• Front page
• Receive this content on your RSS reader

This Speakout has not been edited.

By Russell W.Shurts

Let’s say your friendly neighborhood gang on successive nights threw rocks through your window, and then on the third day sent a rather menacing member of the gang to your door to offer you the opportunity to buy protection from further intrusions. Would you call what was being offered ‘protection,’ in the proper sense of that word?

Well, for nearly half a century the government has been throwing legalized ‘rocks’ through your health care system, and today after thoroughly wrecking it their unsavory representatives are offering you ‘protection.’ In 1965 the same type of people advocating further government intervention in medicine now were successful in convincing Americans to give the government control over all health care provided for those who are indigent or over 65. Prior to the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in that year, health care spending never exceeded 6% of annual gross domestic product. Today it is 16% and rising. It is not difficult to understand when you make a valuable service ‘free,’ the demand for that service will rise. When the demand for anything valuable increases, its price inevitably increases, or at least it does if there is any kind of a free market available to trade for it in.

And that’s where the government ‘protection’ comes in; the only way the unsavory representatives know how to lower prices is to mandate them by government force, i.e. to do away with the free market. Unfortunately, as we have seen time and time and time again, reality is not to be denied; not by wishing, not by magic wands and most certainly not by government mandate.

Since the introduction of socialist programs over 100 years ago, we have seen the same pattern repeated over and over and over again. Whatever service or good is either made the property of the state or put under the control of the state immediately becomes a scarce service or good. Remember the endless waiting lines in the Soviet Union? Well, they are being played out right now in the doctor’s offices and emergency rooms in every country and state that has put the control of medicine under the government thumb.

There is a word that properly describes what is being offered here: extortion. Your government, however, is not as honorable as your friendly neighborhood gang; because if you buy this kind of ‘protection’ you will not get more and cheaper health care. You will only get far less effective health care, if you get any at all.

Russell W. Shurts is a resident of Centennial.

READER COMMENTS

Socjay,

Single payer system is Socialized medicine. You can calla pig a duck, but it still is a pig. Once you take incentive out of the game, you lose innovation and accountability. If I can only get X dollars for something and my time is worth Y to me, I will do something else. If I cannot make money on something I developed, I cannot get financial backing and therefore cannot do the innovation.

All the socialized med fans seem to think that the .gov who is so "efficient" at everything else will suddenly become budha-like in its efficiency, compassion et al.

ummm, yeah, right. What we will get and Canada et al has, is an inneficient system of queues that will more than likely kill you as you wander the bureaucracies in a dream like state. Kind of like the poor Brits that die every year waiting for care.

Have you ever wondered why there are flights from Canada for wealthy canadians to get treated in Cleveland and Buffalo? Do you really think the "elites" like Hillary or Obama will be waiting in a queue under their own proposals? Don't bet on it. Their health care plan is for you, the serfs.

Currently have socialized medicine>>

No not really. What we have is government interference in the marketing of health care. There is little hope it will be possible to either remove or diminish it but here goes...
Medicare and Medicaid are government paid programs. Because those using it do not know the costs, nor do they pay them, there is no incentive to look for either better or cheaper alternatives.
Because the government denies the individual the same tax benefits for purchasing insurance that they grant to businesses that supply it there is a great deal of ignorance of actual costs or alternative providers of services. This also creates a situation where small businesses are at a severe disadvantage because they may not be able to afford health care while the big companies can provide it as a benefit and retain some workers who cannot afford to change jobs. This is particularly true of older employees who would be more valuable to a company but who gain nothing for their experience or skills because the company can use insurance as the only reason some will not chqnge jobs. (My husband stayed with a company that cheated him out of wages and other payments for five years after I had cancer surgery to keep me insured. We then produced evidence of the underpayments and an attorney's card. They fired him and he got a better paying job in three days. Six months later we also got a check almost equivalent to a year's pay. That is what someone with a continuing "uninsurable" health problem would have to simply put up with or risk their job to address.)

Imagine a system where the government offers a tax credit, much like the earned income tax credit, to the working poor which will permit them to buy insurance. Let's even say the government will permit them to exchange that credit, which will be treated like food stamps so it is only spendable on insurance, for a family enrollment in the Medicaid program. Now there is a definate program which will insure anyone no matter how poor.
Second, give the middle class a tax deduction for medical expenses including insruance payments and take it away from the employers. Restructure the tax system so medical expenses are not subject to a minimum but you can impose a maximum deduction to keep the majority of the benefit for the middle class.
I'd add MSA/HSA to the picture and make it possible to buy catastrophic only insurance. Now we have the working poor guaranteed coverage. (The non-working poor are already covered.) The middle class workers and their families are covered. The government is not making the health care choices for anyone and everyone is covered. Of course the people who want the government in charge will be disappointed so we will have to fight them. They don't want any working plan. They want a plan where they control people and their choices. If we aren't careful we will get it. Let's be extremely grateful to Tabor. In Colorado they will have to sell this French pig to the voters.

We currently have socialized medicine. For instance, although I am healthy I get to pay huge permiums that, in a large part, help pay for sick people who need costly medical services. (Same formula is used in auto insurance). Harp all you want about bad government but by all means get over the "socialized" label. It's here to stay.

Hank is an insurance company lobbyist

Individual responsibility and accountability with everyone shopping the system spending their own money in their own best interest is the only way to go. Otherwise single payer socialized medicine would be like going to the post office for a heart transplant and giving your brain surgey operation to the lowest bidder (who is probably on break). Your next stop: The Neptune Society!

.

Ooh, scare word, "Socialized medicine." The single-payer system is not socialized medicine. And how can you get less effective health care than the none at all that the uninsured get?

Our current system is just great. Of course if you get sick it is not so great.

POST A COMMENT

• New marijuana initiative has teeth
• Faith-based initiatives must be ended
• Vocational programs sadly lacking
• It’s time to get serious about teacher quality
• Politics of service a new kind of politics
• Socialized medicine another gang operation
• A trip to Washington to help cure diabetes
• Public Schools: Think Transformation, Not Tinkering