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It seems as though the entire world hates America. And there are those, of course, who would like to destroy us, ranging from Islamofascist religious fanatics to socialist and communist believers, to the Americans who hate America crowd, all blaming us for the ills of the world. To what end? Their reasons may vary, but it is certainly not to better the lot of mankind, unless of course you are a Muslim who happens to believe the world would be better off without us and with them in charge. But, who would really be better off if we didn’t exist?
Without doubt, if America did not exist, the world would be a very different place. I just don’t know if those who hate America so much and would like to destroy us have thought much beyond the ends of their noses.
In a sort of reprise of the famous Jimmy Stewart movie, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” in which George Bailey is given the opportunity to see what the world would be like if he had not been born, a brief look at what the world might look like without America may be instructive:
Without America, there would be no United Nations. The U.S. was instrumental in forming the UN and currently finances around 22% of its budget. So, without our financial support, the UN and its many subsidiary organizations would be a far smaller institution, if it could exist at all. Some people would undoubtedly say that would be a good thing.
Without America, France, England and the rest of Europe would be part of Germany today, or under German control, enslaved and cruelly oppressed. Or, without America, Europe, and much of the rest of the world might be living under the repressive thumb of Communism.
Without America, the Japanese would rule Asia and democracy would not have been established in Japan, which was historically ruled by its emperor and the military.
Without America, twenty-five million people would still be living under the cruelly repressive Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and another twenty-five million Iraqis would continue to exist under the vicious dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
Without America, scientific advances and inventions, ranging from the Cotton Gin to the computer and the Internet would not have happened. A very short list includes, in no particular order: Tractors, nylon, the light bulb, the steamboat, vulcanized rubber, the desktop computer, the supercomputer (Cray), the cash register, Coca-Cola, Polio vaccine, helicopters, the scientific method of manufacturing assembly, open heart surgery, the electron microscope, radio, the steam generator, purified insulin, the transistor, the pH meter, magnetic recording, the telephone, Bessemer process, respirator/ventilator, frozen foods, LASIK eye surgery, vaccine for Hepatitis B, genetic engineering, the calculator, catalytic cracking, instant copying (Xerox), synthetic rubber, superglue, Velcro, plows, internal-combustion engine, the screw propeller, HIV isolation and diagnosis, global positioning system, solid fuel rockets, and on and on, ad infinitum.
I leave it to you to evaluate the impacts of any of the foregoing inventions or the many thousands of other technological, scientific and medical advances made by Americans. Without them, the world would be a very different place indeed: Untold numbers of people would have died or been crippled by disease, afflictions like polio and smallpox would still be rampant throughout the world, technological advances like computers and the Internet probably would probably not exist. Just think how these inventions alone have changed the world in just a few short years. The list of America’s achievements in its short history that have improved mankind’s lot from almost any perspective is literally endless.
Without America, the people in many of the nations that have benefited from our foreign aid would be living in far worse circumstances. We haven’t solved all the problems, to be sure, and according to some critics, we don’t give nearly enough, but we have and continue to help alleviate many of the worst problems in various parts of the world.
Without America, the education of tens of thousands of foreign students who have come to America to study engineering, the sciences and medicine would not have happened. We are responsible for having produced more highly trained foreign students than any nation in the world, and where would the world be without them?
Without America, the economies of most nations around the world would be much poorer. In 2009, the U.S. trade imbalance with China alone amounted to more than $256 billion. Where would the Chinese, who are now challenging the U.S. as the world’s biggest economy, sell their goods and services, or the Japanese sell their cars, were it not for our markets? And India, which has another of the world’s most rapidly expanding economies. Where would they be able to sell their goods and services without the American market being available to them? The list of trading partners who rely on our markets to sustain their own economies is very long. Two notable examples in our own hemisphere, of course, are Mexico and Canada, notwithstanding our current problems with illegal immigrants from Mexico.
There are scads of other American accomplishments that have dramatically changed the world, such as the atomic bomb, the example of a society based on diversity and tolerance for others, the rule of law, as exemplified by the peaceful transfer of government following elections, to name just a few.
We may be many of the things people around the world accuse us of being: arrogant, ill-mannered, spoiled, self-centered, too rich for our own good, but we are also the most generous and selfless nation on earth, and the world would be a much worse place without us. Those who hate us so much might just want to give their distain of us more thought and decide if they really don’t want us around. My question is, what would they do without us?
Remember the admonition, “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.”
One of the key elements of the proposals for reforming America’s health care system is the use of price controls, which have been employed by Medicare. Since 1984, the government has established, in its sole discretion, a schedule of fees they pay to hospitals and doctors for their services. Hospitals are paid 80% of the scheduled fee that is set by the government, regardless of the actual cost to the provider. That’s price control, and the result is that the Medicare program now has an unfunded liability in excess of $11 trillion.
