steal and maim and kill.
Sleeping Beauty-what a totally appropriate name for a troll.
This is specious. You're not going to walk into the grocery store one day and be told you need $100,000 worth of green beans if you want to keep living.
The answer is regulation of Health Insurance companies who profit mightily off the middle class.
But, what's the alternative?
Solve the problem... Is that too much for you to grasp?
The broken system we already have.
Medicare, Medicaid and the eight hundred pound gorilla, the FDA. ...Solve the problem. Free market competition best serves individuals and civilization. Price discovery is critically important to the market. The more freedom the market has to compete the more accurate and efficient price discovery becomes. Initiation of force, -- for the most part foisted on business of all sizes via government regulations -- oppresses free competition. Force causes the market to lose its transparency Government has a monopoly on the initiation of force. Which for the most part government officials apply it in the interest of government, not the citizens and their businesses, markets and communities.
Also, for the most part citizens have allowed and sometimes welcomed the destructive (albeit camouflaged) government invasion of corruption foisted on the people's businesses, markets and communities by federal, state and often local governments.
If... no, when the people wake up to that realization, watch out!
The "natives" are growing increasingly restless. They're poised to get up in a lot of people's faces and shine spot-lights of honesty on their corruption, frauds, lies, spin and deceptions.
Wait til real socialized medicine is here. Quality of care will plummet. The people working at the DMV will be making decisions about your medical treatment.
Is there any way we can get Mexico to pay for the care of its nationals over here, most of who aren’t even supposed to BE here. I’m jolly sure that if the situation was reversed, Mexico would insist on the baksheesh or el gringo is tossed out in the street.
For how many of them is health coverage optional in their employment? Whatever their virtue may be, the rest are simply lucky.
Government-run health care IS NOT the answer. Why? Because it would further insulate the health care industry from answering to the consumer. It converts the health care system into a monopoly. And it would introduce rationing, waiting times and eliminate real health care choice. Now THAT's sicko.Well most Americans have all of those already thanks to HMOs. Or they wait in the ER instead and cost the tax payer even more.
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