Heritage Foundation: Myth Exposed – American Health Care System Not Perfect, but Superior to Socialized Health Care
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on March 26, 2009
By Vicki McClure Davidson * Frugal Café Blog Zone
I’m so weary of Pres. Barack Obama bashing our health care system, saying it is “broken,” that it is the mega-James-Bond villain in our nation’s economic problems.
Where is any compelling evidence proving that our health care system is the primary impetus, the main cause of our massive unemployment, tanking stock market, plummeting industrial production, housing-bubble bursts, business failures, sputtering trade flows, and the nation’s overall lack of confidence in our fiscal stability?
In fact, where is ANY evidence that it has created the financial problems we’ve had in this country? Pres. Obama simply saying it’s so in a press conference is not evidence. It’s empty rhetoric intended to strengthen his argument for socializing health care in our country.
Heck, he could blame chocolate chip cookies or Britney Spears or the planet Jupiter or March Madness and there are die-hard Obama fans (with scant functioning brain matter, it seems) who would believe him.
Blame is one of the favorite tactics in the Democrats’ game book to get what they want… target, discredit, mock, marginalize, attack, and eliminate the opposition… beat out and crush your opponent no matter what. Anything goes. No punches are pulled, no exaggerations or lies or “goofy science” are off limits. Perception is everything. Never, ever waste a crisis, to loosely quote Rahm Emanuel.
Obama wants to overhaul the American health care system so that is more like that of the government health care systems in Europe.
The war is on: private health care vs. government health care. But in the US, it’s usually called “universal health care.” That sounds less threatening, almost friendly and nurturing—definitely less “Big Brother Is Watching-ish.” “Universal health care” is for everyone, it cares about people and their families (insert The Sound of Music overture here); on the other hand, “Government health care” is cold, authoritarian, and doesn’t care about anyone (insert theme music from Jaws here). It’s all in the words chosen and the way it’s presented, like a Coca-cola ad at Christmas.
“Universal health care” is a myth, a fairy tale, an urban legend—it’s a happy-happy, non-existent fantasy utopia of peace and harmony, showing up in old Star Trek episodes and other futuristic societies in science fiction. “Universal misery” and diminished care and quality of life is what results from socializing health care. The proposed costs are never correct (crystal balls just aren’t made like they used to be), but grow rampant like a cancer to ten-fold or greater the original cost projections. It ends up, every time, being much more expensive than the system it was suppose to improve upon, permanently crippling the economy it was suppose to revive.
The body of evidence (proof that is repeatedly ignored by liberals) of socialized health care’s failure is overwhelming, but American liberals keep thinking THEY can make it work… this time. Because this time, they are so much smarter than those who have already tried and failed.
We’ve all seen and read massive evidence and results, though, of our government ballooning the costs of everything they can grab and usually make into an ineffectual mess. Mucking it up, trying to fix something that ain’t broken. Cause-and-effect slapstick comedy or melodrama. Lots of evidence is out there, the results of government’s control and meddling. The free market works, less government works.
The lending of untold billions of dollars to people who had no business buying homes that cost far, far more than they could afford and subsequently, they stopped paying on, the “toxic loans” lending institutions have been forced to shoulder or were greedy about accumulating, investments that collapsed, gambles in the stock market that didn’t pay off, the untold billions of dollars poured into failing US companies by our Congress and Obama… yes, those fiscally unsound reasons have greatly impacted our nation’s economic stability.
But, health care? I just don’t see the evidence that it is a main villain. Maybe in cases where people who can’t afford health insurance (or who may simply choose to not pay for it) and must have a costly surgery or treatment, or are filing for bankruptcy and have been laid off from their jobs, thus can’t afford to pay for expensive medical procedures. But the irresponsibility of a whole pack of people (community organizers, people who felt entitled to have expensive homes, lenders who weren’t prudent, Congress’s wild and unmonitored bailout packages and porkulus bills, yada yada) did most of it.
Our health care system is not perfect by any means. Errors occur, costs are rising faster than American wages (one major reason for that, though, is the added burden of the rising costs of medical insurance that physicians and hospitals must have, thanks to countless outrageous multi-million-dollar lawsuits and hands-in-your-wallet lawyers; insurance costs are passed on to patients). Show me the health care systems in Europe that are perfect (or just better) and I will definitely reevaluate my position.
Our health care system is not broken. It needs improvement, the costs must be reigned in, but in the face of what is out there in the world, it is still a far cry better than just about any health care system in other socialist countries. That will drastically change, however, once our health care system is regulated by the government.
Daniel Hannan: Do Not Adopt a National Health Care System
In an interview this week, following his chastising in Parliament of Prime Minister Brown’s spending of money that Britain does not have, Britain’s Daniel Hannan spoke to Americans against the UK’s failed health care system. “Do not repeat what Britain has done… please do not move towards a national health care system… Prevent it, resist it,” Hannan implored on Sean Hannity’s radio talk show on March 26. “It’s like going back to the Iron Curtain times. You’re expected to stand in line and be grateful for whatever you get.” He said the UK’s socialized health care has delivered some of the worst health outcomes imaginable for the UK’s citizens, for a once-prosperous nation in the Western world.
