(If you’re just joining this series, feel free to read the previous installments.)

Check Your Health Care Premises (Part 4)

Over the first three parts of this series, we’ve seen that:

• 1. Our once magnificent healthcare system is broken.
• 2. Government is the one that broke it (and, amazingly enough, is being asked by the multitude to fix it).
• 3. Universal Health Care is much costlier and results in many people not getting the important care they need, when they need it. It also, in many instances, denies the individual the all-important right to make the choices and decisions they feel are in the best interests of themselves and their loved ones; instead putting those decisions into the hands of a bureaucrat. 

The problem is, although Universal Health Care is not nearly as effective as a Free-Market system, we need to go back to point number one and agree that our present system is broken and change is needed. Then we need to be extremely clear about something. As mentioned in the first article of this “series within a series”…

The current U.S. Healthcare System is NOT Market-Based!

Fortunately, the solution is actually quite simple. Get the government out of our healthcare system and let the free marketplace, private charity and loving-kindness do what it once did; provide us with a healthcare system that really works.

A couple of goodies include the fact that with a free-market health care system, prices for health care would be much, much lower than they are now. So more people could naturally afford adequate health care. The government has messed up the natural market (including supply and demand) so badly that costs have rises sky high.

So, first, lower prices solves a lot of problems. Then, it’s taking away government’s power to give the insurance companies control over the drug marketplace. Again, with alternative medicines able to do their work, the drug companies would have to come way down on prices. Then, with decreases in needless regulations, there would be more doctors and other health practitioners, creating competition and lower prices, with service much better than it is now. And, for those relative few percentage-wise who still can’t afford it, sliding scales and charities would cover the rest (as it used to, and quite well).

Yes, it sounds simple . . . because it is! Get government OUT of healthcare in every way but the protection of force and fraud (their two legitimate functions when it comes to business) and then just watch what happens. Our health care system will once again be the envy of the world and – more importantly – it will again work for all of us, including the children the elderly and the less fortunate.

Please, please don’t buy into this government and politically-based nonsense of Universal Healthcare. And, don’t buy into those such as Michael Moore; as well-intentioned as he probably is and the politicians, as well-intended as they might possibly be. Or, to the masses, as well-intentioned as they absolutely are.

This is simply too, too important to not think through in depth and detail. Please don’t let emotions make this decision for you.

Instead, check your premises.

*Note. Although this article was inended to complete the series on Healthcare, I added one more, which you can find here.

(If you’re just joining this series, feel free to read the previous installments.)

Check Your Health Care Premises (Part 3)

Over the first two articles, we’ve come to two conclusions:

• 1. Our once magnificent healthcare system is broken.
• 2. Government is the one that broke it (and, amazingly enough, is being asked by the multitude to fix it). 

So, now let’s look at the solution of Universal Healthcare. Basically, this means that Americans would be taxed even more than they currently are, however, at least everyone would have coverage and access to “free*” health care.

Except that what I just said is not completely true. In fact, it’s far from true. Note the italicized word, “access” (I cover the “free*” part at the end of the article). Actually, what people will have is access to a waiting list. They will have access to having a bureaucrat who doesn’t know or love them deciding if the ill they (or their children) are suffering rates a visit to the doctor, an operation or treatment of any kind. There is nothing “conspiracy theory-ish” about this. We know it’s true because we see it regularly within those countries that already have Universal Health Care.

There is a huge difference between access to a list and access to actual health care!

 In a column in the Los Angeles Times, Michael Tanner and Michael Cannon wrote:

Simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless. Many countries provide universal insurance but deny critical procedures to patients who need them. Britain’s Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment. In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that “access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare.”

Interestingly enough, in Canada, where by law they cannot pay for private medical treatment, the only option for those who either must have an operation or die is often to travel to America.

Of course, once our system is as socialistic as is theirs, that will no longer be an option for them.

Regarding our friends and neighbors to the north, a very key point is that Canada is currently looking at massive changes in their system because, while citizens affected by the long waiting lists are in an uproar, the costs of the system are completely out of control. 

Question: is this really what we want? Are we so anxious to blame a not-guilty party – The Free Enterprise System – that we will actually throw away still another freedom; the freedom to care for ourselves and our loved ones the way we see fit; not the way some faceless bureaucrat sees fit? Do we want our children getting the same expert and loving medical care as did our wounded vets at Walter Reed and similar government-run hospitals?

