For nearly 50 years, America fought a Cold War against the Soviet Union and the ideology of Communism that it represented. And when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, most people thought the Cold War had ended and Communism had been thoroughly discredited.
Those people couldn’t have been more wrong.
The Cold War is still going on. The Communists have invaded America. And now they’re seeking weapons of mass destruction.
One of these modern-day Communists is California resident and state Senator Sheila Kuehl of Los Angeles.
And Kuehl has created her own weapon of mass destruction that, if employed, would threaten the lives of everyone in the state.
What is this weapon of mass destruction that this Communist — or perhaps terrorist is the right word now — has devised? It’s single payer health care. (PDF) Kuehl has proposed a bill in the state Senate, SB 840, which would outlaw private health insurance of any kind, and create a government-run health care system modeled on Canada’s single payer health care system.
That’s the same Canadian system that’s eating half the country’s provincial budgets. The same system that Canadians can’t get health care in without waiting for months or years. Only in Canada, it’s just recently become possible for private health care to be offered, thanks to a court ruling in Quebec. And many Canadians are actually choosing private health care, because they can get the high quality care they need much faster. Why do you think they kept coming here to the U.S. for health care?
Anyway, Californians won’t even have the option of having private health insurance under this proposal. Which means that health care rationing of a kind never before seen in this country will shortly follow. It’ll be much like Sweden, where six-month waits for heart surgery are common, and you might get your surgery sooner than that only because the person ahead of you in the queue died waiting for that surgery that might have saved his life.
Somehow, people keep persisting with the bizarre idea that not being able to get health care is a good thing. Simply, it’s because they’re being deceived. Kuehl puts forth that this single-payer plan will actually be cheaper than private health insurance, and everyone will be covered. Sure, everyone will be covered, but as always happens with nationalized health care, strict rationing goes into effect, and people die as a result. And because it’s yet another inefficient government bureaucracy, the waste alone will make it more expensive.
This plan could easily bankrupt the state.
So, if Kuehl gets this weapon of mass destruction fully armed, and convinces the Terminator to push the big red button on it, what will happen?
First, anyone with half a brain, anyone with chronic health problems, anyone who simply values his or her health, and any doctor worth his or her salt is going to leave the state as fast as they can, and hopefully they’ll make it out before the next time they need medical care, because if they don’t, their very lives are at risk.
Second, the system will begin rationing out health care. It will only pay for what it wants to, and take your treatment choices out of the hands of your doctor and put them in the hands of a faceless bureaucrat who doesn’t care one bit about you or your health, only his paycheck. It says so right in the bill. And it will decide how much to pay doctors for their services, which is going to be much less than they make now. As a result, doctors will see fewer and fewer patients as their pay goes down, and the lines will get longer and longer.
Ronald Bailey has a more detailed analysis of how this bill will destroy the health of Californians.
The only unanswered question I have is this: Should this WMD attack on California be considered chemical or biological? I’m leaning toward biological, myself.
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Karl Marx would love the popular moves among politicians in various state governments and the federal government to ban so-called "junk" food in schools, and to "put healthy food in" convenience stores and on the tables of those they define as poor. It's a very elitist and arrogant mindset that promotes this ideology, and it needs to be addressed.
Ultimately, the war supporters in Congress prevailed in the vote on the resolution. Still, the vote was significant because it places every member of Congress on the record as supporting or not supporting the unconstitutional, costly, violent occupation of a country that never attacked us. This vote should serve as an important reminder to the American people of where their representatives really stand when it comes to policing the world, empire building, and war.
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Paul
Mar 14, 2006
Thanks for your inspiring article. We in Germany are also discussing health care. One big party favors a national health plan with no private companies. The other big party wants everyone to pay exactly the same. Regardless of age, gender, income, treatment prefereces…you pay exactly the same premium. But poor people can then qualify for subsidies because the “one size fits all premium” is too expensive for housholds with low income. That’s just crazy.
What I meant with inspiring: I really need to cover this topic too.
Michael Hampton
Mar 14, 2006
Paul, unless someone manages to inject some reason into the debate over there, you’ll wind up with a national health plan with no private companies, where everyone pays exactly the same.
