.jpg)
NSBNEWS.net photo by Henry Frederick. Monica Leucht and Andrea Hill, of the Golden Biscuit restaurant in New Smyrna Beach, are not big fans of a national health-care system.
Many Americans rightfully have serious doubts about adoption a national health care system. These doubts are echoed by Andrea Hill, a hostess at the "Golden Biscuit" breakfast/lunch eatery on Canal Street, who said, “National health care works in other countries, but I don’t think it would work here.”
Monica Leucht, a Golden Biscuit waitress, added, "I come from Italy where we have National Health care. Everyone there waits in line for health care. I like the idea of paying for it and getting treated immediately, except the cost is too high.”
Since so many people have such serious doubts about nationalizing health here, the national health care advocates have propagated a serious of myths to support their cause -- that there is a crisis in health care that can only be solved with a national health care system.
It is vital that we examine these myths.
###
MYTH: About 45 million people can’t get health care.
REALITY: The truth is that anyone who is in need of treatment can go to an emergency room and they have to treat them. It is more or less up to the patient whether or not they pay.
###
MYTH: About 45 million people are uninsured.
REALITY: This is true but completely misleading. Many people choose not to be insured either because they feel they don’t need it or figure they can get cared for whether they can afford it or not. Also many of these people figure that health insurance is not an efficient way to cover their health costs.
###
MYTH: Some of the world’s socialized health care systems are better than ours.
REALITY: This misinformation stems from using criteria that have nothing to do with actual health care. When it comes to actually curing people of real problems American health care is the best in the world. You don’t see people traveling to Canad , Cuba or the United Kingdom anywhere nearly as often as they do to the U.S. for health care.
###
MYTH: If we nationalize the health care system everyone will get immediate, great care for free. Everyone will be happy as a clam.
REALITY: Every existing nationalized health care system the world has ever seen is characterized by long lines, a scarcity of doctors, a scarcity of medicines, a scarcity of equipment and eventually a scarcity of treatment and cures. This condition develops over the years as the health system ages. It does however engender equality as most people become equally dissatisfied.
###
MYTH: Government health care would be more efficient.
REALITY: Come on, lets get serious. If anyone thinks anything government-run is going to be efficient in any way, they need help.
###
MYTH: Drug prices are unnecessarily driving up the cost of health care.
REALITY: There are actually two myths here. First, treatment by drugs is usually cheaper and less painful that other means, such as surgery. So drug use is a boon both in cost and pain. The second myth is that the drug companies are unnecessarily driving up the cost of drugs and treatments.
###
Studies show that about 95 percent of the cost of new drugs is caused by the idiotic actions of the FDA ( See my blog of May 1, 2008, entitled ”FDA Ineptness Hurting People Everywhere"). These are some of the main elements of the misinformation that the pro national health-care lobby has propagated.
For those who want to probe deeper, Sally Pipes has written a book entitled, "The Top Ten Myths Of American Health Care: A Citizen’s Guide,” which goes into these areas in much more detail and also covers many other areas.
While the congress is proposing various health care bills, the Congressional Budget Office has been making a non-partisan evaluation of these bills and has found them to be much more expensive and much less effective than their proponents have claimed.
For example, the Kennedy bill is projected to spend 1.5 trillion dollars, while only adding coverage to only about one-third the uninsured it is supposed to help. This would bankrupt us without solving any problems.
The fact remains that most of the problems of medical care are caused by the ever increasing intrusion of government. The only good way to reverse these problems involves decreasing the amount of intrusion by government.
Trying to solve the problem by increasing its cause seems to be a bit of insanity