RSDavis
Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2007
- Messages
- 267
A Glimpse Into Our Future
by RS Davis
Hello Freedomphiles! If there's one thing that is certain, it is that if a Democrat is elected, we are going to have Socialized Healthcare in America. Edwards, Obama, and Hillary all are pushing it in one form or another. In fact, I am not sure any Republican - save Ron Paul - would have the balls to stand in front of that inevitable freight train.
In case you are curious, this story out of the UK gives us a glimpse of our future:
Cannot afford? This is shocking, unless you are me, because I've been saying this for a long time. In my Freedom File entitled The Softer Side of Socialism, which I wrote at least five years ago, I created a hypothetical world and tried to inject socialism:
And it leads to things I didn't even envision back then, like the story I blogged yesterday about the UK, where they will be inspecting children's home-packed lunches at school, and if they have too much sugar or fat, they are confiscated and a nagging note sent home.
The story continues, describing the current crisis faced by an industry with no cost and unlimited demand:
No, Dr Mason, the real question is: When you take away all responsibility from people for their own healthcare, where do you get off wagging a sanctimonious finger when they behave irresponsibly?
Thanks to Skogie for the tip.
by RS Davis
Hello Freedomphiles! If there's one thing that is certain, it is that if a Democrat is elected, we are going to have Socialized Healthcare in America. Edwards, Obama, and Hillary all are pushing it in one form or another. In fact, I am not sure any Republican - save Ron Paul - would have the balls to stand in front of that inevitable freight train.
In case you are curious, this story out of the UK gives us a glimpse of our future:
- Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.
Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
Cannot afford? This is shocking, unless you are me, because I've been saying this for a long time. In my Freedom File entitled The Softer Side of Socialism, which I wrote at least five years ago, I created a hypothetical world and tried to inject socialism:
- For instance, you could take care of a vital service, like healthcare. Surely, the value of healthcare is the same for everyone. After all, no matter what happens, they say, at least you have your health. Don't be so sure. My wife can't get me to take medicine, even when I'm sick. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I have a pretty good immune system and never stay sick for very long anyway. So the sick time I save for myself is very small, and that time doesn't have enough value to me for me to take the medicine.
You could assure yourself an almost sickness-free existence if only you would spend your life in a plastic bubble. But what kind of life would that be? There are no absolutes when it comes to value judgments. People have unprotected sex all the time because the pleasure of that moment is worth more to them than the vague, distant threat of AIDS.
That is why people give speeches, do public service announcements, wear red ribbons, write books--to bring the threat of AIDS to the front of people's minds, more clear and present, and thus raise it's value when the time comes to make that choice. In fact, that is why I write The Freedom Files, to persuade you that the value of doing something to protect your liberties is greater than the value of at least the least important thing you do with your spare time.
So what then happens to the value of healthcare when you provide it for free? In monetary terms, there is no choice. You give up nothing to see a doctor except some time. And what do you suppose that does to the demand for healthcare?
It goes through the roof of course. If you get a cold, and a trip to the doctor costs $40, you have a choice to make. What do you do without? An evening at the movies? A new Walkman? Gruesome Death 12 for the Playstation 2? Are the value of any of those things less to you than your doctor visit? If not, you don't go. After all, you will get better on your own.
But if the price is zero, of course you would go.
And so would everyone else.
So what then do you suppose happens to the supply of healthcare? It plummets. When pondering the fate of your 250 million subjects, you can look to the experiments of socialized medicine around the world to see what happens when demand expands exponentially like that.
For instance, you read Doctor Jane Orient's book Your Doctor is Not In and learned that socialized medicine always leads to shortages and long waiting lists for even the most urgent medical care, as in Canada, where "the average number of weeks waiting for hand surgery was 12.4; for hysterectomy, 16.3; for colonoscopy (a diagnostic procedure that might find a cancer), 6.2; for hernia repair, 24.6; for cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal), 31.7; coronary artery bypass, 23.7; other open heart surgery, 21.4; prostatectomy (which relieves difficulty in urination and often finds treatable cancer), 30.9; cytoscopy (often done to diagnose cancer), 23.6."
Well, you know that this is no good. You want your people to be happy, and they definitely won't be happy dead, so you better think of something else. Well, there is the possibility that you could means-test it, that is only provide free healthcare to those who really need the assistance.
So you pick a wage, and everyone under that gets free healthcare. You soon learn that you've unintentionally created a plateau, above which few people strive to climb. It's common sense--and the smart, reasoned thing to do. If you are right at the cusp of that cut-off point, and you use $2000 of healthcare a year, you'd have to get at least a $2000 raise to make it worth it. And how much over that $2000 would you have to make to make the extra work and responsibility worth the effort? When a $2500 raise really only equals $500, what is the value of that $500?
