There is a political struggle going on over reforming how Americans obtain and pay for medical assistance.
But is there a debate?
Mostly what we hear, instead, are snide put-downs. Gail Collins recently wrote in the New York Times that “members of Congress are getting yelled at about socialized medicine by people who appear to have been sitting in their attics since the anti-tax tea parties, listening for signs of alien aircraft. But on the bright side, they’ve finally got something to distract them from the president’s birth certificate.”
That’s kind of funny. But it doesn’t address anyone’s fear or reasonable suspicion. It’s just more liberal scorn thrown at people who disagree with “big government knows best.”
I’ve heard Rachel Maddow make similar sniping comments. According to her, all folks have against the Democrats’ reform ideas is that Obama wants to kill old people. She laughs. Dismisses it out of hand.
But there are real arguments embedded in such concerns. As I wrote recently on Townhall.com, it’s not that advocates of single-payer medical systems want to kill old people; it’s that, over time, budgetary demands force them to institute some sort of rationing. Older folk die by waiting in week-long, month-long lines for medical assistance in Canada and Great Britain right now.
This is a very real concern. It deserves honest debate, not snappy put-downs and sniping retorts.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “Snappy Put-downs Do Not a Debate Make”
Paul;
I am and always have been a US citizen. However, from 1976 to 1989 my family and I lived in Canada as ‘landed immigrants’. We got to see first hand what their medical system is like. My wife needed a hip replacement. She was in her 50’s then. She waited SIX years before her number came up. Six years of agony because the system was broke.
My best friend in Canada has a kidney stone somewhere in his system. It hurts like hell. He’s gone 7 months waiting for a urologist to ultrasound blast it out.
We were GLAD to move back to the US. The last thing I want facing me as I get older is any government/Obama health care rationing. If the new plan’s intention to limit senior citizens’ medicare options isn’t euthanasia, it sure as hell is going to make our last few years of life wishing we could quietly die.
And the beat goes on! But is anyone focusing on the MASSIVE bureaucracy that is going to be needed to operate the proposed (and hopefully disposed of) Health Reform Insurance
system? Someone has defined a bureaucrat as “anyone who is between you and the one who has to make the final decision.” How many layers of computer-jockey functionaries will there be through which your requests for treatment will be “filtered”? The snide comments by those quoted in your article only expose the reality that they are in some “Lala” land.
I wish the comment that Paul made would be noted in the news. This year I found myself in the medicare
system. I use the same provider have have used for 40 years and know the way they would. As a new “senior” I would find it difficult to make a big change of medical insurance. As we age we get forgetful and nervous about changes when we can’t remember all
the details. Personally, I don’t want to make a change. I am afraid I will not ever figure out the details of the new plan. Am I being self centered? Maybe so.
Paul has hit a nail on the head. So too did David Shaver in his comments. In fact, I fear the bureaucracy as much as I fear a single payer system designed to squash competition since the government plan will always get cash (taxpayer) infusions so it can always keep its price dramatically under that of a free market competitor.
The new 53 department bureaucracy will require thousands of new unionized federal employees (who will probably be on the federal employee health care plan & not the public option, will be our undoing. Now they say the President is ‘willing’ to accept a proposal w/o the public option.
THIS is what he wanted all along. He wants the bureaucracy. He wants to system in place to erode the free market by crushing it with new rules, regulations, policies, panels, review boards, etc. This is the real threat to us.We need to demand the entire mess be dumped & only targeted reforms take place to deal with the targeted problems. The rest is political snake oil, & it ain’t pretty what they want to create. These guys really are socialists.
Watch. The next step will be a behind the scenes effort to control talk radio, etc., by limiting talk to only that which can be countered by a liberals babble. No liberal babble, no conservative talk. Plus, diversity is the roadblock. Seems, unless we have some imaginary parity of ownership, its not fair. This bunk is all designed to stifle free speech.
There was a time when having a kidney stone was as dreaded like hving a heart attack. Thanks to the improvements in medical facilities, more and easy solutions to deal with kidney stones have been made possible. But by all means, proper treatment under the guidence of the right doctor is a must in getting cured quickly.