The top story over at Madville Times grants us an opportunity to see “The Cosmic Viewpoint” in action. Since the author of that site does not allow anonymous posters, I am posting my comment here.
While I do feel sorry for this gal, I am not at all convinced that socialized healthcare is a good trade off to help her with her situation.
I’ll quote Thomas Sowell, from The Vision of the Anointed, “Unless we adopt the arbitrary doctrine that any degree of equalization, however small, is worth any sacrifice, however large, differences in life chances are among the many imperfections of life whose remedy is not even conceivable, short of the cosmic viewpoint.”
When you attempt to create social policy to equalize things such as health, socio-economic status, height, weight, eye color, skin color, gender, sexual-orientation, religion, etc., you are 1) decreasing liberties and 2) (as Sowell puts it) “divorcing reward from performance.”
It was exactly an age limitation that had us praising John Glenn when he took to outer space a while back. It was a gender limitation that has us praising women as they break more and more glass ceilings. And in the case of Stephen Hawking, FDR, Helen Keller, and others, health issues can be a limitation. Of course, health issues can also be the reason we will be praising the successes of the girl you were speaking of.
Good Luck and God Bless her and everyone else in her situation!
It is of course easy to believe that a specialist out there knows how to make cars fly, get 500 miles to the gallon, and keep the price tag as low as $9,999. But if that were to happen, we would see it on the market. It hasn’t happened. So know one yet knows how to do this.
Similarly, it is a comfort to think that socialized health care will mean hospitals stay as they are, but are just free. This is a fantasy. I’ll assume that you all know that “there is no free lunch,” but can we consider the other implications, since so many seem to be willing to give their entire paycheck to the federal government? (I am suddenly getting a flashback of W. saying, in a State of the Union address, for those willing to pay more taxes, the IRS is now accepting checks, money orders and credit cards.)
The answer is yes, we can consider the ramifications of socializing healthcare outside of the tax burden it will put on tax payers. Expect less pay for doctors, nurses, and staff, which will lead to less doctors, nurses and staff. Expect longer waiting periods, increased ambulance response times, more forms at the desk, and more routine, incorrect diagnosing of illnesses.
In a free market economy, more demand would increase the costs of these treatments and operations. When the government has the puck, there is no incentive for doctors to be paid more: they will be paying the patient’s bill anyway – there is no need to increase the salary for government workers. (Which leads me to yet another point: expect more strikes from employees who would have been paid (in the free-market) according to their performance.) With no competition, there is no reason for the government to race across the rink and score the goal. Any lazy, slow, or mediocre performance will win the game when there is no goalie. (This hockey analogy was inspired by the NHL playoffs: Go Blackhawks!)
It is very unfortunate that while I keep noticing that the game will never be the same, most folks are just watching the scoreboard. ”Yea! Another goal was scored,” they will excitedly exclaim, without considering that there are no longer athletes. They were replaced by advisors, politicians, and analysts.
There will be more of this on the way, including how we should look upon individual successes, but for now, if you find this analysis captivating, try reading The Vision of the Anointed and Basic Economics, both by Thomas Sowell.
Further, I advise that radical terrorists must be destroyed.
**EDIT** I almost forgot this line in the Madville Times article:
The young woman I visited with isn’t looking for a handout. She’s doing everything we tell her to: work hard, take a chance, pursue your dreams. But our private health insurance system is telling her “Don’t you dare.” It’s keeping her and lots of other graduates from the freedom that America promises.
Who’s for anthropomorphization? Let’s go get this mean ol’ private health insurance system and beat this guy girl person organization of people thing up!
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