Make Them Catch Up

I find it interesting that with all the noise I've been hearing from the Democrats and the rest of the Left about health care reform, not once have I heard any of them mention that we should see about raising the level and quality of medical care, not pulling it down to the lowest common denominator. They like to point to Europe as an example of how it should be done, but all I ever see (and read in a number of publications and medical journals), is how the quality and quantity of care has gone down. But shouldn't we be seeing them trying to catch up to us rather than we trying to pull ourselves down to their level?

The next time you see one of these oh, so morally concerned politicians, academics or book-hustling authors preaching on TV that we really ought to catch up with the rest of the advanced world on health care, talk back to the to the set, shout out that it's mostly lies, and make the opposite case.

The rest of the world ought to catch up with us.

Despite what almost seems a conscious effort to keep the facts properly subdued and tucked out of sight, the truth has been worming its way to the sunshine. Now it's clear, as one example, that longevity is only partially connected to health care in the first place and that when you subtract homicides and accidents, we in America live longer than anyone, despite President Obama's constant reiteration of the reform-encouraging and utterly deceptive thesis that we do not.

We know that our treatments of serious disease produce better outcomes than elsewhere in the world, that everyone can get treatment at least in emergency rooms, that most Americans are satisfied with their care, that insurance net profits are a relatively low 3.3 percent and that the actual number of citizens without access to insurance is closer to 10 million than the 46 million number so often heard. We also know that Medicare and Medicaid have accumulated trillions of dollars in obligations to future recipients that we have no way of paying.

But let us not confuse the issue with anything as mundane as facts. Instead, let us cast all caution into the wind and base the destruction of the American health care system on feelings, something which the Left is very good at doing. They feel it's unfair that not everyone can get the same level of health care, therefore something must be done to ensure egalitarian treatment, even if it means tearing down an effective, though flawed system, and replacing it with something that will come to resemble those like the UK's National Health System, which provides poor care at best. Let us make sure that the incentives to treat ill health will be destroyed and replaced with an “I don't give a s**t, where's my paycheck?” attitude. Let's make sure that all the truly dedicated and effective physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals are driven out of their careers by an ineffective, heartless, compassionless bureaucracy, and let them be replaced with people we wouldn't care to have take care of our pets, let alone our loved ones. (You think it won't happen? Then take a look in countries where many of the truly gifted health care professions went after their governments 'saved' health care. Or better yet, look at how many medical practices no longer take Medicare or Medicaid because of the exorbitant costs of providing care versus what they are paid for said care. It's a losing proposition.)

Health care 'reform' is something that must be handled carefully, with logic, reason, and in the end, an eye on the economics of reform. It must not be based on emotion or some fantasy egalitarian 'ideal' that can never be achieved unless countless millions are made to suffer because the government says they must, all in the name of equality.