Price controls have never worked, ever, as far back as 4,000 years ago in Babylon. In a November 2005 post to the Mises Daily, Thomas J. DiLorenzo noted: In Babylon, “the Code of Hammurabi was a maze of price control regulations.”
Price controls also failed in ancient Greece and again during the third century B.C. in Egypt.
In Greece, price control laws were routinely ignored, in spite of the death penalty being imposed for failure to observe them.
In 301 B.C., the Roman emperor, Diocletian (244-311A.D.), issued an Edict on Maximum Prices, in an attempt to curb the inflation that was caused by his overspending. The law was quickly ignored.
Price controls are invariably imposed by people who are woefully ignorant of the most basic economic principles, a mistake that has been repeatedly made throughout history. And, the current crop of American politicians is no exception. Does anyone really believe that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, president Obama or the like minded politicians in Congress are so brilliant that they have the ability decide how much everything should cost?
What such leaders invariably fail to take into account is that people react to laws and regulations and modify their behavior accordingly.
DiLorenzo also noted an early example of this when ancient Egyptian farmers “became so infuriated with the price control inspectors that many of them simply left their farms.” By the end of the century the “Egyptian economy had collapsed as did her political stability.”
The health care proposals that are currently working their way through Congress all rely on some form of price control in the mistaken belief that it will reduce costs. However, to reduce costs, it would be necessary for the government to set prices at every level of production and distribution, which is virtually impossible, considering the billions of buy-sell decisions that are made throughout a society literally every day. There are plenty of examples of the failure of this sort of thinking, the most notable being the Soviet Union, which collapsed after 70 years.
In a November 2005 article, economist Thomas Sowell commented:
People who want the government to control the prices of pharmaceutical drugs seldom, if ever, raise the question of what actually happens in places and times when government has controlled the prices of pharmaceutical drugs.
Canada and other countries do it. What consequences have there been?
One major consequence is that Canada and other countries do not create nearly as many of the new life-saving pharmaceutical drugs as the United States does. These other countries live off the results — the medicines — produced by the enormously costly research that “obscene” pharmaceutical profits finance in America.
Other instances of the impacts of price controls include the Revolutionary War, when George Washington’s army almost starved to death because of controls on food that were imposed by Pennsylvania and other colonial governments. And, in 1793, French politicians passed the “Law of the Maximum,” which imposed price controls on grain and other items and caused starvation in some towns.
In 1971, President Nixon’s wage and price controls failed to lower the rate of inflation at the time and were abandoned in 1974.
In 1979, Jimmy Carter’s price control policies caused oil and gas shortages and in the 1990s, California’s energy crisis was caused by price controls on retail prices (but not on wholesale prices).
In spite of clear evidence that price controls have never worked as planned, Obama and Congress continue to press for a health care plan that will make substantial use of them. If they succeed, they will have unintended consequences that are likely to cause major shortages of health care services and will ultimately lead to rationing.
Thomas Sowell’s November 2005 article concluded, “Costs don’t go away because you refuse to pay them, any more than gravity goes away if you refuse to acknowledge it. You usually pay more in different ways, through taxes as well as prices, and by deterioration in quality when political processes replace economic process…But the lure of the free lunch goes on.”
Thanks to the current debate about health care reform, one issue that has garnered public attention is the concern about rationing of health care, and the conversation, if it can be called that, has necessarily focused on the elderly.
First, in the interest of full disclosure, I am one of the elderly, actually the very elderly in the view of most. I have lived a long and full life, much longer than I thought I would when I was in my 30s and 40s, even my 50s, and I have experienced a series of health crises along the way, some of which have landed me in the hospital.
That I am still around and functioning reasonably well at the ripe old age of 80 is testimony to the miracle of modern medicine and the skill of the doctors who have cared for me. And, since I ran a hospital for almost seven years, I also have a pretty good idea of how they function and what they can or cannot do for patients.
That said, should senior Medicare patients be worried about the health care plan that is currently being hotly debated across the country? In my opinion, yes. Although the “public option” appears to have been dropped from the House legislation, it will very likely appear in some other form in the legislation that is ultimately adopted.
However, as a beneficiary of Medicare insurance, I am primarily concerned about the specter of the rationing of health care, which is a major component of all government health plans. Canada, the U.K., Oregon and Massachusetts, to name the most widely cited, all ration care in addition to requiring people to wait to see a doctor or to have various tests done, such as MRI’s, CAT Scans, or be admitted to a hospital.
