An Unhealthy Solution

When I ponder the American discussion for the supposed cure of our health care systemic woes, it frankly frightens me. The rush for decision on something so amazingly partisan and so swiftly cobbled together in the style of the previous sweeping spending bill ought to scare any reasonable human being. Partisan politics, however, is not the place to find reason, except of the Machiavellian sort.

I found it funny when the president derided the US Postal Service a few weeks ago. Being familiar with the USPS operation, and having high respect for them, I would imagine that common letters to the president (presumed to be complaints) are now delivered all the more swiftly and more obviously important business letters are delivered by USPS people just off their lunch break. The Cash for Clunkers program, where dealers are calling each other for the hopes of hearing “Yes, they paid me” among other dealers, but instead hearing “No, they haven’t paid me anything yet”, becomes an excellent better illustration of the future government-controlled health care system.

Ask anyone of the families of Americans in military service what government sponsored health care is like. Better still, ask an American Indian. Being in the Cherokee tribe myself, our Principal Chief visited my community recently. He was asked in a nicely respectful public forum about a couple of clinics in the nearby state that had closed. The Cherokee Nation was informed that the clinics would not be replaced by newer or better facilities elsewhere. When trying to get my son’s dental work done in a Bureau of Indian Affairs dental clinic a few years ago, I was told that the nearest clinic was in still a different state, only open two days for dentistry and had a two month waiting list. Can you wait two months to get a tooth fixed?

Ask a veteran what government-sponsored health care is like. My father-in-law has not gone a year in this decade without the Veterans Administration pharmacy giving him problems with his prescriptions. The most recent problem was that the May medicine was finally delivered in June, saving the US government and taxpayers the cost of one month of pills, with no remedy or compensation. The problem before that was the pills sent were of a similar name but different medication, and the problem before that was the wrong dosage. The joke with another friend is that the VA seems to be secretly interested in getting rid of him in order to shorten their workload. We do not believe such a notion to be fact, just a mirthful musing, but what will be the perception elsewhere?

Ask a senior citizen on Medicare what they think of government-sponsored health care. As it is the government is so slow in paying for services, and so restrictive on what they will pay, that many doctors have long ago stopped or severely limited who they will treat that pays on Medicare. My own mother was told, as she was dying, that the program would only pay for three days of hospital stay after a treatment she had received. The doctor spent two of his visits pouring over Medicare regulations for some loophole that he could use because she was in no condition to leave the hospital.

If Americans are thinking that our health care system is broke now, just wait until the notoriously efficient (speaking sarcastically) federal government begins controlling all the shots for all the people. Where is reason in all of this? We have the word of someone who has not sent a “plan” to Capital Hill, much less let the American people read his “plan”. We have a thousand pages of sometimes nebulously-worded law that could be as benign as a freckle, but could be as draconian as a death sentence. When some point out how this or that point “could” mean something awful, the Democrat leadership essentially complains that conservative critics are merely trying to scare people. What scares me is that as someone such as Rush Limbaugh is quoting pages and paragraphs, my president and bill-supporting senator are essentially saying “He’s wrong, trust me.”