Monday, October 07, 2013

Quality Health Care........... Government is the problem......

The following is my reply to a person named Paul who commented on the ObamaCare system. I think as you read this you will figure out his take on things:

Dear Paul, This is not meant to be critical of you personally but to simply point out an error in your thinking and provide an alternative thought process. Here is the part I wish to concentrate upon:

" If we can afford wars, and afford to give mega corporations large
amounts of money, and afford 2billion bullets, and afford 2400 armored
vehicles, and etc etc, We can afford to give quality healthcare to our
citizens that are being bankrupted over skyrocketing costs. I have
argued with many liberals that agree that this is not the best program,
but there is no alternative."


What has happened to your thinking is the same thing that is wrong with the majority of Americans these days. You have all been gradually conditioned into accepting the premiss that government is the solution to all problems. This is the position that big government types want you to believe but it's NOT what the Constitution said the roll of government is.

The roll of the federal government was deliberately specified to be minimal in it's affect on the people by being limited to national defense and managing our relationship with other countries via treaties and such. Then the Constitution stated that all power not given to the federal government was reserved for the people and the several states. No mention of a department of health, education, interior, agriculture or anything else. Those are all more modern creations and served only to increase the power of government over the people and the states which runs counter to the Constitution.

There was and is an "alternative', Paul. It's call the free market system and it works each and every time it's tried without the heavy hand of government attempting to "regulate" everything. Why does it work? Competition for your dollars and mine.

We have Hospitals A, B and C all operating in the same city. For the sake of the Illustration we'll stipulate that all are the same size, offer the same services and have exactly the same number of people on staff.

Word on the street says that Hospital A has a staff that is pretty rude to the customers (if a place offers a service in exchange for money then the person paying for the service is a customer..... NOT a patient) There are long waiting periods for services and customers are often ignored while the staff talks among themselves.

Hospital B has had many complaints about the quality of their services. Operations take a long time to get except in extreme emergencies. Surgical incisions are sutured too tightly resulting in large ugly scars. Several mal-practice law suits have been filed against the hospital. 

Hospital C gets glowing reviews from it's customers. The staff is friendly, highly professional and communicates well with their customers. Services are provided in a timely, efficient manner with no complaints. Additionally they manage to do everything at a cost which is slightly below the other two facilities.

In the above scenario which facility is likely to get the most business and why? Which facility would YOU go to and why?

That is the free market system at work. The facility offering the best combination of customer service and satisfaction for the best price will earn the most customers and thus... the most income. The others will either have to improve their customer service and become competitive or they will eventually go out of business. (or be bought up by Hospital C so that facility can expand its already popular services to more people in more locations)

Competition for customers and their dollars drives businesses to become better at what they do and challenges them to do it more efficiently than the other guy. Together those two things drive innovation and that makes everyone better in the long run.  The bad apples will weed themselves out as the people won't do business with them.

If you check back through history the intrusion of government, via regulations, was what initiated the rise in cost of medical care and the gradual decline in effectiveness of service. The more government intruded into the business of health the worst and more expensive it became...... until the government pointed it's boney finger at the industry and told them they had to have even MORE government intervention. If some government intrusion made it bad how is more government going to make it better? It's not.  

The cost of health care continued to grow because hospitals had to employ more and more people who were NOT medical professionals and who provided NO medical services or support. Now all hospitals have to have entire wings employing dozens and dozens of people devoted to NOTHING but "government compliance,." Tens of thousands of pages of rules and regulations mandated by government...... and a government that is ready and willing to sue a hospital out of business for failure to comply with any one of those rules and regulations. As Ronald Reagan said so very well all those years ago..... "Government isn't the solution.... government is the problem!"

Now then.... fast forward to today. One party is throwing a temper tantrum that would make my 6 years old grandchildren embarrassed..... and is shutting down all sorts of things for the purpose of inflicting as much pain and inconvenience as possible on the general population. They have gone as far as hiring additional people to erect barriers around PUBLIC MONUMENTS which stand on an open air mall so as to keep THE PEOPLE away from THE PEOPLES monuments and sacred places! That is so far beyond childish that it has ceased to be funny.

And here is the point....... if we have a government that will go so far as to try to close an OCEAN....... keep the greatest generation from visiting THEIR war memorial....... throw elderly people out of their homes..... and all the other stupid childish stuff they are doing........ would they not also shut down hospitals if THEY were in complete control of them??? Is there a lower limit to how infantile they would act to get their way even when that is clearly against the will of the people?? 

As with almost everything else.... the less government intrusion there is in our lives and our businesses.... the better things are for all of us.

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