My Socialized Medicine Experience (Part 3)

This is the third, and final, post in a series about my experience with government and healthcare.

In the first post of this series I touched on a few of the reasons why health insurance is employer based, and not centered on you, as an individual.  The main reason for this is government interference in the marketplace.

My last post was about my experience with U.S. Government run healthcare, while I was in the U.S. military.  (This is definitely not the direction we want to move in for the healthcare of all Americans.)

Those who know me, and have been reading this blog, will know that I generally favor free market solutions.  The problems with healthcare and health insurance in the United States are not based on a free market system, but stem from an intrusive and overbearing government.  More government involvement will simply not provide better quality care, or realize any substantial cost savings.  It will provide more regulation, control, loss of quality, and stifle any private venture that tries to compete.

Current cost estimates for Obama’s healthcare proposal run $1.5 trillion.  (Please don’t tell Obama what number comes after a trillion!)  This proposal will put much control over our healthcare industry into the hands of an unelected board of officials.  This board will decide who gets care, and who does not.

• Government bureaucrats will have access to all of your medical records through a nationwide Medical Record Database.  They will be able to access your personal records without your consent.
• Private health insurance will exist in name only, as the government will run its own “company” to “compete”.
• Taxes will be substantially increased to pay for the cost of this unconstitutional program.
• Government officials will intrude in our personal lives, telling us what we can eat, drink, or smoke, through “health” regulations passed.

You may even be forced to undergo treatment against your will.  While in the service, I was forced to take Anthrax vaccinations under threat of court-martial.  These vaccines were not FDA approved, and the FDA eventually shut down the plant that manufactured them for unsanitary practices.  (Coincidentally, a retired Admiral who had endorsed then-President Clinton during his campaign, was on the board of directors for the company that made the vaccine.)  Political corruption, and political reasoning will be the basis for healthcare decisions.  It will not be based on supply and demand.

We can and must do better than this.  Our government is broke.  Social Security and Medicare “trust” funds have already been spent.  The government does not have the money to do what it is proposing.  We need to go in the opposite direction: stop government spending in the healthcare system, loosen restrictions on forming new health insurance companies, allow competition across state lines, end the tax incentive for employers to provide health insurance by giving it to individuals instead.  These changes will allow individuals to keep the policy they have when they change jobs.