Healthcare

As I was writing the below blog, I happened to scan my Facebook page and Larry Schlomer posted this video. This video says much of what I feel.



I have been deliberating on the issue of healthcare a lot lately. Who hasn't. For me though, the issue isn't even about "health care" per se. I am more concerned about how with each new government intervention in our lives we lose the very freedom this country was formed to create. When you get to the core of the American Revolution, it started in order to free the colonies from excessive interference from the government (selective taxation, removal of authority from local governments, replacing local courts with crown magistrates, etc). Also, looking at our own history, the government seems to fail the most when it departs from its original stated purpose of defense, courts, regulating trade, and maintaining infrastructure. Heck even in maintaining some of these essential things the government fails. (Amtrak…let your government railroad you to success)

So the issue for me really is: is healthcare really a right? Who says so? If this more modern phenomenon of manufactured rights is the way America is going to “mature” then a clear majority of Americans should say so then add it to the Bill of Rights. Then we can discuss how to make that happen in America. Could healthcare as a "right" be re-constructed in America? Of course. Could it be done properly in the private sector? Yes and no doubt more efficiently than the government could any hour, any day, anytime. In 1966, the year Medicare law was enacted, the cost was $3 billion and estimated to be $12 billion by 1990. Actual cost in 1990 for Medicare was $107 billion. In 2007, Medicare spent $468 billion on prescription drugs, hospital care and physician services. Yes indeed the government is great at estimating and containing costs. It would appear we finally found those missing weapons of mass destruction and it’s the government itself.

It would be good to first gain a consensus that there even is a healthcare "crisis". A crisis for some may not be for others. For me the crisis is the mini-van, soccer, moms taking their kids to the urgent care for every sniffle and scrape. Stay home. Rub a little dirt and lemon juice on it and tell them to suck it up. Duct tape is an adequate substitute for stitches in certain circumstances.

Please tell me if you had a nasty cancer and in this new world of "choice"...would you choose the Aurora/PHCI/Wheaton Franciscan (Insert Local health system here) clinic or would you sign up for the Veteran's Administration. It seems to me the biggest healthcare "crisis" we have is the healthcare provided by the government already. With these glowing successes, we want to throw more on the government? I wouldn't trust it with my life...or yours.

Of course it’s only a matter of time before education is a right and the wealthiest 200 million Americans will be paying for everyone’s college. Housing should be a right..we should be providing housing for everyone as the government does housing really, really well. We can accomplish this by taxing the wealthiest 325 million Americans and by sharing the large homes of the wealthy. I’m pretty sure Cable TV is already a right so that’s covered. We should be dressed adequately so I’m pretty sure I want clothes to be a right..although I think nudists should have to pay fines for not participating. Oh what a nation of wussies we have become.

The shame of course is that American’s have allowed this to happen. With the decay of Christianity and the rise of humanism it was bound to happen. People and businesses have sacrificed their Christian love for their neighbor and the desire to help others through church and charity by shunning religion and focusing on humanism and greed. Their new god is government and the government should be providing things to them…because after all…it is all about us isn’t it. Despite how the current trend to foist basic human morality on the government puts me out of sorts, it is just desserts for nation that has forgotten God. Indeed our Babylon is approaching.