Furthermore, Medicare is already a major financial loser, with an unfunded liability of about $11 trillion for the current beneficiaries, even before adding another 74 million Baby Boomers to the pool. In other words, it loses money, big time.
To me, the claim that it is possible to provide health insurance for an estimated 45 million additional people without increasing the deficit or significantly raising taxes is ludicrous. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has scored the cost at about $1.6 trillion. It’s a simple concept, and no matter what the proponents of expanding the nation’s health care insurance may assert, not only will costs go up, but it must necessarily result in rationing of health care services. In addition, providing health insurance coverage for another 45 million people will also cause a significant shortage of doctors and nurses, which will increase the difficulty of getting care when it is needed.
What else concerns me, as one of the nation’s elderly citizens? How about out-of-control deficit spending?
Given my age, you may wonder why that would matter to me. The answer is easy: Uncontrolled spending is inflationary, and inflation is an extremely worrisome problem for seniors, most of whom live on a fixed income. Rapid inflation reduces purchasing power by depreciating the value of a nation’s currency, and its most virulent form, hyperinflation, causes money to depreciate so rapidly that it quickly becomes worthless. With the present administration, that worries me. Those who are living on a fixed income are the most vulnerable to the effects of inflation, and I would at least like to have the purchasing power of our income last as long as my wife and I do.
Another concern for the elderly is what happens when they reach the point where they are no longer able to care for themselves. The cost of assisted living or nursing home care is prohibitive for most people, many of whom may become a financial burden on their families. Not everyone has children who are willing and able to care for an elderly parent, which can cause a variety of problems.
Another concern for the elderly is the potential loss of their eyesight or hearing, especially to the degree that it threatens their ability to drive a car. In that sense, we are like teenagers. The ability to drive is very important to our sense of independence.
Finally, and perhaps the most worrisome concern for the elderly is the possibility of becoming afflicted with a condition like dementia, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. For a generation of people who have generally led independent, active and productive lives, the specter of these diseases can be especially worrisome.
Fortunately, aging is not all bad. In spite of advancing years, there are still many benefits, such as reading, taking an afternoon nap, watching our favorite T.V. programs, good movies, and remaining active in a variety of other ways, such as playing bridge or golf and enjoying the company of friends and family. In my case, I write. It helps keep me alert, informed and engaged.
How about universal health care plans in general? How well do they work? Do they deliver as promised, or can they? The two most often mentioned systems are those in England and Canada, although there are others as well: Germany, Japan, Sweden, Finland and Russia, for example. There are also a couple of well-known programs in the U.S., notably in Massachusetts and Oregon, that can be studied to see how effective or efficient government run health care actually is.
So, before jumping off the edge ourselves, doesn’t it make sense that we should evaluate how well some of these other plans are working? Looking at just three, Canada, Oregon and Massachusetts, provides some insight into the track record of government health-care programs:
Assessing Canada’s health care program, Dick Morris noted the following statistics:
A 16% higher cancer death rate in Canada
An eight week wait for radiation therapy for cancer patients.
42% of Canadians die of colon cancer vs. 31% in the U.S.
Cutbacks in diagnostic testing.
The best methods for chemo therapy are not available.
No way out of the system; you can’t even pay for services yourself.
David Gratzer, a Canadian physician, writes in the Wall Street Journal (June 9, 2009):
“…Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system…Canada’s provincial governments themselves rely on American medicine. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery…Only half of ER patients are treated in a timely manner by national and international standards, according to a government study. The physician shortage is so severe that some towns hold lotteries, with the winners gaining access to the local doc.”
How about Oregon, which established a government-run plan in 1993? IBD Editorials.com noted the following (June 9, 2009), among other observations:
…the state’s Health Services Commission (like the title?) has compiled a list of 680 treatments, only 503 of which will be paid for by the Oregon Health Plan…Got condition No. 504…Treatment for lichen planus, a skin rash, is an out-of-pocket expense…So is therapy for a cracked rib (No. 512), nasal polyps (No. 524), a broken big toe (No. 527) and liver cancer (No. 575).” Oregon residents must pay for treatment of all these conditions themselves, along with many other health problems.
A great many lifesaving procedures that ranked high in 2002 have been relegated to much lower positions in 2009, while procedures only tangentially related to life and death have climbed to the top…Treatment for type I diabetes…was ranked second in 2002 but demoted to 10th in 2009, even though not providing treatment is a death sentence.
So, if Oregon didn’t get it quite right, how about Massachusetts, which adopted its own state mandated health care plan in 2006?
Michael Tanner, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, wrote a briefing paper in June 2009, “Massachusetts Miracle or Massachusetts Miserable: What the Failure of the Massachusetts Models Tells Us about Health Care Reform,” in which he observed:
Although the state has reduced the number of residents without health insurance, 20,000 people remain uninsured…Health care costs continue to rise much faster than the national average…New regulations and bureaucracy are limiting consumer choice and adding to health care costs…Program costs have skyrocketed. Despite tax increases, the programs faces huge deficits – with its attendant rationing…A shortage of providers, combined with increasing demand, is increasing waiting times to see a physician.
In the final analysis, national or universal health care systems, whatever they are called, are invariably forced to resort to rationing of services, by limiting care on the basis of cost, age, the severity of disease or injury, or various other criteria. It’s unavoidable and will happen in the U.S. if the Obama administration manages to get Congress to pass a health care bill.
Whatever the result, the simplest way to evaluate Obama’s health care plan is to ask your Congressperson and Senator if they will be required to participate in the same program as their constituents. If not, why not? And, if not, why should you?
For reasons I do not fully understand, Americans seem to have lost the common sense that has always been a hallmark of our culture, as once again we seem to be routinely shooting ourselves in the foot by adopting public policies that run counter to our own best interests. A good example is allowing the so-called War on Drugs to outlaw the use of hemp, one of the most beneficial crops in the history of the world, by burdening it with unnecessary and restrictive regulation in the name of fighting the War.
Hemp is a harmless plant that is the source of an almost endless list of benefits. Wikipedia notes that it can be used in everything from food products to clothes as well as having multiple industrial or commercial uses, such as “paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel.”
China, France and Canada are all major producers of hemp and, although more hemp is exported to the U.S. than to any other country, our government generally does not distinguish between marijuana and a type of hemp that is used only for industrial and commercial purposes.
The North American Industrial Hemp Council, Inc. (NAIHC) notes, “The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) classifies all C. sativa varieties (of hemp) as ‘marijuana.’ While it is theoretically possible to get permission from the government to grow hemp, DEA would require that the field be secured by a fence, razor wire, dogs, guards and lights, making it cost-prohibitive.”
The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 “placed an extremely high tax on marijuana and made it effectively impossible to grow industrial hemp…(and) the Federal Bureau of Narcotics lumped industrial hemp with marijuana, as its successor, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, does to this day.” As Groucho Marx famously remarked “Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.”
“Hemp has been grown for at least the last 12,000 years for fiber (textiles and paper) and food.”
“Much of the bird seed sold in the US has hemp seed (it’s sterilized before importation), the hulls of which contain about 25% protein.”
“Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on hemp oil.”
“Construction products such as medium density fiber board, oriented strand board, and even beams, studs and posts could be made out of hemp. Because of hemp’s long fibers, the products will be stronger and/or lighter than those made from wood.”
Over 25,000 products can be made from hemp.
“To receive a standard psychoactive dose (of hemp) would require a person so power-smoke 10-12 hemp cigarettes over an extremely short period of time. The large volume and high temperature of vapor, gas and smoke would be almost impossible for a person to withstand.”
“Hemp fibers are longer, stronger, more absorbent and more mildew-resistant than cotton.”
“Fabrics made of at least one-half hemp block the sun’s UV rays more effectively than other fabrics.”
“Hemp can be made into a variety of fabrics, including linen quality.”
“Hemp grows well in a variety of climates and soil types. It is naturally resistant to most pests, precluding the need for pesticides. It grows tightly spaced, out-competing any weeds, so herbicides are not necessary. It also leaves a weed-free field for a following crop.”
“Hemp can yield 3-8 tons of fiber per acre. This is four times what an average forest can yield.”
The bottom line is that by treating hemp as a drug, the United States has effectively shut down one of the most profitable and useful crops in history and once again essentially abandoned the market to other nations that have a more realistic attitude.
We are preventing our farmers from growing a crop that has almost unlimited uses. It’s cheap and easy to plant and cultivate, and could potentially rejuvenate the small farming industry in America. While spending billions of dollars in what has been an almost fruitless effort to keep small farmers on the farm, we have also been unwilling to simply let them to do it for themselves by allowing them to cultivate one of the best cash crops they could possibly grow.
By stubbornly refusing to change or adapt our thinking, we are once again abandoning a major market to our competition by preventing one of our own industries from producing an important product. As the King of Siam said in Oscar Hammerstein’s musical, The King and I, “It’s a puzzlement.”
President Obama’s 2009 budget includes a $634-billion allocation that he described as a down payment on expanded health care for the 47 million Americans who are currently uninsured. And, by promising that it will be paid for by a combination of cuts in Medicare expenses and increased taxes on the “wealthy” over ten years, he implies, in effect, that it will be economically painless.
