Jan 24 2009
NOTHING’S FREE AND NEITHER IS HEALTH CARE
WHY EXPERTS ARE MISSING THE POINT
by Thomas Cole JD
Before analyzing two recent articles in the News Press on how and why we all can get free healthcare, let’s look at five big facts that make socialized medicine unlikely to ever function in the United States as we know it. The following are facts, not feelings, wishes or opinions.
1) Nothing’s free; taxing one group (businesses and their owners) to pay for others health expenses destroys free enterprise, capital, initiative and self-reliance.
2) Currently, U.S. unfunded liabilities for social security and Medicare are at $100 trillion. Our Yearly GDP is only $14 Trillion, and government taxes use up $6 trillion of that which is about 40%. (OMB figures.)
3) Lawyers and Government triple the costs of anything and everything.
For example; malpractice insurance for a doctor is $100K a year. Income taxes on a doctor’s income of $200K are fifty percent, so a doctor must make $300K to take home $100K.
So a thousand dollars of healing now costs three thousand dollars. Thus the cost of medical care is tripled, with lawyers and the Government taking two thirds.
4) Government takes by force, 40% of GNP from our U.S. economy. It used to take 16% in 1950 and got along fine. In 1790 it struggled along with 2% and some how the country survived. And people out there still want more taxes?
5) Our borders are wide open, allowing millions of illegals to flood our country. This inflow of illegal poor people, use up every penny of free social services, including schools, prisons, courts, police, Medicare, food stamps, you name it, as if it were a bundle of rights guaranteed to them. All these ‘free’ services, were supposed to be the safety net for actual citizens, not for anchor babies and their endless extended families.
All that being said, we move forward to Mr. Smith, an Insurance industry expert with a PHD, running his own insurance company, a hard-nosed, no non-sense businessman, and an avid Obama supporter, apparently.
In his recent article in The News Press dated January 18, 2009, Mr. Smith puts fourth the idea that people need to pay $65 billion more in taxes to ‘fix’ the health care system. He suggests that,
“ Guaranteed issue-coupled with a mandate for coverage- makes great sense. When everyone is in the ‘insurance pool,’ the real costs are shared by everyone.” That means people with money are forced to buy insurance policies, and insurance companies are forced to issue policies to everyone else, regardless of their health/risk.
According to Mr. Smith this is the ‘Obama plan’ and will be paid for by raising income taxes on us living, and raising estate taxes on the dead, (death tax).
Here Mr. Smith, PHD, assumes that the government can manage a health care program, or anything, (see facts 1-5) maybe like the government managed social security and Medicare, now in the red for $100 trillion, (not billion) dollars.
In analogy, it’s like forcing Fanny May to guarantee mortgages to poor risk homebuyers, and we know where that led to; a monumental financial disaster.
This is all socialist madness. What next, forced abortions? Yet our insurance expert claims this Obama Plan to be, “ a middle of the road approach, a little free market and a little government-provided or subsidized health care.” If we look at facts 1-5 can we really believe such rhetoric? I’m not ready for the re-education camp just yet.
Now onto the more desperate consumer side of things, we have Mr. Jones, a highly educated, self-made millionaire/ business man concerned that his catastrophic health care plan for his family of four, is too expensive at $12,000 a year. That is a lot of cash.
Mr. Jones had questions for Governor Schwarzenegger, who had recently corresponded with Mr. Jones regarding the high cost of health care.
Mr. Jones asks the Governor, “What’s the difference between government run Medicare and a government run free health care program?” Apparently signaling that both should work out fine. (See facts 1-5. Medicare is currently in the hole for $100 trillion.) Slight problem with such an argument. The government/ congress can’t be trusted to run any thing. Maybe that’s an opinion but really, a hundred trillion in the red on Medicare and social security? Not a good track record.
But Mr. Jones continues and asks, ”How can a market based health care system, that has never worked, and can’t work, ever work? ” The question assumes there is no functioning free market health care today.
But in fact there is ‘free market’ health care available to anyone who can afford it. It just costs a lot because of facts 1-5. But simply forcing people of means and businesses to pay more taxes, and expecting the result to be a free health care system from the government, is not rational.
Yet Mr. Jones still wants to know why the Governor replied,
” Socialized Medicine is not the solution to our states health care problems.”
Alleluia Arnold Schwzenegger! Now there’s a multi billion dollar grossing, movie star, businessman, with an MBA, who understands facts 1-5. The Governor is not interested in socialist medicine, and for good reason. It’s socialism, it fails and it’s wrong for America because ‘America’ is based on free enterprise, or was.
The real solutions to lowering health care costs are contained in three simple phrases; Tort Reform, Tax Reform and Border/Citizenship Reform. No surprise these items are not at the top of the new administrations to-do list. But they are essential to lowering health care costs. (Read 1-5 above please)
The current administration may want to keep private health care as high as possible, thereby causing people to ‘Need the government to fix things’ in the health care arena. This is just a back door entrance to socialism and ultimately communism.
Why would any President or political party want such an outcome you may ask? The answer is power. They want power. Power to redistribute the confiscated tax wealth of this great nation, and dole it out for votes.
So best off join a gym, get a dog, eat less and give up expecting the government to solve everyone’s health care problems, because it’s not going to happen.
In closing however, it is interesting to note that excellent world-class health care, including major surgery, is currently available in India for one-tenth the cost of U.S. care. Talk about out-sourcing. People fly to India from around the globe for operations done cheap and well. And why so cheap you ask? The answer is that India does not subject itself to our problems 1-5. It is a wise, old country, not a youg, brash, fad driven country like ours. We still may learn though over time, that nothing’s free.
From Thomas