Socialized, or nationalized, medicine/health care has been a gargantuan failure everywhere it has been implemented. Thinking OUR government is smarter than all the others who have failed is both arrogant and naive. Have we already forgotten the blundering messes Congress has made in just the past few weeks, such as the AIG bailout bonuses and trillion-dollar pork-ridden bills? And my health and your health were not part of those disasters (yet). Medicare has been an economic nightmare of waste, fraud, abuse, and inefficiencies to the tune of billions of dollars. Why would universal health care, run by our government, be presumed to be implemented better?
Private enterprise works. It inspires competition and innovation. Socialization does the opposite. Why work harder, create more, spend more time, and give better service when the slackers will benefit identically? Where is the incentive to cut costs and implement time-efficient methods if the government is funding the whole thing like a sugar daddy?
Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh cited on his radio show how American health care is superior to that of the socialized system in the UK and Canada. I’d love to see the data comparing our health care to that of Cuban health care, Venezuelan health care, Russian health care, Swedish health care, Chinese health care, Mexican health care.
The Heritage Foundation conducted extensive research and analysis, comparing the US health care system to that of countries that have socialized medicine. Here are their findings that Rush read aloud on the program, dispelling the myth that national health care is better:
Originally released by Heritage Foundation: 10 Facts About American Health Care
Transcript from Rush Limbaugh EIB radio show, March 25, 2009RUSH: You know, one of the things that always amazes me when we talk about the government getting bigger is the evidence people have in their everyday lives. Whenever they encounter a government bureaucracy, they hate it. They hate going to DMV. They hate having to deal with bureaucrats and the forms. Whether it’s a permit from town to build a house or whatever the bureaucracy is, people hate it.
Yet despite this actual, real-world experience, the same people somehow—either instinctively or as a result of persuasion—can be influenced to vote for government running more and more of their lives. One of the things that people apparently want more and more government involved in is health care. And our buddies at the Heritage Foundation, working together with the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Hoover Institution, have identified “10 things you probably did not know about health care.”
Here are the ten. I’m not going to read everything. I’ll just read the ten things. There are paragraphs associated with the ten things to prove them and back them up.
Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.
Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Europeans and Canadians have government-run health care.
Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.
Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.
Fact No. 5: Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.
Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the UK. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long—sometimes more than a year—to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements, or to get radiation treatment for cancer.
Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.
Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians.
Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K. Read “MRI” there.
Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.
RUSH: There’s just ten reasons right there. No reason to turn this over to a bumbling of bureaucrats, and Obama spoke about this last night.
It’s simply insane to suggest… If you look at [Obama's] budget, he talks about how we can reduce the deficit and we can get the economy going by reducing health care costs. And yet if you look at his budget, health care costs spiral out of control! There are no cuts in anything! There’s no evidence anywhere that nationalized health care works and is an improvement over private sector health care.
World Net Daily: Government health care ‘an abyss’ financially – ‘I think there’s going to be no end for the claims’
Matthew Moore, Telegraph.co.uk: Sufferers pull out teeth due to lack of dentists
Jewish World Review: Far East illustrates the limitations and dangers of universal health care
Business and Media Institute: CNN Glosses Over Failure of Universal Health Care
Daily Herald: Universal health care isn’t universal
Jim Blazsik: Did Socialized Medicine Have a Hand in Costing Natasha Richardson Her Life?
BBC News: Mother killed after care failures
John Goodman, Cato’s Letter (pdf): Five Myths of Socialized Medicine
Health Care BS: OBAMA HYPOCRISY ON TAXING HEALTH BENEFITS
Michelle Malkin: Breaking: Finance Committee to drop end-of-life provision and Undercover at an Obama health care meet-upand “Administration Is Open to Taxing Health Benefits” and Did Canadacare kill Natasha Richardson? and The bigger tax problems of Kathleen Sebelius and Hey, how about spending another $1.5 trillion?
Fire Andrea Mitchell!: Natasha Richardson’s tragic death – a perfect example of our Socialized Healthcare to come
Positive Liberty: “If you think health care is expensive now…”
GOPMom: Bring on National Health
The American Spectator: Quebec Has Helicopters for Pepe Le Pew But Not Emergency Patients and Obama’s False Choice
Frugal Café Blog Zone: The Sham of Socialism: Save America While There’s Still Time… ’1984′ Prophesy and Heritage Foundation: Myth Exposed – American Health Care System Not Perfect, but Superior to Socialized Health Care and
Cautionary Tale: ‘Prime Minister, You Have Run Out of Our Money’
A Conservative Edge: OBAMA Administration Begins To Show Its Contempt For Veterans, As Illegal Aliens Flood Hospitals
Homeland Stupidity: “Universal Health Care” Has Failed Again
John Saarikko, Universal Health Care Info: The Truth Nobody Wants You To Know
Pirates! Man Your Women: Wherever the Winds Blow…
About the author
You can read my whole piece here (quoted extensively in mentioned Malkin blog entry): http://tedstumor.blogspot.com/2009/03/natasha-richardson-epidural-hemorrhage_20.html
And if you want an example of how government control and regulation works in our health care system look no farther than their seizure of mammography in 1993. They’ve ruined breast cancer screening since then. Read about it here: http://tedstumor.blogspot.com/2009/03/mqsa-mussolini-and-mammography.html
We face serious shortges and degraded care if we let the Obama administration succeed in nationalizing our system, which is exactly what they are proposing no matter how they couch the language.