And what if you make $1000 over the cut-off? You've suddenly lost $1000. You make $1000 less than the guy on assistance. Is it worth it to hang onto that job or work those extra hours? The value of that extra $1000 is negative because it forces you to lose $1000, as is the value of the work you do to earn it. It would be very reasonable and correct if you somehow slipped below that line and got a $1000 raise for less work. It would be the smart thing to do.
So people, doing what you would do, find ways to become eligible for your program, and now their are way more people taking advantage of the free healthcare than you had anticipated. But that's okay, you're still doing the right thing, and while it's going to cost you a lot more money than you'd originally thought, you'll find some way to make it work.
Oh, but there's another unintended consequence of your program. In the same way a person will have unprotected sex when the threat of AIDS is distant, people tend to behave in unhealthy ways because the consequences are far in the future. Add to that the fact that they know they don't have to worry about old-age medical expenses, and people seem to be getting more unhealthy all the time. This experiment is costing you more money every day. How are you going to keep this up?
Somehow, you have to get people to lead healthier lives. Well, smoking is dangerous, obviously. You could ban smoking, but that won't work. Remember alcohol prohibition? People don't like to be forced to not do things that only harm themselves, and your goal is to keep your people happy. You have to find some way to discourage them from smoking.
So you tell the people who make cigarettes to put labels on them, warning your subjects of the dangers of smoking. For their part, people promise to quit...someday.
You could concentrate on unhealthy food. You make sure that the food industry puts all the nutritional information about their product on the label, and for their part, the people promise to go on a diet...tomorrow.
People are getting cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and despite all your warnings, no one is changing their behavior. You are starting to realize that no matter what, people are going to do what they want to do, and sometimes those things are really stupid decisions that threaten their lives. But you can't make those choices for them.
But maybe if you make it more expensive, people will quit smoking. After all, if the value of a nicotine fix is less than the price of the cigarettes, they'll stop, or at least slow down. So you impose a tax on cigarettes, but for some reason, people are still smoking. The value of that fix is way higher than you thought. What's worse, now your people are poorer from the tax, which is the exact opposite of your original intent.
This isn't working at all, and you're handing out more and more money every day. You can't hurt these people even more. In a way, they are victims of their own short-sightedness, victims of the blinders of their current health, victims of the...cigarette industry. You could go after the cigarette manufacturers, sue them for the money you've spent taking care of people who got sick because they chose to use their product.
So you do. The cigarette industry says, hey, they chose to smoke, and you chose to pay their medical bills, so why is this our fault? This logical--if insensitive--argument falls on deaf ears, and you manage to get an ungodly sum out of them. So what to they do? With unmitigated gall, they actually try and save their businesses and recoup their losses by raising their prices. Once again, you've somehow managed to make the people you were trying to help poorer.
You'e at the end of your rope. You consider just ending the whole program that you now realize you never should have tried in the first place, but by now, you've convinced people that this program isn't just something nice you're doing for them, but their right-- they think they are entitled to it. They would feel abandoned if you end it, and they might even revolt! So what's a benevolent despot to do?
Well, there's always the junk food industry...
And it leads to things I didn't even envision back then, like the story I blogged yesterday about the UK, where they will be inspecting children's home-packed lunches at school, and if they have too much sugar or fat, they are confiscated and a nagging note sent home.
The story continues, describing the current crisis faced by an industry with no cost and unlimited demand:
- About one in 10 hospitals already deny some surgery to obese patients and smokers, with restrictions most common in hospitals battling debt.
Managers defend the policies because of the higher risk of complications on the operating table for unfit patients. But critics believe that patients are being denied care simply to save money...
...Obesity costs the British taxpayer £7 billion a year. Overweight people are more likely to contract diabetes, cancer and heart disease, and to require replacement joints or stomach-stapling operations.
Meanwhile, £1.7 billion is spent treating diseases caused by smoking, such as lung cancer, bronchitis and emphysema, with a similar sum spent by the NHS on alcohol problems. Cases of cirrhosis have tripled over the past decade.
Among the survey of 870 family and hospital doctors, almost 60 per cent said the NHS could not provide full healthcare to everyone and that some individuals should pay for services.
One in three said that elderly patients should not be given free treatment if it were unlikely to do them good for long. Half thought that smokers should be denied a heart bypass, while a quarter believed that the obese should be denied hip replacements...
...The survey found that medical professionals wanted to go much further in denying care to patients who do not look after their bodies.
Ninety-four per cent said that an alcoholic who refused to stop drinking should not be allowed a liver transplant, while one in five said taxpayers should not pay for "social abortions" and fertility treatment.
Paul Mason, a GP in Portland, Dorset, said there were good clinical reasons for denying surgery to some patients. "The issue is: how much responsibility do people take for their health?" he said.
No, Dr Mason, the real question is: When you take away all responsibility from people for their own healthcare, where do you get off wagging a sanctimonious finger when they behave irresponsibly?
Thanks to Skogie for the tip.
Last edited:
