IMO, this is the crux of the current health care debate...

This is precisely why I am against Mr. Obama's truly bizarre power grab disguised as health care reform.
Astonishing to me that some people buy into Obama's misinformation and sleight of hand!


Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Fables for Adults
by Thomas Sowell
Many years ago, as a small child, I was told one of those old-fashioned fables for children. It was about a dog with a bone in his mouth, who was walking on a log across a stream.
The dog looked down into the water and saw his reflection. He thought it was another dog with a bone in his mouth-- and it seemed to him that the other dog's bone was bigger than his. He decided that he was going to take the other dog's bone away and opened his mouth to attack. The result was that his own bone fell into the water and was lost.
At the time, I didn't like that story and wished they hadn't told it to me. But the passing years and decades have made me realize how important that story was, because it was not really about dogs but about people.
Today we are living in a time when the President of the United States is telling us that he is going to help us take that other dog's bone away-- and the end result is likely to be very much like what it was in that children's fable.
Whether we are supposed to take that bone away from the doctors, the hospitals, the pharmaceutical companies or the insurance companies, the net result is likely to be the same-- most of us will end up with worse medical care than we have available today. We will have opened our mouth and dropped a very big bone into the water.
While I was told a story in my childhood to help me understand something about the real world, today adults are being told things to reduce them to childish thinking.
The most childish of all the things being said in the august setting of a joint session of Congress last week was that millions of people can be added to the government's health insurance plan without increasing the federal deficit at all.
If the President of the United States could do that, it is hard to imagine what he would do as an encore. Walking on water would be an anticlimax.
What is equally childish is the notion that the great majority of Americans who have medical insurance, and who say they are satisfied with it, should be panicked and stampeded into supporting vast increases in the arbitrary power of Washington bureaucrats to take medical decisions out of the hands of their doctors-- all ostensibly because a minority of Americans do not have medical insurance.
There was a time, within living memory, when most Americans did not have health insurance-- and it was not the end of the world, as so many in politics and the media seem to be depicting it today.
As someone who lived through that era, and who spent decades without medical insurance, I find it hard to be panicked and stampeded into bigger and worse problems because some people do not have medical insurance, including many who could afford it if they chose to.
What did we do, back during the years when most Americans had no medical insurance? I did what most people did. I depended on a "single payer"-- myself. When I didn't have the money, I paid off my medical bills in installments.
The birth of my first child was not covered by medical insurance. I paid off the bill, month by month, until the time finally came when I could tell my wife that the baby was now ours, free and clear.
In a country where everything imaginable is bought and paid for on credit, why is it suddenly a national crisis if some people cannot pay cash up front for medical treatment?
That is not the best way to do things for all people and all medical treatments, which is why most Americans today choose to have medical insurance. But millions of other people choose not to-- often young and healthy people, sometimes deadbeats who use emergency rooms and don't pay at all.
Is this ideal? No. But if every deviation from the ideal is a reason to be panicked and stampeded into putting dangerous arbitrary powers into the hands of government, then go directly to totalitarianism, do not pass "Go", do not collect $200.
And go ahead and drop your bone in the water, in hopes that you can get somebody else's bigger bone.

http://townhall.com/columnists/Thoma...ults?page=full

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If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

I grew up in the era that Thomas Sowell did as well.

Neither of my two children were born using medical insurance. I paid the bills in installments just like Sowell did. That's what Americans did.

We had no credit cards. A simple checking account and cash were the way then. People took out mortgages to buy their houses though, and can you imagine, we had to actually have an income to qualify.


Teenagers, instead of sitting on the couch playing video games after school and in the summer, worked in the car washes, bussed and washed dishes, picked fruit and mowed lawns. There was no need for the modern slave system we call illegal aliens.

The Mojave desert was open to hunting and motorcycle racing ... with NO interference from federal bureaucrats.

The federal government was a LONG way from California and one hardly noticed it's presence. That's when the citizen was a citizen of the sovereign republic of California ... or what ever state one was living in at the time.

The paper money we had in our wallets had the words "Silver Certificate" printed on the top, The coins in our pockets were real silver too.

Can you imagine? Americans, providing they didn't violate the rights of another citizen, actually were accountable only to themselves. How times have changed.

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Yes times have changed and that is a good thing for the most part. I agree that the government has over stepped its boundries and a lot of civil liberties have been trampled on, but government run health care is not a bad thing. Do you realize that over 300 billion of the trillion dollar health care system in todays economy is directed solely at profit? why should there be profit tacked on to peoples illnesses? Sucking blood from the sick is unconscionable. If it wasnt for the billions in fraud the private contractors rip the government off for in medicare, that system would be running quite smoothly, and a great model for the whole medical system. I guess you righties don't quite understand what a single payer system would do for the economy. It would unburden business forever from medical expenses, allowing them to compete on a global market without the high cost of health care. I think the tax that would be imposed to, pay for it, (Yeah I said it, a health care tax), would be less than insured people pay in premiums and co-pays, afterall, we'd have 300 billion to kick in towards medical instead of some CEO's golden parachute.
The nonesense about government taking over is just a figment of the paranoid righties, yeah they would administer the health system, and at a far less cost. But they would have no interest in keeping private medical operators from operating. If you like paying thousands for your healthcare, you would be allowed to keep it, but rest assured, your general health care would not be that much better than your neighbors single payer medical.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

Damn thats an ugly indian in your avatar. Why not pick a stylish handsome indian for an avatar like Quanna Parker? No input on your post other than that I disagree with it.

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"If you wanna win, CHEAT! If you lose, start a FIGHT!" - very wise man

Hi Med,
You raise quite an interesting point in your post when you display contempt for profits.

Without the dread profit motive who will supply the world with cutting edge innovations in advancing medical treatments and technology? I believe it is the US system which currently provides the world with the majority of medical breakthroughs!

It’s good to see you on RIU anyway!!

__________________
If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

Med ...

Without the profit motive you so hate, you wouldn't have that Viagra in your medicine cabinet. Oh sorry, I forgot ... Obama gives you a hard on.

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

lately i've been having trouble understanding why everything seems to be so urgent, why we seem to be living in the age of the crisis. instead of logically repairing what is broken, we now demand an immediate fix for our problems (usually one that involves tearing down a perfectly workable system and replacing it with some pie in the sky foolishness that no one has bothered to think out too well). it has taken two centuries for these problems to evolve, so why do we believe we can solve them in the blink of an eye? our economy starts to slide down the toilet, so we throw trillions of dollars at it. our health care system has become far too expensive, so we try to hand it over to government. doesn't anyone find it rather odd that we can't wait through the pain of allowing minor adjustments to repair society's ills? are we such impatient children, that we are incapable of seeing the wisdom of a more thoughtful path?

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When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

Why engage in the arduous process of reform when you can have change, with little effort, and much sooner. Just vote hope into office, and let hope vote change into law. Voila. Free money for the teaming, voting, masses. Sets a great precedent, with a predictable outcome. Bread lines.

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I believe its because to enact the type of socialistic/fascistic programs the Progressives have in mind, they HAVE to act quickly. Look how fast the American public is waking up to what they're doing. The Progressives only have until the 2010 elections, then they are out on their collective ears, and they know it. After 2010, Obama will have a much harder time getting his agenda passed, and then he'll be out of office in 2012.

In other words, the Obama folks duped the people by pretending to be a centrist, when in fact, he's a Saul Alinski fascist radical. This isn't the "change" middle America wanted at all.

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

So basically both systems are fucked.

Private = extreme amounts of profits going to few people, expensive coverage or none at all if you have any sort of pre existing condition

Public = everyone pays regardless of usage, I keep hearing lower quality - but havn't seen any evidence to support that yet, they seem to get as good or better medical coverage in all the countries with a public option...

From where I sit, both systems have their pro's and con's.

-the current system banks off of illness, keeping people sick so they keep buying the medicine

-all the advancements and innovations people keep talking about are a thing of the past. When was the last time a major disease was cured? Take a look at the motivations and tell me with a straight face money has nothing to do with that. Is this an outcome of private insurance? Could very well be.

-the pharm. companies are one of the largest industries in the world, they have plenty of power to push around as is

-I've personally always been against any kind of insurance, I don't think anyone should force anyone to pay for a 'what if' clause. So it seems retarded to make someone pay a tax to cover healthcare for people who are just going to abuse the system just like the welfare system is abused. Why should I pay for fatties tripple bypass if he contributed to his condition in the first place?

Med, Vi, I get where both of you are coming from. Med sees all the greed and corruption within the industry, assholes walking away with MILLIONS at the expense of the most defenseless customers they have. He sees the public option as on par with the private option regarding quality, as do I, and, I can't speak for him on this one, but personally a small part of me does want to contribute to the system, but only if I know it's not going to be abused, which it will.. That's the problem. Vi knows this. People will find a way to abuse the system, and just like him, I believe that's bullshit I should have to pay for it.

So where do we go from here?

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"So I picked up some party balloons and a small tube of vaseline, then slippity slip it was in my ass."
-BongJuice