Tag: socialized medicine

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Slavery Is Not Freedom

There is one fact about the health care “reform” legislation being debated in Washington, DC, that is unavoidable. The fact that it is coercive.

Governments coerce. It would be great if governmental force were used only to combat criminals, not also to tell us how to live our lives. But, alas, this is not the case.

If the proposed health care legislation is passed, it will result in new orders from the federal government that everyone must obey. Everyone: Doctors; employers; patients; taxpayers. One mandate would force you to sign up for health insurance if you currently lack it. Refuse, and you’ll pay a penalty. Unless you qualify for a “hardship exemption.”

Do we all know what this means? A Washington Post report claims that the notion of penalizing Americans who decline to sign up for health insurance “has its roots in the conservative philosophy of self-reliance.” Because, presumably, the best way to encourage self-reliance is to point a gun at people and tell them what to do “for their own good.”

This is worse than messy thinking. It is the opposite of the truth. Self-reliance is a matter of making choices. It implies the freedom to make choices. Self-reliance has nothing to do with Big Brother ordering you about as if your own thinking, values, and circumstances were irrelevant. And self-reliance has nothing to do with the current health care debate in Washington.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets

Border Guards Confiscate Prescription Drugs

A few years ago, stories of Americans going to Canada to buy cheaper drugs were all the rage. Here’s a twist on that: Canadians going to Mexico to get cheaper drugs.

The Canadian government has been intercepting shipments and travelers at the border and confiscating the drugs.

The drug in question is Thalidomide.

You no doubt remember this drug for its horrific side-effects, in babies.

But it is still used — by people who won’t get pregnant — to treat a rare form of cancer. It turns out that it’s one of the better drugs on the market, extending the lives of sufferers from myeloma.

Trouble is, only one province pays for one version of the drug. Other versions are illegal. Canada’s socialized health care system does not approve of cheaper versions of the drug hailing from Mexican factories. Those factories haven’t gone out of their way to deal with side-effects.

So Canada confiscates Thalidomide as if it were cocaine.

Do you ever get frustrated hearing these tales? I do. I don’t know about your frustration, but it seems to me that if someone’s going to take the trouble to go out of the country to buy a drug to treat themselves, the full weight of responsibility for safety and side-effects — as well as the choice — should fall on his or her shoulders.

Not the government’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Socialism Fails . . . in Hawaii

We may have dismal years ahead of us. Democrats ruling Congress while Barack Obama, Mr. Redistributionist, will preside over an attempt to move in lurch step to massive new amounts of spending and taxes.

I write these words before the election, so maybe by the time you hear them, the electorate will have proved me wrong. But, hey: Under a McCain administration the federales would still not likely shy away from big government insanity.

There is, however, hope. When wishful thinking slams head-on into practical reality, sometimes we take stock. Sometimes we even say things like, “Know what? This is dumb and destructive. Let’s stop.”

We saw this in the 1980s and ’90s with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet empire, and the turn toward freer markets in many former Soviet or other tyrannies (and near-tyrannies) around in the world.

And we’ve just seen an example here in the states, in Hawaii. There the state is ending its universal health care plan for children. Why? Because it was getting too expensive.

A government doctor in Hawaii named Kenny Fink reports, “People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free.” He adds that that this was not the purpose.

Of course not. Socialism is never supposed to kill economic incentives and self-responsibility. It just always does.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
too much government

Microcosm Out West

The Wahkiakum County Eagle covers one of the smallest counties in Washington state. Last issue’s big story was about the county’s finances.

The large picture on the front page shows county officials conferring how to lay off employees. A smaller picture features a note pinned to a wall. The note says “By October 7th the County Debt is $1.4 million.” Then, in bigger letters, it says “Do Something” with the Treasurer’s signature below.

For a county with less than 4,000 citizens to rack up a multi-million dollar debt is no small thing.

The commissioners gave notice to discontinue the county extension agreement with the state’s cow college. A bitter pill for many, since this was the first county west of the Mississippi to institute such an office.

Weirdly, the commissioners saw this coming. Revenues have been falling for some time. Yet a few years ago they bought the failing local medical clinic. A picture lower on the front page welcomes a new physician’s assistant. The hidden story here is that since the county has owned the clinic it has been costing the county at least a quarter a million per year.

Can you say “microcosm”? The microcosm — small universe — is this little county, faltering because it took over a medical delivery system.

The lesson for America, our macrocosm: Don’t take over health care. We can’t afford another huge expense on the books.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.