So the big fuss is about the push led by Obama and his minions to impose a massive government bureaucracy on us all in the name of providing everyone with healthcare.
If you listen closely and know how to translate the populist rhetoric into real-world objectives, what I've gleaned from the current proposals is discouraging. The Big 3 of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have a government healthcare plan that:
Will cost a trillion dollars minimum.
Has the goal of covering everybody for everything. That includes things some of us don't want our taxes paying for, like illegal alien care, gender reassignment surgeries, abortions, perhaps even those sexual performance enhancer drugs.
Purposely sets up a government program run by Washington bureaucrats that will "compete" with private health insurers. That would seem to mean the program is designed to put private insurers out of business.
Will raise taxes on businesses and the "wealthy" to cover part of the cost.
Won't do anything to reform the system. Real healthcare cost problems like Tort Reform with its related Defensive Medicine practices, inefficient and slow claims processing, even unhealthy behaviors linked to medical problems have no solution in this program.
From my perspective, all this really does is replace private healthcare with a government system. The government taxes us to pay for a new layer of bureucracy that adds to the cost rather than reduces it, transfers all the private profits in the system into the pockets of the political and bureaucrat class, and rations care.
Obama himself suggested that if you're old and sick, rather than saving you with the needed treatment or surgery, his new heathcare czar will issue you some pain medicine and a pat on the head.
May I offer some simple fundamental principles that should drive any so-called "healthcare reform"?
1. I am responsible for my and my family's medical care.
2. To protect myself from financial ruin from a possible major illness or injury, I should be able to buy into a risk pool of my choosing that would cover costs should such a major problem occur for me or my family.
3. I should pay for routine doctor visits, prescriptions, etc., out of my pocket.
4. The government should have no right to even ask whether I have health insurance. If I choose not to carry insurance, the financial risk of that decision is mine alone. Even so, should such a disaster happen to someone in my family, bankruptcy would be the last resort - I would first try everything I can to pay the bills for such care.
5. Non-citizens may pay for their own medical care while in the United States. Not a penny of tax money should be used to care for those who cross the border illegally. Not that they should not receive critical care when needed; but they should be fully liable for the cost. Not me. Not any other citizen of this country.
6. Healthcare providers first and foremost are in the business of treating sick and injured people. It's an individual moral responsibility for every provider to treat such people at reasonable rates.
7. Tort lawyers are responsible for obtaining justice for patients who were victims of real malpractice. The surgeon was drunk, the hospital failed to keep the facility sanitary and caused a massive patient infection, the nurse decided to kill a patient with a lethal dose of some drug. Those are incidents of malpractice that should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Not every time a common complication happens with a surgery, or someone was misdiagnosed by an otherwise competent doctor.
When did it become OK for people to demand others take care of them? I seem to remember there was a time in this country when taking charity or welfare was a cause for shame and embarrassment; now it's expected - no, demanded!
These days values are sneered at. Politicians risk their position if they speak the truth.
There is no solution to the healthcare "crisis" as long as nobody cares to take responsibility. We're about to see the "crisis" turn into a meltdown, simply because our narcissistic generation led by our narcissistic President don't even know what the word "values" means.
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