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Politicians who want to overhaul the healthcare system refer to the system as “broken”. This message is fundamental to their mission, for if they can make you believe this, you will be more likely to accept what they are proposing. While our system is far from perfect and is in need of some change, it is still, overwhelmingly, the best system in the world. Those who claim the system is “broken” usually cite the World Health Organization rankings in addition to life expectancy and infant mortality rates. Let’s look a bit more critically. |
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Those politicians who want to overhaul our system of private insurance, and move towards more government control, cite the number of uninsured Americans as 46 million. This number is misleading. The number is derived from statistics by the United States census bureau. The 46 million can be divided into five different groups. |
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Health and Human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, recently said, “Right now, we spend twice as much as any country on earth, day in and day out, per capita, and our health results are pretty bad”. This rhetoric is not exclusive to the HHS secretary but is common to the talking points of virtually all politicians pushing for an overhaul of the healthcare system. The latter part of the quote, “ and our health results are pretty bad” has been addressed in letter 1. |
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Politicians pushing for government-controlled healthcare have tried to reassure their constituents by claiming that there will be no rationing of healthcare. At the same time, they call for decreasing the “inefficient and unnecessary” spending for Medicare to the tune of 500 billion dollars over the next ten years. The truth is that, given the authority, government-directed bodies will, in fact, be empowered to decide and dictate to you and those caring for you what is “inefficient and unnecessary”. The models for this already exist. |
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Many of you are probably following this debate peripherally. After all, you have your private health insurance, you’re satisfied, and the President has consistently stated that “If you like your current healthcare plan you can keep your current healthcare plan.” The problem is that in many cases it’s not true. While you may not see any changes initially, a public option will slowly erode the private healthcare system. |
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Despite the rhetoric, there can be no logical conclusion other than to assume that both President Obama and those members of congress pushing for an increased role for government in your healthcare ultimately desire a socialized system. In 2003, Barack Obama was quoted as saying he was a proponent of a single payer universal healthcare program. In the stimulus bill he has already allocated over one billion dollars to be used for Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) which is analogous to the rationing group, NICE, in the United Kingdom. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of President Obama’s key healthcare advisors and a member of CER, has stated many times over the course of a decade that it is more important to view healthcare through the eyes of what is best for society rather than the individual. The intention to implement a centralized, government-controlled system, responsive to bureaucrats rather than individuals, is clear to those who look beyond the rhetoric. |
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