02.09.09
Health Insurance Is Not Health Assurance
I am going to point out something really obvious here. Health Insurance does not assure health, or even survival. People with excellent health care coverage die every day. Some of these people are children. This is a harsh reality, but reality it is.
There are those in the political world who would like more control over you. They want to know everything that you do because knowledge is power. They already know your job history, thanks to social security and the income tax. They know your property holdings, which they pretty much have to know in order to legitimize them. They know when and where you were born. When you die, they will be there to close escrow and make sure that you pay your final respects to the government. They know the schools you attended, the grades you got and whether or not you were well liked by your teachers.
Now, they want to know about your health records. They already have created a system which requires any health-care provider to maintain a consistent set of documentation about you. Doctors and hospitals used to do this to protect themselves from liability claims and/or improve the overall health care they provide. Thanks to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, health care providers and insurers have access to an unprecedented amount of your private information. Government access to this information is just a short subpoena away and then it is all there in a standardized format.
As any celebrity who has had an embarassing photo posted on the Internet can tell you, information systems have a long memory. Once information is out, it is out forever. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle, unring the bell or unscrew the girl. Pick your favorite euphamism on the topic.
Sixteen years ago, the Clinton administration tried to shove nationalized health-care down our throats. They started some rhetoric in which health care became a right and they trotted out cases where people died because they didn’t have health care. The nation fought against the plan and won. Things stayed relatively quiet through the remainder of the Clinton aministration and the Bush years. Of course, they still passed HIPAA and the Patient Safety Act, respectively.
Now we have a new president and if he stands for anything, he stands for change. I have no idea what that means, but I do know that the Obama administration is making another push for nationalized health care. Now he wants to limit the scope of the health care to children, because every child has a right to health care, right?
I am happy to point out that health care is not a right or even a privilege. It is a service. Doctors, nurses, administrators, technicians, drug manufacturers and medical equipment manufacturers all work together to provide that service. And they do it for money. There are some that may have an altruistic motive as well, but take away the paycheck and altruism will only take you so far. A nationalized health care system would cost billions of dollars each year. We have a failing economy, but we want to throw that cost onto its back? How long before the best health care money can buy is a govenment band-aid?
There are some who believe that the rich people of America should pay for a nationalized health system. After all, they got rich on the work of the rest of the country. Rich people already donate millions of dollars each year to hospitals and clinics. Sometimes the donation is a form of thanks for saving the life of a loved one. Sometimes it is an ego gratifying name on the new wing. Whatever the reason, they already give generously. If the government starts to take more money from them to pay for nationalized health, will those donations continue?
There are many examples of nationalized health care around the world. In Japan, hospitals are underfunded to the point that people die in ambulances waiting for a hospital to accept them. Certainly, once they are in the hospital they get the best care they can get. I know of a man who is dying from throat cancer in Japan right now. They know that this cancer will kill him. It is just a matter of time. But they are giving him the best treatment possible to continue his life. Meanwhile, a traffic accident victim bleeds to death in an ambulance because more than 30 hospitals refused to let him in the door. England has nationalized health care. They also pay 7 out of every 10 pounds earned in taxes. Thousands of canadians cross the border to the US every year to get treatment that their nationlized health care won’t provide at any cost. You cannot offer to pay more for better care. You get what they provide and nothing else. Oh, and Nazi Germany had nationalized health care too.
Well, once you bring Hitler into it, the argument is over. I’d like to finish this with the following observation. America was founded by people with a pioneer spirit. People who wanted to do for themselves, provide for themselves and generally be left alone to do that. Every few years, our government asks us to give up some of that spirit. I’d like to reverse that trend just a bit. Government should guard the borders, regulate internal commerce and keep the peace within the borders equally for all. Then it should take a break and get out of the way. The People should lead us into the next millinium and not just be lead to whereever they plan to take us.