Columnist Charles Krauthammer observed, “Obama wants to be to universal health care what Lyndon Johnson was to Medicare. Obama has publicly abandoned his once-stated preference for a single-payer system as in Canada and Britain. But that is for practical reasons. In America, you can’t get there from here directly…Instead, Obama will create the middle step that will lead ultimately and inevitably to single-payer. The way to do it is to establish a reformed system that retains a private health-insurance sector but offers a new government-run plan (based on benefits open to members of Congress) so relatively attractive that people voluntarily move out of the private sector, thereby starving it. The ultimate result is a system of fully socialized medicine. This will probably not happen until long after Obama leaves office. But he will be rightly recognized as its father.”
Obama’s plan will be financed by a combination of restricting health care for the elderly and taxing the “rich.”
To accomplish this, the plan creates a new bureaucracy, the office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (NCHIT), which will monitor patient care. Betsy McCaughey, former Lt. Governor of New York state and a researcher with the Hudson Institute, points out that NCHIT will “make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and ‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions.” In other words, the government intends to tell doctors what treatments they will be permitted to use, thus setting the scene for restricting patient care, which must necessarily become the method of choice for controlling costs.
Noam Levey also notes, “Obama’s plan would trim $316 billion over 10 years from Medicare by decreasing some payments to private insurance plans that focus on the elderly. Other proposals include charging upper-income beneficiaries a higher premium for Medicare’s prescription drug coverage…”
Health care accounts for about 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, much of which is due to the combined costs of Medicare (including the prescription drug program) and Medicaid. However, Medicare costs will continue to grow, if for no other reason than the Baby Boomers who are now entering the ranks of retirees.
Ultimately, cutting the cost of the Medicare program will be accomplished by reducing services, and that means rationing the health care that seniors receive. Obama’s stated intention of cutting Medicare expenses to provide health care coverage for the uninsured can only work if services to seniors are curtailed.
As with so many of the pronouncements coming out of the White House, it ignores or minimizes the potential impacts. The stimulus bill that was recently signed into law included a $19 billion allocation to speed up computerizing health records. This is being touted as an important step toward controlling health care costs, at an estimated cost of $2.4 trillion a year.
The federal and state governments already dictate the fees that hospitals and doctors can charge for their services to Medicare and Medicaid patients. If Obama’s plan pays them less, more hospitals and doctors are likely to stop accepting senior and low income patients.
As for increasing taxes on the “wealthy” to pay for universal health care, it depends on the definition of “wealthy.” Obama has said that only couples with annual incomes over $250,000 a year will have their taxes increased. Two points come to mind: 1) The top five percent of wage earners already pay almost 55 percent of federal incomes taxes, and the top 10 percent currently pay almost 66 percent of the total federal tax bill. Short of confiscating everything over a certain amount of their earnings, it’s hard to see how much additional revenue the government can derive by raising their taxes even more. 2) Raising taxes on the rich cannot possibly pay for every expansion of government services that Obama’s budget contemplates. There simply isn’t enough to go around.
So, beware of Politicians bearing gifts. Obama’s health care plan could be the Trojan Horse that will destroy America’s capitalism.
A lot of people seem to think America’s health care system is failing. For one thing, estimates of the uninsured range as high as forty-seven million, and the problem can only be solved by spending more money. However, as P.J. O’Rourke said, “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”
Do you think Barack Obama has the answers to providing health care in America? Or, John McCain? How about George W. Bush? Hillary Clinton? Or, for that matter, any politician?
Have the Canadians or the Brits solved the problem in their countries? Some people believe they have. However, England currently has a backlog of 750,000 patients waiting to be admitted to a hospital, and many Canadians come to the U.S. for critical care, such as bypass surgery or cancer treatment, because waiting times in their own country are interminable, sometimes a year or longer before they can get the care they need. In some communities, it can take months just to get an appointment with a doctor, and one-third of Canadian doctors send patients to the U.S. for treatment every year.
All state-run health care systems have one thing in common: rationing. Not necessarily involving the use of ration cards, but rationing nonetheless. Rationing of resources, that is. The cause is a devilishly simple principle that is present in all nationalized health care programs: It’s free or so low cost that it’s almost free, and basic economics clearly demonstrates that whenever something is free, demand increases significantly. The flip side of expanded demand is a shortage of supply, and without enough doctors, nurses, technicians, facilities or equipment to go around, rationing automatically becomes necessary. That’s what has been wrong with nationalized health care in England, Canada, Germany, Japan, the former USSR, everywhere it has been tried.
Socialized medicine in one form or another is the health care model that is gradually being adopted in America, and it is slowly but surely lowering the quality of the health care we are receiving.
But, you may say: “We don’t have socialized medicine in America!”
