“First, do no harm!” Say what, Hippocrates?! by Paul Schnee (Written in November 2009)
Nothing in this monstrous concoction addresses the three essential elements that would entitle this monstrosity to be called a reform bill: 1) the ability to buy health insurance across state lines, 2) insurance portability, & 3) tort reform. Without making these urgent reforms the substance of this intrusive bill becomes much less to do with health care, or beneficial reform of any description, and much more to do with spreading the government’s tentacles over every aspect of our national life. If it is supposed to save us so much money why are our taxes going to be raised in order to pay for it? If it is so beneficial why do members of Congress exempt themselves from enjoying all of the benefits they are so keen for the rest of us to have? Is there any country in the world groaning beneath the weight of socialized medicine where efficiency has increased, costs have been reduced, patient care is the prime consideration, or where the best and the brightest are lining up to become doctors? Name one.
With a population of some 60 million the United Kingdom has a National Health Service with 1.4 million employees and is the third largest employer in the world right behind the Indian Railway and the Chinese Red Army! What sort of a bureaucratic behemoth will be required to administer a national health service in the United States with a population in excess of 300 million souls? Obamacare is an effort to create a permanent Democratic majority disguised as the utopian liberal ideal of universal health care coverage and a felicitous march towards progress. At its core, however, the proposed system really contains something of a cunning but anxious two-for-one aspect. The vastly enlarged bureaucracy will vote for the Democrats to whom they owe the drudgery of their employment and the recipients will vote for the Democrats to whom they owe their dismal dependence. Thus one long stroll in the burgeoning and increasingly creaky government perambulator is assured at the tax-payer’s expense. This is a power-grab, pure and simple. It is more power than good men should want or bad men should have. Like His Fraudulency, Obama, it only succeeds in making a bad situation much worse. It is not what the doctor ordered and, along with Obama and his half-baked remedies, it should be pole-axed.
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