People working from Sicko Michael Moore and Comrade Osama's perspective make a primary assumption that socialized medicine achieves certain benefits. That is, they ASSUME these benefits. They don't bother to provide any evidence to actually prove these benefits in fact exist. But here they are:
1.) Everyone gets "free," high-quality health care;
2.) Everyone gets the same "free," high-quality health care no matter their social or economic status;
3.) Socialized medicine is cheaper -- in the macro sense -- than free market care.
Based on actual human experience, none of this is true. It's a marxist pipe-dream.
1.) Socialized medicine is not "free." I've been listening to the current debates in congress about how to pay for coverage for an assumed 47 million Americans who right now are uninsured. Proposals include:
- a 10-cent per drink tax on sugary drinks, like Coke and Pepsi, and apparently Snapple and orange juice as well, since these also contain very high amounts of sugar;
- a 2% increase in income tax on high-income earners;
- a 3% tax on employers on the health care benefits they provide employees;
- an unspecified tax on health care benefits paid by employees -- that is, if a company pays $5,000 per year for an employee's heath insurance, that $5,000 expense would be counted by the IRS as "income" and the employee would have to pay income tax on it.
Hey, you know what? This isn't "free." And this is only to cover 47 million uninsured. As a matter of fact, in most cases -- that is, for the 200+ million Americans who do have health insurance, this means that they will pay much more for their health care.
2.) Everyone gets the same health care, no matter their social or economic status? Yeah, sure. According to an NBER paper by Sherry Glied, as quoted in a blog by John Goodman, who is promoting non-socialized medicine, in Canada, it's the highest income groups who make most use of the socialized health care system, and it's this same group who also has greatest access to additional care -- in the US, for example.
Additionally, in Canada and elsewhere where socialized medicine exists, a black market for health care services and dugs flourishes (this is not from the Glied paper, by the way, but documented by other souces, including people who live daily inside these systems.) You might compare this to getting a plumber to fix your toilet for cash after his regular working hours. He charges you less than union scale, doesn't apply for a municipal permit, and keeps the unreported and untaxed cash you pay him. You get professional-quality work at about half the "official" cost. Everyone gains.
That's the free market at work -- undercover, of course, and illegally, when the free exchange of products and services is banned by the government. Everyone involved could go to jail for this, or least pay a hefty fine.
And, of course, only people with cash-in-hand can afford black market services. People who are compelled to fork over all their discretionery income to the feds in taxes need not apply.
3.) Socialized medicine is cheaper, from the macro view. This is something that's just an outright lie. To hear people like Chrstine Romer (all she needs is a big red clown nose and fuzzy buttons to qualify for Barnum & Bailey) make this claim is just insulting. How can it be cheaper when, in addition to paying doctors and hospitals, the public treasury is also funding the enormous bureaucracy required to traffic hundreds of thousands of medical services, payments, and as Comrade Osama wants, a continually updated and always available bank of medical information?
This is just not even a remote possibility. Anyone who believes this should probably be kept under close supervision for their own good.
Right now, the proponents of socialized medicine claim that private and socialized health insurance can co-exist side-by-side. This is another, very obvious lie that should be apparent to anyone with functioning brain matter.
If an employer is forced to pay 3% more in taxes in order to provide employee health insurance, and then the employee has to pay income taxes on that insurance... what employer in their right mind would continue to offer health insurance? His employees might even beg him to Stop with the benefits! lest they be taxed into poverty.
So, what are the benefits again?
Apart from Sicko Michael Moore and socialist-leaning politicians, I haven't been able to find too many people who actually want socialized medicine in the USA. I haven't been able to find any real benefits that accrue to it.
So what the hell is this all about? It's starting to look like yet another way the buttheads in Washington are hoping to anihilate personal liberty. Once they get control of the health care industry, they can start dictating our behavior. Like already... If you're going to destroy your health drinking sugared Coke and Pepsi, then you deserve to die from diabetes.
And you want to do what on your vacation? What if you break your leg while rock-climbing? Should you be allowed to handle raw ground beef for that cook-out? Or would you have to somehow be bonded first to cover the additional cost should the worst happen? Or maybe you shouldn't be permitted that kind of dangerous behavior at all. It will cost the rest of us too much money.
So much to look forward to, huh?
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