Perhaps not yet, but we’ve been moving in that direction for a while, and it’s a slippery slope. For example, consider Medicare and Medicaid.
But, these programs are not socialized medicine, you may insist.
Unfortunately, they are. For one thing, they are both single-payer systems. For another, they both employ price controls, which have never worked, ever, in any society at any time in history, dating back to 301 A.D., when they were imposed by the Roman emperor, Diocletian.
With roughly 30 percent of the U.S. population now covered by the Medicare and Medicaid programs, we are clearly headed in that direction, in spite of compelling evidence that it doesn’t work.
We only have to look at what has happened since 1984, the year the government changed its method of paying hospitals from cost plus to unilaterally setting the fees they pay for hospital services to Medicare and Medicaid patients. When the government began doing this, many hospitals started losing money.
The difference between a hospital’s normal fees for services and the amounts Medicare and Medicaid pay cannot be collected from the patients and must be written off. It’s take it or leave it, and that’s price control.
Furthermore, the government has generally limited annual Cost of Living fee increases to between one and two-and-one-half percent, in spite of the fact that hospital costs have been rising for many years at an annual rate of anywhere from six to fourteen percent.
As a result of Medicare and Medicaid limits on fees, many hospitals actually collect only about 50% of their total billings. The rest must be written off. In 2007, the California HealthCare Foundation reported that one-third of all hospitals in California operate at a loss.
With a national health care plan, many hospitals will eventually close or curtail their services. That’s been the pattern in every country that has nationalized its health care.
Like the proverbial frog being cooked in a pot of cold water, Americans are becoming increasingly aware that the quality of their health care is declining, even as costs continue to go up. It just hasn’t sunk in yet. When it does, they will undoubtedly demand more government control, regulation and oversight, and our politicians will be only too willing to oblige.
Nationalized health care in America is gradually overtaking the free market, and we are all being slowly cooked in the pot of government intervention. So, don’t be surprised if the quality of health care in this country declines further as we move closer to socialized medicine.
Is America’s health care system failing? A lot of people seem to think so. For one thing, there are now an estimated forty-seven million people without health care insurance. And, the solution to the problem invariably involves spending more money.
P.J. O’Rourke said, “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.
Do you think that Barack Obama has the answers to providing health care in America? Or, John McCain? How about George W. Bush? Hillary Clinton? Or, for that matter, any politician? Do they really have the answers?
If they can’t do it, then how about the politicians in Canada or Great Britain? Have they solved the problem in their countries? Some people believe they have. However, in England, where the private practice of medicine was outlawed when socialized medicine was first established there, they were eventually forced to permit the public to go outside the state’s system to obtain health care from private physicians.
The story is much the same in Canada today. Many Canadians come to the U.S. for emergent needs, such as bypass surgery, because the waiting time in Canada is interminable, often many months before their citizens can get life-saving treatment when they need it. And, it can take many months to get an appointment with a doctor in some communities.
All state-run health care systems have one thing in common: rationing. Not necessarily involving the use of ration cards, but rationing nonetheless. That is, rationing of resources. The cause is a devilishly simple principle that is present in all nationalized health care programs: it’s free, or so low cost that it’s almost free. Basic economics clearly demonstrates that whenever something is free, the demand quickly becomes unlimited. The lower the price, the greater the “demand.” Give something away that people want and the “demand” will be virtually unlimited.
However, the flip side of unlimited demand is a shortage of supply. And, not having enough doctors, nurses, or equipment, such as CT Scanners and MRIs, eventually leads to rationing. Without enough health care to go around, rationing becomes a necessity. That’s what has been wrong with nationalized health care in England, Canada, Germany, Japan, the former USSR, everywhere it has been tried.
If there are no politicians who really know what should be done to solve our health care problems why do we keep expecting them to come up with answers?
Just exactly what are the problems? Too many uninsured? Too high cost? Poor quality? Lack of availability? All of the above? Do you know? Or think you know? And, what have been the government’s (read politicians’) solutions to date?
National health care (socialized medicine) in one form or another is the primary health care policy that is gradually being adopted in America. And it is slowly but surely lowering the quality of the health care we are getting. Talk to any doctor you trust and see if they don’t agree. They will tell you that they are working much longer hours for far less money, that many M.D.s are retiring early because they are fed up with the government and insurance company bureaucrats telling them how to practice medicine. There is a growing shortage of doctors and nurses.
You may say, we don’t have socialized medicine in America! Perhaps not yet, but we’ve been headed in that direction for a while, and we seem to be going further down the path as the years progress. It’s a slippery slope. For example, consider Medicare.
But, Medicare is not socialized medicine, you may insist.
Unfortunately, it is, or is headed that way. Why? For one thing, it’s a system that is based on price controls.
