Shadow –
If the government is the majority player in the health care space, then why not blame it for the brokenness of the industry? I mean, really, to hold up any of the mismanaged and sometimes downright fraudulent health care programs as something to aim for is folly at its worst. For every dollar spent by Medicare, physicians have to charge non-Medicare patients thirty-three cents to cover their costs.
It’s a policy of Medicare to cost-shift by deliberately underpaying providers. Even committing that act of fraud can’t keep the program afloat. It is hemorrhaging money and is not sustainable over the long-term. Who in their right minds would want to expand that model further?
Citing public opinion is weak. If the ABC propaganda piece is any indication, the media has an agenda to misinform the public of the facts of health care. How many know what kind of serious trouble Federal Government health programs are in? How many know that Medicare deliberately extorts free services out of providers? How many people know that the attitude of socialized medicine systems the world over drives them towards keeping people alive but not caring about the quality of their lives? I know people who’ve been crippled by Britain’s NHS because their condition was not deemed serious enough for immediate treatment, and now they can’t use an arm or a leg.
That kind of abusive, amoral health care might be what you want, and you’re free to seek it out, but how dare you fight for a system that imposes it on the unwilling? You lefties always rail about choice, but you want a public option that will crowd choice out of the market. A person’s choice of how and whether to be treated by a doctor is simply too important to be left to a government official. To use the force of government to take away that choice is simply evil. Not just unwise or ineffective, but evil.
You will, of course, write me off as a wingnut or whatever, but only one of us will never vote to take away a person’s ability to choose life. It’s not you.
