THE 'COSTS' of MEDICAL CARE

As most Americans deal with the sting of Saturday night, they are gearing up to fight again. A battle was lost, based on deceit known as the Stupak amendment, already showing signs of being reversed, and the ink isn't even dry.

In his pitch before the House vote Saturday night, Obama warned Democrats: “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit [Democratic voters] and it will encourage the extremists.”

So now the commander-in-chief refers to his fellow Americans as extremists, teabag, anti-government citizens. Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks states:

We are far ahead of where we should be given the power Democrats have over America. But as we like to say at FreedomWorks: Government goes to those who show up. You have run to the sound of the guns, time and again in this most important fight over the future of America. Let's finish the battle, and bury the idea of government-run health care once and for all.

If you have any doubt that we can stop this, remember:

• We kept them from passing the bill in July before anyone could read it.

• We let them know what we thought about Washington all month long in August.

• We marched on the Capitol by the hundreds of thousands on September 12 and kept them from passing a bill for another month.

• We spent October calling, writing, and visiting our Congressmen to tell them to say no to ObamaCare and stopped them for another month.

And on Saturday we forced Pelosi to claim passing a bill with broad bi-partisan opposition was victory. It was not.

We can not afford to let up now. In addition to making your voice heard, I ask that you consider making a contribution to help fund the next wave of attack as we try to reach a million freedom loving citizens to take action in the coming weeks. Please click here if you are in a position to help us.

We fight because we know that no matter how many times the power grabbers in Washington deny it, a trillion dollar health care entitlement means health care will cost us more and will increase the deficit. And we know Washington controlled health care means poorer quality health care.

It boggles the mind how something that affects every fiber of our lives was not put to a vote of the people. How is it that a handful of politicians, each with their own agenda [not being for the people, but for themselves], can make such a monumental decision on our lives.

Are we not protected by the Constitution and the Declaration from this kind of tyranny? Hopefully, there will be challenges against these underhanded actions by our Congress. This is all part of a strategy to destroy freedom as we know it.

In light of this weekend's actions by our House of Representatives, this piece by Thomas Sowell seems appropriate, considering he wrote it before these autrocious actions by the House:


The ‘Costs’ of Medical Care, Part IV
By Thomas Sowell, November 6, 2009

What is so wrong with the current medical system in the United States that we are being urged to rush headlong into a new government system that we are not even supposed to understand, because this legislation is to be rushed through Congress before even the Senators and Representatives have a chance to read it?

Among the things that people complain about under the present medical care system are the costs, insurance company bureaucrats' denials of reimbursements for some treatments and the free loaders at hospital emergency rooms whose costs have to be paid by others.

Will a government-run medical system make these things better or worse? This very basic question seldom seems to get asked, much less answered.

If the government has some magic way of reducing costs — rather than shifting them around, including shifting them to the next generation — they have certainly not revealed that secret. The actual track record of government when it comes to costs — of anything — is more alarming than reassuring.

What about insurance companies denying reimbursements for treatments? Does anyone imagine that a government bureaucracy will not do that?

Moreover, the worst that an insurance company can do is refuse to pay for medication or treatment. In some countries with government-run medical systems, the government can prevent you from spending your own money to get the medication or treatment that their bureaucracy has denied you. Your choice is to leave the country or smuggle in what you need.

However appalling such a situation may be, it is perfectly consistent with elites wanting to control your life. As far as those elites are concerned, it would not be "social justice" to allow some people to get medical care that others are denied, just because some people "happen to have money."

But very few people just "happen to have money." Most people have earned money by producing something that other people wanted. But getting what you want by what you have earned, rather than by what elites will deign to allow you to have, is completely incompatible with the vision of an elite-controlled world, which they call "social justice" or other politically attractive phrases.

The "uninsured" are another big talking point for government medical insurance. But the incomes of many of the uninsured indicate that many — if not most — of them choose to be uninsured. Poor people can get insurance through Medicaid.

Free loading at emergency rooms — mandated by government — makes being uninsured a viable option.

Within living memory, most Americans had no medical insurance. Even large medical bills were paid off over a period of months or years, just as we buy big-ticket items like cars or houses.

This is not ideal for everybody or every situation. But if we are ready to rush headlong into government control of our lives every time something is not ideal, then we are not going to remain a free people very long.

Ironically, it is politicians who have already made medical insurance so expensive that many people refuse to buy it. Insurance is designed to cover risk. But politicians have mandated that insurance cover things that are not risks and that neither the buyers nor the sellers of insurance want covered.

In various states, medical insurance must cover the costs of fertility treatments, annual checkups and other things that have nothing to do with risks. What many people most want is to be insured against the risk of having their life's savings wiped out by a catastrophic illness.

But you cannot get insurance just for catastrophic illnesses when politicians keep piling on mandates that drive up the cost of the insurance. These are usually state mandates but the federal government is already promising more mandates on insurance companies — which means still higher costs and higher premiums.

All this makes a farce of the notion of a "public option" that will simply provide competition to keep private insurance companies honest. What politicians can and will do is continue to drive up the cost of private insurance until it is no longer viable. A "public option" is simply a path toward a "single payer" system, a euphemism for a government monopoly.

Read more of Thomas Sowell here