And, would we really rather see everyone suffer through Universal Healthcare (except the politicians and politically well-connected, of course – they’ll never have to wait on some list) instead of helping everyone by getting the market driven (and very healthy) health care system back? (Remember, we covered caring for the less fortunate in the previous article.)

In the final part of this series, we’ll look at the natural and most practical solution to our Healthcare System woes. 

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*The word, “free” was in quotation marks because nothing is free; you’ll actually be paying more for your own healthcare as well as for others’. Yes, more for your own because it will be run in the typical governmental fashion of high waste, where approximately 70-75 percent out of every dollar will go to administer the system rather than to health care itself. This percentage of waste is within the norm for all government programs.

(If you’re just joining this series, feel free to read the previous installments.)

Check Your Health Care Premises (Part 2)

In the previous article, after establishing that our current healthcare system is indeed broken, I asked that we check our premises and, instead of knee-jerkingly blaming the Free-Enterprise System for our healthcare woes and asking for a government solution (which is what Universal Health Care would be – the government in complete control of your and your children’s health care – though solution would certainly be an incorrect word), that we go back and look at its true cause.

The question is: is it the Free Enterprise System that destroyed our health care system?

Let’s take a quick look back about 50 or so years ago. At that time, our U.S. healthcare system was basically market-driven. What were the results? Well, let’s see; practically all Americans who wanted health insurance had it. It was affordable. Doctor’s offices weren’t reminiscent of Grand Central Station. In fact, doctors actually were known to make house calls. People who were less fortunate financially could always find a doctor or hospital that allowed them to pay via sliding scale. Many towns had free and low cost clinics where doctors and nurses volunteered several hours per week. And, hospitals? Well, if you recall, practically every major city had at least one charity hospital. Not too shabby, right?

Was anyone ever “left out in the cold?” Unfortunately, yes. Utopia – even in our great country – has never been an option. However, when it came to our Healthcare system, it was pretty darn close. Certainly more so than at any other place and time in history before or since.

And, then, a funny thing happened on the way to our healthcare system breakdown . . .

Government got involved. Really involved. I mean, really, really involved. As usual, they decided they knew more about how the market operates than . . . the market.

So, between excessive regulation of private health insurance, coverage mandates, lack of price competition for medical services, Medicare, Medicaid, government-forced reliance on third-party payers, more rules, more regulations, more taxes, etc. we have been driven into a system in which far too many American families go without any kind of health coverage because they simply cannot afford it.

Was this government’s purpose? Surely not. It’s just what they do. They take either non-existent, slight problems, or even legitimate problems, and they turn them into national disasters.

So, now, government is being asked to come to the rescue, and they will gladly oblige. Did you notice last year’s Presidential Campaign? Candidates Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Romney (yes, Republicans, too; plenty of them) and others. They all had the government solution to your healthcare woes.

Irony Break: putting this into healthcare vernacular, could we not say that government has broken our legs and is now being asked to fix them? Sure, they’ll give us crutches and then say, “See, if it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t be able to walk.”

The point: Free Enterprise did not give us our current “Sicko” healthcare system; government intervention did.

Again, let’s think about this. Government caused the problem, and we want government to fix the problem that they caused? Does that make sense?

In the next article, we’ll take a look at Universal Healthcare and see what kind of results we could expect, based on the experience of other countries that have tried it.

(If you’re just joining this series, feel free to read the previous installments.)

Check Your Health Care Premises (Part 1)

The admonition to “check one’s premises” is at the heart (and, indeed within the very title) of this ongoing series regarding Capitalism versus Socialism.

And, perhaps, nowhere is that more important than when it comes to health care.

After all, there are two very key points about our modern healthcare situation; one which is very legitimately at “top of mind awareness” of most American citizens today. And that is:

Our health care system is broken. It is not working. Most people can’t afford it, and most everything about it is now counter-productive and in many ways harmful.

However, the next point is the one that is based on a false premise; a dangerously false premise, and that is:

Capitalism is the cause of our current health care mess. In other words…The free enterprise system has failed us in terms of health care.

And, that is simply false.

Of course, when not checking premises (thus a good chance of a premise being false) it’s easy for one to arrive at that false conclusion. After all, since we don’t have – what they have in many other countries – complete and full “Universal Health Care” the conclusion for many would naturally be that we do have a capitalistic/free enterprise-based health care system.

