'Main Stream Media on Cocaine!?'
By Ted Baiamonte Comments: bje1000@aol.com (10/12/07)
One has to surmise that the MSN(main stream media) is acutely befuddled, from heavy cocaine use, based primarily on the way they are covering Hillary's health plan. A rational, sober headline might read: "One billion Chinese lifted out of an eternity in poverty by capitalism; Hillary proposes socialized medicine for America"? Instead, the headlines we get are something perfectly meaningless and anesthetic like: Hillary introduces updated version of health plan. If not cocaine how can it be explained?
Hillary of course is not on cocaine and so has proceeded, with the acquiescence of our proudly stoned MSM, to mindfully slip her latest poison down our throats. On Sunday morning she did about ten talk shows primarily to introduce her latest version of socialized Hillarycare to America. On each show she always started out her pitch with her single best reason to bring socialized health care to capitalist America. That reason, she reminded us repeatedly, is to take care of the 48 million people without health insurance.
Interestingly, a closer look at the 48 million from Census data shows that "it includes 9.487 million people who are “not a citizen.” Subtracting the 10 million non-Americans, the number of uninsured Americans falls to roughly 37 million". When Hillary is asked whether her plan would insure non citizens she says, "no", and five minutes later when she is asked how many uninsured there are in brutal capitalist America she is back to using the 48 million number?
And, according to the same Census report, "there are 8.3 million uninsured people who make between $50,000 and $74,999 per year and 8.74 million who make more than $75,000 a year. That’s roughly 17 million people who ought to be able to “afford” health insurance because they make substantially more than the median household income of $46,326". So the question then becomes does Hillary want to give health insurance to those who prefer to spend their money on a family pet, iphone, and Plasma TV?
And then one must consider that “45 percent of the uninsured are going to have insurance within four months [according to the Congressional Budget Office], because many are transitioning between jobs and most people get health insurance through their employers". This would imply that what might be needed is a four month bridge policy; not Joseph Hillary Stalin.
"So what is the true extent of the uninsured “crisis? The Kaiser Family Foundation, a liberal non-profit frequently quoted by the media, puts the number of uninsured Americans who do not qualify for current government programs and make less than $50,000 a year between 13.9 million and 8.2 million. That is a much smaller figure than the media report". And of course if you look at what people choose to buy in the $40 to $50,000 a year range it would quickly become apparent that many prefer non essential items to health insurance.
And then, we must consider that "half a million Americans traveled overseas for more affordable health care in 2006. That number is rising at double-digit rates, spurred by easier travel, Internet communications and a growing support network from health travel agencies to blogs, according to the recently formed Medical Tourism Association in West Palm Beach". If people buy Japanese automobiles because the are better and cheaper why shouldn't they buy foreign health care for the same reason? Do we consider Japanese car buyers "carless" because they made an intelligent shopping decision?
And, one survey showed that "(23%), thinking no one will sell them coverage (17%), and not knowing how to get insurance (16%). Only 19% say they don't think they need coverage." This would imply that many of the uninsured are uninsured voluntarily. If people are allowed to smoke and drop out of high school it is not surprising that many people would also make many other bad choices in there lives, but does this mean Hillary should make decisions for them in a free country that has grown to be the greatest in human history precisely because of freedom from gov't?
And , consider that "when uninsured household members require urgent or minor health care, they seek treatment in an ER (25%), a doctor's office (21%) a community heath care center (15%), an IHS health center (6%), or an urgent health care center". This would suggest that the uninsured get care regardless of whether they are insured in brutal capitalist America or not; so perhaps there is no reason to worry about them at all?
For example, "the public hospital systems in New York and Denver, for example, have both worked to steer uninsured patients to community clinics, charging modest fees, if any. New York’s public system, the Health and Hospitals Corporation, has assigned some 240,000 uninsured patients to personal primary care doctors."
"Denver’s public system, Denver Health, has 41,000 uninsured patients enrolled in its clinics. Officials there calculate that for every dollar they spend on prenatal care for uninsured women, they save more than $7 in newborn and child care." If every city took care of its uninsured the way Denver does, and almost all do, the total taken care of would be 25 million (more than the number of actual uninsured) in brutal, heart breaking capitalist America.
And of course, none of the above considers how many would be insured if the gov't didn't provide so much free care, and already mandate guaranteed emergency room care for anyone who needs it. Why pay for insurance every month if you can just go to the emergency room or somewhere else if you should need care? Who would buy a car, for example, if the gov't was providing them free? Young people, in particular, are not stupid. They often reason that insurance is a bad investment for them since they don't get sick much and so their premium would be used mostly to pay for other people. They, instead, opt for the ER or any number of other options like the walk in clinics that have popped up in many drug stores which cost about 10% of what an ER visit might cost. For the most part, taking care of the uninsured is taking care of those the gov't has rendered uninsured.
And of course none of the above takes into account how impossibly cheap insurance would be (probably 60% less) if the gov't weren't, in effect, already managing the health care system through absurdly costly bureaucracies like Medicaid , Medicare, Veterans Administration, ER mandates, and obscene regulation of insurance companies, hospitals, and state run health systems all of which drive quality and costs to egregious socialist levels.
In the last 5 years computer hardware has become about 20 times more powerful and 60% less expensive; it happened through the miracle of capitalism and had nothing whatsoever to do with Hillary; so why not leave her gigantic socialist ego out of America and apply the capitalist computer miracle to medical care? The capitalist revolution and the recent computer hardware miracle in particular have two major components (below) both of which have proved eternally to be well beyond the intellectual grasp of Democrats :
1) free shoppers spending their own money
2) free companies competing to sell to free shoppers.
Since the gov't more or less imposes the rules of capitalism on the computer industry, and most industries not controlled or regulated by Democrats, it can do the same on the health care industry too and still be relatively faithful to Jefferson's notion of freedom from gov't. So then, step one is merely to mandate that everyone put 10% of their income into a health savings account from which they would pay for their medical care. What they didn't spend would be theirs to keep. Step two would involve a gov't mandate that all providers produce comparable price lists from which to compete with each other and for shoppers.
Under a capitalist system health care costs would plunge and quality would sky rocket. Under the current smorgasbord of corrupt and conflicting socialist health care programs, we're getting the opposite; under ego maniacal Hillarycare we would get the extreme opposite. The MSM must be on cocaine and so at least we know their problem and can think of potential rehabilitory solutions, but what emetic anywhere on God's green earth would be necessary for Hillary and the Democrats to give up a socialism based on 1) an orgy of raw ignorance, 2) a psychotic need to play Dr. Santa Claus, and 3) a Napoleonic predilection for absolute control and power despite the obvious soviet consequences?
Very sadly, the Republicans running for President are no help whatsoever. The Democrats have diabolically dumbed down our republican form of gov't to the point where the complexity of Jeffersonian, capitalist Republicans can't compete with Santa Claus Democrats. The desperate genius, Karl Rove, (perhaps the Republican's last best hope ) made an heroic effort with the open borders policy and prescription drug bill which turned out to merely be bargains with the Democratic devil, while sophistic but, nevertheless, very Republican reforms of Social Security, education, taxes, and health care went nowhere. It seems Jefferson may have finally lost the battle, the war, and his Country.
Ted Baiamonte
(Printer friendly version) Email: Ted Baiamonte Comments: bje1000@aol.com