Price controls have never worked, ever, in any society at any time in history. They were tried as early as 301 A.D. by a Roman emperor, Diocletian, who implemented price controls under penalty of death. But, even that didn’t work. What price controls do is cause shortages, increase costs and disrupt markets.
Look at what has happened to the Medicare program since 1984, the year the government changed its method of reimbursing hospitals from cost plus to a system called DRGs (Diagnostic Related Groupings). DRGs is a method of classifying illnesses and assigning a comparative value and a specific authorized payment to each. At that point, many hospitals began to lose money because the government started dictating the prices that are paid for inpatient care.
Around 70% of most hospitals’ patients are seniors, whose bills are paid by Medicare. The Federal Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) determines, in its sole discretion, the prices that can be charged for seniors’ inpatient hospital care, and then pays only 80% of those amounts. The differences between a hospital’s standard fees for service and the amounts that Medicare pays must be written off. They cannot be collected from the patient. That’s price control.
Furthermore, because Medicare payments are determined solely by the government, annual Cost of Living increases are limited, generally to between one and two-and-one-half percent, in spite of the fact that hospital costs have been rising for years at an annual rate of anywhere from six to fourteen percent.
Between health insurance contracts (HMOs) and Medicare limits on their charges, hospitals generally collect only about 50% of their total billings. The rest is written off. The result of all this is predictable: many of them are losing money. About one-third of all hospitals in California are currently operating at a loss. For the non-profit hospitals, part of the loss is made-up through fund raising, but it’s not enough. With a national health care plan, at some point, many hospitals would either be closed or services curtailed. That has been the pattern in every country that has nationalized its health care. Nonetheless, that seems to be where we are headed, in spite of compelling evidence that it doesn’t work.
Like the proverbial frog being cooked in a pot of cold water, Americans are gradually becoming aware that the quality of their health care is declining, even as costs continue to go up. It just hasn’t sunk in yet. When it does, they will undoubtedly be led into believing government has the answers and demand more government control, regulation and oversight. And, our politicians will be only too willing to oblige.
Nationalized health care in America is gradually overtaking the free market, and we are all being slowly cooked in the pot of government intervention. So, don’t be surprised at the type of health care program we get as time progresses. Whatever your own conclusions, remember one thing: that our politicians won’t have to rely on whatever health care plan they establish for everyone else. As usual, they will have their own, superior plan. And, it will not be a part of the nationalized health care system that the rest of us will be required to use. If you doubt that assertion, just look at the health care plan that our Federal legislators and government employees have now.
I’m no longer surprised by the fact that politicians and bureaucrats generally try to hide many of their actions from public view, especially those that may be controversial. In spite of the various “sunshine” laws that are passed to combat this tendency, it’s a constant battle to make government transparent.
However, what does surprise me is the seemingly never-ending efforts of politicians to pass legislation without public awareness and debate that will impact literally millions of people. A good example is the attempt last year to slip immigration bills through Congress that would have conferred legal status on an estimated twelve or thirteen million illegal aliens. It was obvious that the overwhelming majority of the American people were opposed to it, yet many of those in Congress kept attempting to get it approved anyway. Just one more example of the attitude that many politicians have that they know best. The effort was finally stopped, at least for the present, by the overwhelming opposition of the American people.
Once again, we are faced with another stealth attempt to implement a plan that involves far reaching legislation that will surely affect every American. Of course, those who support it believe it is a good thing for the country, while many of those who have become aware of this plan find it highly questionable at best and one that could eventually cause the loss of our sovereignty. It is generally referred to as the NAFTA Superhighway.
In a nutshell, it is a plan to build a highway from Mexico to Canada. And what a highway it is. It will be ten or twelve lanes wide (a distance of several football fields), and stretch from Laredo, Texas, to Texarkana (on the border of Texas and Arkansas), and continuing north to Canada. The cost is estimated to be $183 billion over fifty years. The money for this project is not yet committed.
Jerome R. Corsi, reporting in Human Events.com on June 18, 2008, noted: “The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the hear of America.” He also notes that the first section of this highway will be ready to begin construction, that the U.S. Department of Commerce has an office that is working with the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to develop regulations for the operation of the highway.
The purpose of this massive undertaking is said to be to speed the delivery of goods coming from Mexico. Ron Paul, a Republican Congressman from Texas, contends that millions of acres of private property will be subject to eminent domain,” and that “…the superhighway proposal is not the result of free market demand, but rather an extension of government-managed trade schemes like NAFTA…” He also points out that a project of this scope will “…require coordinated federal and state eminent domain actions on an unprecedented scale, as literally millions of people and businesses will be displaced. The loss of whole communities is almost certain, as planners cannot wind the highway around every quaint town, historic building, or senior citizen apartment for thousands of miles.”