No One Important
Mar 14, 2006
Would not a free market work for health care as it has for every other consumable? Look at Lasik eye surgery and plastic surgery. These procedures have dropped in price dramatically since their introduction. The safety concerns were worked out shortly after introduction. The continuing competition amongst providers hasn’t driven the risk factors sky high, nor has it caused a meltdown of the doctors performing the procedures. This insurance company and government racketeering of health care is harming us all. If people want to lower their health care costs, let them see the real pricing involved. They can then make informed decisions and direct the market with their dollars.
R
Mar 15, 2006
In Portugal we get what I call “the worst of both worlds”.
We have a National Health System (were you can wait several months for a vascular intervention) and more and more a private system, that uses National Health Systems infrastructure (hospital facilities rented to clinics owned by the same doctors that parse “customers” according to their way of paying).
So, for instance, you don’t get a medical interviw in National System for the next 3 months. No problemo. Get the cash, find who is the doctor that operates in that hospital, go to his private office, pay him and he will make the treatment in the National Hospital (if you get lucky you might even not pay for the surgery) and the poor bloke that can’t pay the private interview will wait a litle longer ’cause all infrastructure is beeing used this way.
Why should private practiccioners build infrastructures that cost millions if they have some there already…
Unless you can sell this infrastructure, or the usage of it, to the National System, for helping it declogging the system and eliminate the waiting lists (genereted by the above procedures). These are the new “trends” that are arising…
Smart & slick, isn’t it..
I forgot to say that in an emergency people turn to public hospitals, where the probabilities of finding adequate treatment is higher and private ones only exists in large cities …
Kevin Fields
Mar 28, 2006
Well the good thing is that you can be well-assured that this plan will never see the light of day. Why? As much as we may hate them, political lobbyists for the insurance industry will swoop in and pay off enough politicians to ensure that it fails.
Jun 03, 2006
BIRD
Jun 20, 2006
Make mine freedom, too - Homeland Stupidity
Sep 05, 2006
California Communists pass single payer health care - Homeland Stupidity
albertlongoria
Oct 24, 2006
If we are to truly compete with the rest of the world, we must have the same basic health, housing and educational systems as the rest of the world. Americans workers have every right to task our representatives in government to set up a uniform system insuring that we all have health care. Health care is a little like firefighting “Time is of the essenceâ€. If the free market were providing the quality and quantity of product, you wouldn’t hear a peep. Nevertheless, currently there is a shortage of this product. Most HMOs can’t function in heavy regulated states, for example Texas has rid its self of most HMO type insurance with it’s strict net 90 pay requirement HMOs need at least 120 to 365 days to pay providers for services rendered. Heath care funding is in a transition from a job-subsidized benefit to grouped self-insurance. If you doubt this go to Wall-Mart, your Credit Union or Health Club and ask about their dental and health care plans. Non-Profit groups like Churches, Cities and Social Clubs are now exploring insuring members using group pricing and joining local heath care systems for regular maintenance visits. Would we be buying services directly from your local hospital or pharmacy. Our dollars will go directly to the entity that provided the service not a half dozen middlemen each taking a cut until just a few cents go to the actual provider. I noticed that a procedure will cost you a $1,000 Co-Pay then the insurance company pays $2,000, a total of 3.000 but if your un-insured it’s $9500. Sounds crazy, if we don’t explore and study different options nothing will ever change for the better. However, all this must be monitored for fraud but not by the fox but by third party technical and ethical experts reviewing results in open & well-documented meetings.
Michael Hampton
Oct 25, 2006
You’ve made a critical mistake there: We don’t have adequate health care because we do not have a free market. The government has so screwed up health care that it’s very difficult for many people to get health insurance, and costs are staggering. How can you expect government to fix the problem it caused in the first place, by making it worse?
albertlongoria
Oct 25, 2006
The government is You and Me! If the government representative you voted for is not doing the job, you need to send a different representative. If a gardener or mechanic does a lousy job you replace them. Why is this representative job any different? Find a person who is knowledgeable and a quick study. Database & spreadsheet analyzers not movie stars & cheerleaders who just want to be popular.