Posted on 04/21/2009 4:03:17 PM PDT by jazusamo
Much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, I must report the shocking facts: Medical care is medical care. Nothing more and nothing less.
This may not seem like a breakthrough on the frontiers of knowledge. But it completely contradicts what is being said by many of those who are urging "universal health care" because so many Americans lack health insurance.
Insurance is not medical care. Indeed, health care is not the same as medical care. Countries with universal health care do not have more or better medical care.
The bottom line is medical care. But the rhetoric and the talking points are about insurance. Many people who could afford health insurance do not choose to have it because they know that medical care will be available at the nearest emergency room, whether they have insurance or not.
This is especially true for young people, who do not anticipate long-term medical problems and who can always get a broken leg or an allergy attack taken care of at an emergency room — and spend their money on a more upscale lifestyle.
This may not be a wise decision but it is their decision, and there is no reason why other people should lose the right to make decisions for themselves because some people make questionable decisions.
If you don't think government bureaucrats can make questionable decisions, then you haven't dealt with many government bureaucrats.
It is one thing to deal with bureaucrats when you are at the Department of Motor Vehicles and in good health. It is something else when you have to deal with bureaucrats when you are lying on a gurney and bleeding or are doubled over in pain on a hospital bed.
People who believe in "universal health care" show remarkably little interest — usually none — in finding out what that phrase turns out to mean in practice, in those countries where it already exists, such as Britain, Sweden or Canada.
For one thing, "universal health care" in these countries means months of waiting for surgery that American get in a matter of weeks or even days.
In these and other countries, it means having only a fraction as many MRIs and other high-tech medical devices available per person as in the United States.
In Sweden, it means not only having bureaucrats deciding what medicines the government will and will not pay for, but even preventing you from buying the more expensive medicine for yourself with your own money. That would violate the "equality" that is the magic mantra.
Those who think in terms of talking points, instead of trying to understand realities, make much of the fact that some countries with government-controlled medical care have longer life expectancies than that in the United States.
That is where the difference between health care and medical care comes in. Medical care is what doctors can do for you. Health care includes what you do for yourself — such as diet, exercise and lifestyle.
If a doctor arrives on the scene to find you wiped out by a drug overdose or shot through the heart by some of your rougher companions, there may not be much that he can do except sign the death certificate.
Even for things that take longer to do you in — obesity, alcohol, cholesterol, tobacco — doctors can tell you what to do or not do, but whether you follow their advice or not is what determines the outcome.
Americans tend to be more obese, consume more drugs and have more homicides. None of that is going to change with "universal health care" because it isn't health care. It is medical care.
When it comes to things where medical care itself makes the biggest difference — cancer survival rates, for example — Americans do much better than people in most other countries.
No one who compares medical care in this country with medical care in other countries is likely to want to switch. But those who cannot be bothered with the facts may help destroy the best medical care in the world by falling for political rhetoric.
It is one thing to deal with bureaucrats when you are at the Department of Motor Vehicles and in good health. It is something else when you have to deal with bureaucrats when you are lying on a gurney and bleeding or are doubled over in pain on a hospital bed.
Great stuff ping.
The continuing Newspeak.
Illegal Immigration and Legal Immigration are consolidated into: Immigration
Embryonic, Umbilical, and Adult Stem Cells are consolidated into: Stem Cells
Government Spending = Reinvestment
Welfare = Tax Cuts
etc
Medicare was the first step down the road to ruinous,expensive medical care. Dr Sowell hits another home run!
Smartest man in America ping!
Extraordinary thinker and a fine writer too.
And he puts it in a language, everyone can understand.
Why does the government have any business or say in our health care in the first place?
He is not necessarily what America wants but goodness his advice is clearly what we need.
I have often been accused of racism, because I eschew PC, but...
Why couldn't this man run for president?
He not only could have won, but in a landslide, in spite of 96% of a certain ethnic vote going to the opposition.
Head and shoulders above Hussein! I seriously doubt he could do any worse if he played golf all day after being elected.
Socializing ,medical care in the US will destroy what is left of medical care in the other countries. Medical research, done here and done in other countries is all solely driven by the American market because Americans pay the cost of their drugs and, in the patent period the tremendous costs of R&D are repaid. In a Universal system that cannot be allowed because the Government will be paying for medical care and will not pay the prices of new drugs. Without the American more-or-less free medical market R&D will not happen. It cannot be paid for. We may reason that well, we are so much better off than we were 50 years ago, we really don’t need to improve any more. But then there are antibiotics. They “wear out” as the germs develop immunities to them. There must be constant development of new antibiotics. Without that very expensive R&D after a while there will be, effectively, no antibiotics. You get sick, well, there is a big chance that you die of it. Women have to birth 10 kids and more just to perpetuate humanity. Most of those kids will not live to be adults. Universal Health Care i.e. socialized medicine in the US will put medicine back to 1910 for the whole world.
“But those who cannot be bothered with the facts may help destroy the best medical care in the world by falling for political rhetoric.”
BUMP!
Hey, Jaz!
I’m currently reading ‘Economic Facts and Fallacies’ by Dr. Sowell. Good stuff. :)
Very good point and the rest of the world is definitely benefiting from our R&D while paying lower prices for the same medications we pay more for. Also us having the finest medical treatment in the world now benefits those in other countries stuck with socialized medicine, the ones who can afford to travel here for care do so in many cases and that benefit will disappear.
Thanks Diana. I have a must read list and that’s on it but I’m going to have to get busy on that list. :-)
Thanks for the ping jaz. Appreciate it.
Dr. Sowell proves the adage that “words mean things”.
And where ill we travel when we have socialized our own medicine? For a time modern medicine will be available offshore. Even now the best English doctors are practicing modern medicine in Thailand and India. Well and good for those who can jump on airplanes- until the antibiotics run out. Then the elite will be in the same boat with the rest of us. Replacing a knee will no longer be advisable because the chance of dying from infection will be very high.
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