Health Care. 1. How do we get there? Is there a crisis or not? We need to answer some basic questions before we bankrupt our country and everyone winds up with little or no health care. Whenever you hear that a state or even the federal government is having budget problems you will hear that it is the health care system that is causing the problem. If this is so then how can adding more of a burden on the budget give us a good result. Do you think our political leaders are really going to be able to figure this out and solve what no other country has been able to solve?
2. The government when it has control of health care has to economize somehow and they do it by denying care to some while helping others. Who decides if you or your Mom or Dad gets a medical treatment or operation? Well some friendly bureaucrat of course, you know them, you meet them at the DMV or the IRS. Below are a few examples from countries that already have government health.
a. Canada - in Canada you health care is from the government - period. Recently in the news we had the story of Natasha Richardson who died from a simple fall on a ski slope. The first medical facility she was taken to, a 20 minute drive, had a CT scanner but it wasn't used. In Canada a doctor has to do a cost/benefit analysis before using expensive tests or machines like a CT scanner. A simple fall and a patient who says she is alright does not = a CT scan. Next Ms Richardson was driven to another hospital, a 3 hour drive, where she died. Why a 3 hour drive? Because in all of Quebec province there is no medical helicopter service, something that is common even in poor West Virginia. A few weeks after this a 3 year old girl in Weston fell down some stairs, she was taken to Stonewall Jackson hospital where a CT scan was done and it was determined she was OK.
The difference? In the US we get the job done regardless of the cost. In Canada your life is in the hands of a bureaucrat who is trying to save a dollar so the government won't go broke.
b. Britain - In Britain a few years ago a health board decided that a expensive drug that would prevent macular degeneration from blinding the elderly would be withheld until the patient lost one eye. It took 3 years of public protest to get this policy reversed.
