Tag Archives: Socialism

United States and Medical Care: We’re #1

Of course we are.  No one really REALLY thinks that we’re not.

Some people, like those crazy guys that just moved in down the block, they DO think other parts of the world rank better.

Well, given the peculiarity of the health care market, and the fact that all other industrialized countries have a much less expensive, much more effective, it seems that too much government involvement is not the problem with our current health care system.

The problem is, of course, that it’s just not true.

Now, to be sure, there ARE studies that show the United States coming in some other place than first, but I don’t think the measurement system is really one that can be trusted to measure medical care delivery.  Afterall, they’re measuring things not really associated with medical care:

Mean Minimum Maximum
Health 25 20 40
Health Inequalities 30 20 30
Responsiveness Level 12.5 5 15
Responsiveness Distribution 12.5 5
Fair Financing 25 15 35

To be sure, some of these are fair measurements.  Others, however, not so much.  For example, Fair Financing.  This metric doesn’t speak to the quality of care, simply the amount of income to purchase it.  Others again, fail to measure the qualify of care given.  They simply measure distribution of said care.  Without a doubt the inclusion of such characteristics may be acceptable from your POLITICAL position, but it in no way measures the quality of care being delivered.

But really, the point I wanna make is this.  The world comes here for care.  We don’t go there.

In the past five years, would-be parents from as far as Istanbul and Uruguay have turned to healthy, young American mothers to serve as surrogates, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The babies are born U.S. citizens, but surrogacy agency officials say that’s not a primary motivation for the parents, who typically come from European and Latin American countries where surrogacy is illegal or socially unacceptable. The parents have exhausted other options and are willing to pay about $50,000 to $100,000 — part of which goes to the surrogate — to have biological children.

The world, having exhausted all other options, are willing t pay money to come to America to take advantage of our medical delivery services.

So, is the fact that people are willing, and ABLE mind you, to pay $50-$100k for a procedure, impacting the amount of money spent in American health care costs by the way, a good thing or a dirty rotten example of how America just sucks at all things medical care related?

Yeah.  That’s what I thought too.

Oh To Be Young Again

The benefits of youth!  See, when you’re young, there is no foul-you’re young!  Only be becoming old do you gain the sufficient life knowledge to enable you to see things differently.

There is a certain truth in the old quote:

If you aren’t Liberal in your 20’s, you have no heart.  If you aren’t conservative in your 40’s, you have no head.

With all that said, college kids get it, they just can’t believe it.

Continue reading

Caution Government at Work

Wanna know why the cost of Medicare is going up?

Raleigh, N.C. — If a wheelchair costs $160, why would Medicare pay eight times as much? That’s the question one local woman asked after her elderly father needed a wheelchair to get around.

As a WRAL investigation found, it’s all in the way Congress set up the spending plan.

A wheelchair seemed like a simple purchase for Jeanne Gunter’s 95-year old-father when he moved to assisted living, but she soon learned that Medicare’s payment system is not so simple.

Medicare rents to own equipment, such as wheelchairs. One wheelchair, for example, costs $104 a month for up to 13 months, which is about $1,300 total. Providers must maintain the liability to repair the chair during the 13 months of rental.

“We could’ve bought a wheelchair,” Gunter said. “I looked at a local pharmacy and looked at a wholesale club, and you could easily get one for $150 to $200 comparable to what we have.”

By all means, let’s have these people run my health insurance program.

Health Care: Market Style [Literally]

Are they waiting for bread or medicine?

So, I needed some bread the other day.  I dressed in my best thermal and made my way down to the local state run community bread line.  With luck I’d be able to get half a loaf of 5 day old bread 3 days early.  Times is tough in the state ya know.

Actually, because food isn’t either:

  1. Distributed by the state
  2. Used as means of compensation

I went to my local for profit market driven food market.

In addition to my fresh bread, I bought wine from California, Champagne from France, beer from Seattle and Saki from Japan.

Olive oil from Italy.  Chocolate from Switzerland.  Blueberries from Chili.  Bananas from India.  And fresh organic tomatoes from right here in North Carolina.

But the MOST amazing thing I saw in my fresh daily market just 1.5 miles up the road?

Continue reading

Beware The Government Official Who Is Here To Help

There is nothing government can do to help.

Government, in it’s purest form is a concept rooted in “negative liberty“.  That is:

Negative liberty is defined as freedom from interference by other people…

That is, Liberty is best defined as that state found when living alone, on that “deserted island” where no man can take or demand.

On that island, a man is free and owns his liberty.

If, in the course of living, another should try to take from him his liberty, he is within “justice” to defend his self, his property and his life.

Government is nothing more than the collective acting as the individual in saying, you may not do this thing.

So be careful when the government comes to you offering you help.

Continue reading

A Tale of Two Mothers

It’s all we hear.  The RICH are getting richer while the POOR are getting poorer.

The RICH don’t pay their fair share.

The poor are being abused by the rich.

And on and on it goes.

But is that the true picture.

Consider this story:

Continue reading

Devastating Pictures of a Once Great City

Herein lie the results of Liberal governance.  THIS is –or should be–the epitaph of destructive policies from the minds of Leftists.

A once proud and great city demolished.

All here for you to see.

Continue to elect Obama, Pelosi and Reid at your peril.  Support and allow Unions to dominate a city and State at your own risk.  Ignore Liberty and instead plunder and employ force to separate the man from his production and behold; BEHOLD your world Leftist.

Behold.

Health Care: 2011 Style

The boys are at it again.  Back on health care.  And, to their credit, it’s gonna be the news of the day.  For many many days.

For example, the new House is going to convene Wednesday and theya re going to, repeat, going to, vote to releal Obamacare.  Gonna happen.

And then we’re in a world of debate as the country wrestles with this problem throughout the next two years.  And when I say 2, I mean that Obama is going to be fighting this through his next election campaign.

Anyway, onto Brad and Britt

Continue reading

I know What’s Better For You Than You Know What’s Better For You

I know candy and sugar and stuff is bad horrible for me.  I KNOW it.

And I know that when I eat garbage like that it only does more harm than it does good.

Except, for, you know, two things:

  1. If I only eat some candy it isn’t all that bad.
  2. I GET to make that decision.

But when the government gets involved, BOOM goes the dynamite!

Continue reading

Health Care the Right Way

Compensation.  What one offers another in trade for goods or services.  Most often today, it’s money.  That is, I pay the service station money in exchange for gasoline.  Or, I pay the tavern in cash in exchange for beer.

Occasionally, the compensation may be something besides money.  Then it becomes a sort of barter.  One party trades a good or service in exchange for another; wheat for milk.  Dental work for electrical work.  Whatever.

Another example is health care.  Rather than our employer compensating us in cash, they instead compensate us in insurance.*

Imagine, if you will, if our employer compensated us in groceries rather than cash–just like health insurance.  What would our world look like?

Continue reading