The Congressman believes that “The real issue is national sovereignty” and that “The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union – completed with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union.”
Joseph Farah reported in World Net Daily that there seems to be no question about plans to build this superhighway. It is well-known to the Bush administration, including the Secretary of Transportation, and various members of Congress, so it is what might be termed an “open secret.” But we have seen very little reporting about the project and the public seems to be almost completely unaware of it.
The problem is that the Superhighway raises so many questions about such important issues as national security, sovereignty, cost and societal impacts, such as potentially displacing millions of people and businesses, that it cries out for open discussion and vetting. The process is often messy, but it invariably produces refinements, information and ideas that often improve large undertakings, in addition to gaining support by creating public awareness.
We saw the consequences of excessive secrecy in Hillary Clinton’s attempt to develop a health care plan during her husband’s first administration. When the information was finally exposed, the failings of a very bad plan were exposed and the entire effort collapsed.
The Superhighway is just another in a long line of efforts by politicians to keep the public they are supposed to be representing from knowing what they are up to. It should be exposed and vetted in a national debate.
Dating back to 1791, the 8th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees protection against “cruel and unusual” punishment and further provides “that excessive bail ought not be required, nor excessive fines imposed…” (albany.edu, Chapter 9).
Capital Punishment
The death penalty in the U.S. has evolved from a form of punishment that was not initially considered “cruel and unusual” to the point where it is now viewed as “cruel and unusual” by many people. In the U.S., the manner of execution has moved from hanging and the firing squad to the electric chair, the gas chamber and ultimately, in many states, to lethal injection.“…The U.S. public still favors the death penalty by a 65 percent-to-30 percent margin, according to USA Today/Gallup polls of the last three years, but that is down from 80 percent that supported capital punishment in 1994…Since capital punishment was reinstated three decades ago, nearly 900 of the 1,056 executions carried out through 2006 were by lethal injection. It is the primary or exclusive form of execution in 37 of the 38 states with capital punishment (Nebraska uses the electric chair).” (stateline.org, Jan 17, 2007).
Lethal Injection
A USA Today report noted, “A federal judge ruled…that Tennessee’s new lethal injection procedures are cruel and unusual punishment, interrupting plans to execute a killer…” who beat an elderly woman to death during a burglary in 1983. “The protocol ‘presents a substantial risk of unnecessary pain’ and violates death row…inmate’s constitutional protections…The new protocol, released in April, does not ensure that inmates are properly anesthetized before the lethal injection is administered…which could ‘result in a terrifying, excruciating death.” (usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-19-tenn-lethal-injection)
Justice Delayed
The oft quoted adage, “Justice delayed is justice denied” (William E. Gladstone, British statesman and Prime Minister, 1868-1894), now pretty much applies to our entire system of capital punishment - with death row inmates languishing in prisons for years on end while the legal process takes its ponderous course - in spite of the fact that the public continues to favor the death penalty by a margin of better than two-to-one. (en.wikipedia.org)
Abolishing The Death Penalty
“Many countries have abolished the death penalty, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, almost all of Europe and much of Latin America…111 countries either do not have or do not use the death penalty. Many other states retain it, especially in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Caribbean and the United States…In most countries that have capital punishment, it is used to punish only murder and/or for war-related crimes. In some countries, like the People’s Republic of China, even non-violent crimes, like drug and business related crimes, are punished with capital punishment.” (en.wikipedia.org)
Splitting Hairs
However, the arguments for and against capital punishment notwithstanding, splitting hairs about whether the condemned should or do suffer any pain whatsoever are irrational in my view. It’s a position that I believe is taken for purely tactical reasons, that is, merely to make the death penalty unenforceable by defining it as “cruel and unusual.
”Dead is dead, whether by a bullet to the back of the head, the guillotine or lethal injection. No one can say for certain just how much pain or suffering may be experienced at the moment of death, and I suspect that most if not all of the 65% of Americans who favor capital punishment do not particularly care how it is carried out. Arguing about which method is least painful seems nonsensical to me – especially when the individual involved is someone like Ted Bundy, the BTK killer, Jeffrey Dahmer or any of the many other serial killers who murder innocent people without giving any thought to the pain and suffering they caused in the process.
In the final analysis, belief in capital punishment seems to be more an article of faith than it is a matter of facts. Both sides tend to give credence to the specific arguments that support their respective views. A leading news analyst often says that he is against capital punishment but that those who are convicted of “capital crimes” should be sentenced life in prison at hard labor, as in breaking rocks. For my part, I’m with the 65%.
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