Friday, July 17, 2009

System? SYSTEM!!! We Don't Need No Steenking System!!!

In light of the gradual nationalization of medicine, I keep hearing reference to a thus far undefined term, "health care system." Health care system. What might be the definition of such a phrase?

Was the mythical doctor in the tv series Gunsmoke part of America's "health care system?" Was the almost as mythical small town doctor I went to as a kid in Grand Forks? Did either of them consider himself part of America's "health care system?" Nope. Nor did any of the real 19th century doctors represented by Doc Adams in the tv series. The term "Health care system" was never used in America until the federal government started its quest to socialize the "health care system." Today, we hear both branches of the Boot On Your Neck Party routinely refer to our collection of doctors, clinics and hospitals as "America's health care system." They should, but will not, be ashamed!

I can't speak for how it was in the Old West. I'm not quite that old. History tells us that doctors in those years used to heal first, ask questions later. Doctors in 1950's North Dakota were much the same way, except they generally demanded payment in the legal tender--not with chickens or bags of wheat.

I've never heard of anyone being turned away by those doctors.

My dad worked for the Great Northern Railroad most of his career. Railroads being nearly nationalized then as now, were required to add major medical health insurance to its employees' list of perqs. The insurance took care of most medical expenses above a certain threshold--I don't know what that threshold was. Below that threshold, Dad was sent a bill, by the doctor--almost like free enterprise.

I don't think anyone in our family ever had an illness or injury that rose to the level to be covered by the railroad's major medical insurance. I think Dad paid for the hospital stay required when each of us was born. I had a tonsillectomy when I was twelve. That may have been covered. Much later, Dad had a hernia surgery. That was covered.

The bills seemed high, according to the comments I'd keep hearing at bill paying time, but Dad paid them. That was the way it was. If Dad really thought the doctor was charging too much, he was free to shop around.

Back to the point: there was no "health care system." There were many doctors, clinics and hospitals, all around the country whose only links to each other were professional organizations and a small amount of unneeded government regulation.

Can anyone, other than a few escapees of the worst communist dictatorships, imagine such an insane freak of nature as a "shoe supply system?" In which every one of the shoe manufacturing, wholesale, retail, shipping and repair entities are under the control of a single "tsar" whose job it is to determine how many shoes are produced, of what materials and styles, where they're shipped, what the prices should be.

How many shoe repair shops should there be? Where located? What kind of qualifications should shoe repair technicians be required to have? What kind of pricing?

What kind of shoe manufacturing and repair trade schools should there be, and who should be admitted? What kind of reporting should be required, so that the tsar's minions will know if its directives are being followed?

These are exactly the horrors that socialized medicine will bring--to an industry that holds, or will someday hold, most of our lives in its hands. We're already hearing comments from socialists, domestic and foreign, about how much care should be given to an aged, ill individual who will "soon die anyway."

Lastly, I'd be remiss not to refer you to the Dr Hendricks "why he quit" speech in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

America's health care system. It'll be the death of us all!

Warm Regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

9 comments:

Chatelaine said...

It's quite scary. The things I'm reading about this bill are like something out of a horror movie, and it's not just blog posts. People are giving links and documentation to an actual copy of the bill. It's all right there....unbelievable the stuff they've put in there regarding older people.

MathewK said...

It'll certainly be the death of you. The thing about socialized healthcare is also that it's just the start. Once you get people to swallow the shit that only government can look after them and that it's free, then there is no stopping the state from interfering in other aspects too.

Bit by bit they take more and more and more until there is nothing left to give and you're just a battery hen, no freedom to do a damn thing.

Unfortunately enough of us don't want to be adults, enough of us want to be teenagers with little or no responsibilities but all the perks, and so we shall have neither.

Ol' BC said...

Make some noise guys. I heard an interesting statistic recently. It seems that 91% of men with prostate cancer in the U.S. survive it. In Britain that figure shrinks to 51%. Prostate cancer. If this is what's coming, we're doomed. I have family in the "health care system" and nobody is denied "care". Some don't have "insurance". Another classic liberal misnomer.

T. F. Stern said...

By including the world "system", certain images are brought to mind such as, organized, efficient and more expensive.

When I make a key for a newer vehicle equipped with transponder technology I word it in such a way as to include "system"

Fit Key,
Transponder Key,
Program PATS/CAN 3 System

Folks still gasp when I hand them the bill even knowing how much I quoted them before going out to do the job; but while doing all these minor miracles I explain how much the computer costs which they are helping to pay for.

System is a part of the aura needed to justify the high cost of doing business; just a word to help the medicine go down, the medicine go down... Mary Poppins would say.

Col. Hogan said...

LC,

The idea of faceless federal bureaucrats overruling my doctor's decisions is scary enough, even leaving out the myriad other problems with socialized medicine.

Col. Hogan said...

MK,

Immaturity is a big problem here, too. It never occurs to these people that we're still paying for all this stuff--not only with outrageous tax levels, but with more and more limited choices. With full ability to choose, comes the possibility of failure if you choose wrong. Better rewards if you choose right.

Many can't stand having to decide and would rather be forced to take crap than to be able to choose the caviar.

Col. Hogan said...

BC,

In spite of all its woes, American health care is still the best on earth--good enough that folks doomed to an early death by the socialized medicine in their own country, come here to get real treatment.

B Hussein's plan will put an end to that.

Col. Hogan said...

TF,

The "system" under which you Texas locksmiths live sounds awful. For a time, I thought about learning locksmithing as a retirement business. No more. Knowing the bureaucracies in the Stalag, the horrors you describe cannot be as bad as those awaiting the new locksmith here.

Physicians and other medical people, over regulated as they are, don't have any idea what they're in for if the federal government gets its hooks even deeper into their industry, as B Hussein proposes.

TWC said...

A woman cried on my desk this past April. Why? Her mother was allowed to die in Britain because the 'system' decreed that she was too old for hi-tech, aggressive cancer treatments.

This is what will come of it. Only you won't know because there won't be any U.S. with a 91% prostate cancer survival rate to compare with.