And that is also false.

We haven’t had a market-driven healthcare system for nearly 50 years. In Part Two of this series we’ll revisit that, see how things were when our healthcare system was market-based (hint: it worked really well) and what actually happened that made it go so far downhill in such a relatively short period of time.

After all, if it wasn’t the Free Enterprise System that turned things south, it had to be something, right? Indeed, and we’ll see exactly what it was.

Please keep in mind that things don’t happen in a vacuum. Typically, not only is there a reason for something, but that something usually happened further back than what is indicated by its current situation; what I call the “emotional decision point” from which we want to “base” the conclusion and subsequent actions.

When that’s the case, too often an emotional decision is made which not only doesn’t allow the actual problem (the cause) to be dealt with and solved but makes its manifestation – or current situation – even worse.

A couple of years ago, Michael Moore’s movie, “Sicko” captured the imagination of the country. I didn’t have to see it to know what would be in it; I’d read plenty of Mr. Moore’s thoughts about health care. I knew that – in his movie – he’d introduce us to Americans who have no health care insurance and are being left to suffer, or worse; to die.

And, you know what? Had I seen his movie, my heart would have broken for them as it does for the many others I know and/or know of who are experiencing this. Indeed, I ask myself why – in this most abundant of nations – should anyone have to go without adequate healthcare? But, before going running to our federal government to set things right for us…I’d check my premises.

Before asking government to be the solution to our “ills” (something at which they’ve proven to be very un-qualified), I’d first ask, “why are we in this position in the first place?”

I know how most politicians, how Michael Moore, and, unfortunately, how most Americans would answer: “The Free Enterprise System has let us down.”

The reason I know this is because I hear it constantly. I only wish that before people – especially those of high influence – would utter these conclusions; that they would first…yep, check their premises.

And that’s what we’ll do in the next installment. I hope you’ll join us.

(If you’re just joining this series, feel free to read the previous installments.)

Welfare – Has it Helped the Poor? (Part 4)

Thus far, we’ve looked at how the government’s “War On Poverty,” carried out through a terribly inefficient, ineffective and counter-productive (we won’t even talk about Unconstitutional since, unfortunately, that seems to be a non-issue these days) system of force, has – like most government programs – made things worse for everyone; most notably the truly needy!

Solutions that have proven to work were suggested, as well as ramping it up to something that would most likely work even better; market-based charities.

But, at the conclusion of the last installment I said there was one more point I wanted to save for its own article, and that is the insult toward all Americans by the very nature of the system itself.

I asked, “Who are government politicians and bureaucrats anyway to imply that without their force, we won’t help out our needy brothers and sisters, whether for one-time emergencies, or to provide them with a helping hand until they can get back on their feet?”

Let’s continue that thought with some excerpts from my friend, David Berland’s book, Libertarianism in One Lesson:

Government welfare programs insult and demean all of us. They tell us we have no compassion. That only legislators and bureaucrats have compassion. They tell us we don’t know how to effectively help people. They tell us we are unwilling to provide assistance to the needy unless we are forced to do so. Not one of these premises is true.

Government welfare interferes with our ability to express compassion for our families, neighbors, and needy people everywhere. Because of the heavy taxes Americans pay, we have less money left over to use as we think best to help other people.

. . . We must respect the compassion that others have because it is the same compassion we experience within ourselves. Most people know government welfare programs are terribly inefficient but still continue to support them precisely because people are compassionate. People don’t want to see others in distress. We all want to live in a world where people generously help each other. The fatal mistake is to believe that compassionate and effective charity can result when government force is used in the place of a genuinely charitable spirit.

I agree with everything David says. And, while the insult being highlighted is not nearly as important as actually helping the poor, the fact is . . . Welfare has simply not helped them.

Overall, government Welfare hurts far more people than it helps, and undermines the work of loving, caring individuals and private charities that have a proven record of helping people turn their lives around.

As we conclude our four-part “series within a series” let’s remember that . . .

#1  We do indeed need to help those who cannot help themselves.

#2  Government is not the proper, nor best qualified entity to take on this very important job.

Yes, let’s get the fate of the poor and truly needy out of the hands of government and into the hands of those who are most qualified to help. That way, we’ll actually help the poor…and not just talk about helping the poor.

In Part 8 we’ll begin a new topic; one that is at the heart of much controversy and, not surprisingly, misunderstanding. And that…is Healthcare