Went to Europe a long time ago, just looking around. St. Paul's Cathedral in London was very moving for a couple reasons. For one thing, on the outside of the building is a stone with a Latin inscription that reads something like, "If you seek his monument, look around you." It refers to Christopher Wren, St. Paul's architect.
I'd like to borrow that idea and apply it to socialized medicine. Fitting that St. Paul's is in London, huh?
Just watching news reports showing long lines of people standing outside clinics and hospitals, waiting for H1N1 (swine flu) shots that never materialize. The project was managed by the government -- those people who are so willing to make all of our health care decisions for us.
It seems that it was cheaper to have the flu vaccine manufactured outside the USA than inside. It also seems that it takes longer to develop swine flu vaccine than vaccines for other kinds of flu. The vaccine is being produced in Australia, and as it comes off the assembly line, so to speak, it's shipped to whomever Australia prioritizes. Which is fine. The USA seemed to agree to those terms when we failed to manufacture the vaccine here. But apparently Australia is not shipping to the USA first. Too bad. Americans are not as important to Australians as Americans are to Americans.
So now there's not enough vaccine to go around, and we see these long lines outside of clinics and hospitals. Yet the government keeps issuing statements and advisories to suggest that there's a major swine flu epidemic sweeping the country, so get your swine flu shots! Sounding the alarm, but failing to deliver any remedy for it. They have a big megaphone, but that's about all they have.
Oh, but the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been vaccinated. Even though many health care workers have not. Well, you know those wild and crazy guys incarcerated at Guantanamo, with their busy social schedules and myraid guests traipsing in and out. Surely they need the vaccine more than any American citizen does. Heaven only knows, if they get released, they'll head right for a jumbo jet, and the enclosed ventiliation loop on passenger airlines are incubators for things like flu. So I guess they need the shots. We wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them.
The thing is, did you expect this whole vaccination project to be handled any better, any more efficiently? I didn't.
And I expect that government-run socialized medicine will be managed in exactly the same way.
So if any of these pie-in-the-sky and forthrightly deceptive proposals for socialized medicine passes through congress successfully -- and there's still time to stop them -- well, what do we have to look forward to?
Like that inscription at St. Paul's -- If you want to know how it's going to work -- or how it's not going to work -- look around you.
Now imagine you have cancer, or you've nicked an artery, or your kid has appendicitis. What are your chances of survival going to be?
Oh, but it'll be free! Yeah.... as long as you pretend that 20% or so additional withholding from your paycheck doesn't constitute a payment.
Oh, but everyone will be covered. Yeah.... everyone can get in line. Whether or not any useful services will be delivered is another question.
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