Some sobering thoughts on the financial future. We have to get spending (particularly entitlements) under control. And socialized health care is one of the worst things we could do in that regard.
[Update a few minutes later]
Some thoughts on the disaster that was the New Deal:
The New Deal tripled taxes, which meant consumers had less money to spend and employers had less money for hiring; a number of New Deal laws made it more expensive for employers to hire people, which also meant less hiring; New Deal soak-the-rich taxes discouraged investment, and it’s almost impossible to create private-sector jobs without investment.
Other policies hurt Americans in other ways. Several New Deal laws banned discounting, when desperate people needed bargains; the New Deal authorized the destruction of food when people were hungry; the New Deal established hundreds of cartels and monopolies; the New Deal centralized the power of the Federal Reserve, and the Fed’s first major policy decision was a blunder that brought on a crisis within a crisis (the depression of 1938); the New Deal broke up the strongest banks and did nothing about laws that prevented thousands of banks from diversifying their depositor bases and their loan portfolios (Canada didn’t have these laws, and it went through the Great Depression without a bank failure).
Unfortunately, we just put a lot of people in power who want to (or at least claim to want to) do it over again.
The conclusion — “socialized health care is one of the worst things we could do” — does not at all follow from the previous sentence — that “We have got to get spending (particularly entitlements) under control.”
The fastest-growing part of entitlement spending is for health care. And whatever else you think of socialized health care, it clearly costs less — no socialized system on earth spends close to what we spend on health care. Given the state of the U.S. economy, the question is whether we can afford anything other than socialized medicine.
Socialized health care costs less because you get less service.
And to put more oomph into Leland’s remark:
Increased spending on health care in a free market means that people value health care more than other goods available.
Decreased spending on health care in a command economy means the bureaucrats care less about people’s health than the people do.
There is, dare I say it, something of a health-care bubble in this country. We tend to see it accounted for as if all health care is equal when it most certainly is not.
> And whatever else you think of socialized health care, it clearly costs less — no socialized system on earth spends close to what we spend on health care.
That’s not true. The US has a socialized health care system which covers about as many people as the private system and costs the same per person to do so.
If you’re going to argue that the US can have an efficient govt-run healthcare system, why doesn’t it?
As to the so-called inefficiency of the current private and socialized systems in the US, I note that they’re more efficient than the US welfare systems that the socialized medicine folks think that we should use as a model for health care.
For the idiots that want universal health care: I can’t wait to see your face when you’re told that you are too old/sick/fat/whatever, to receive the lifesaving medical treatment you need to keep your sorry a$$ out of the dirt for a few more years.
The nanny state will be in our kitchens, telling us what we can eat. They would be fools not to, after all, they pay will pay for our bad lifestyle habits.
Race a car? Skydive? Like to run with scissors?
Such harmful hobbies cause injuries. I bet they could withold care for injuries incurred during these pastimes.
And if not, WHY NOT?
Once the gov’t gets in, they never get out.
One word: RATIONING. And the Dem’s beloved demographic-changing illegals will be ahead of you in line.
Not to mention the politicizing of treatments that will come:
Aids? Absolutely covered, $1B per person limit, no protected sex required!
Heart attack? Well, you are obviously overweight due to your lifestyle choices. We might have covered you if you fit the liberal mold, but sorry – go push daisies.
Jim,
But if I decide to not use your system and I pay cash to a doctor, are you going to stop me? If so then you aren’t really interested in saving money so much as controlling me and mine.
People act like universal socialized health care will miraculously cure all their ailments. They aren’t thinking rationally about it — they’re thinking about all those huge medical costs they hear about on tv. They just don’t want to pay the doctor, they want to pretend it’s “free” even though pushing the costs off into some other area of money suckage, like taxes, doesn’t mean they aren’t paying as much if not more. They just don’t want to see the money going out of their paycheck or checkbook like they do now.
But watch. Say our Hopey Changey prez decides to try out some system of nationalized health care. When people get their paychecks and realized that their taxes have gone through the roof, and when they go to the doctor or hospital and see that waiting times have doubled, tripled, become astronomical (and another thing people hate is the wait for the doctor — how many “I was early for my appointment at the doctor’s and I still had to wait two hours!” stories have you heard?) the screams will be heard from here to Alpha Centauri. Moral of the story: people want something for nothing, because they are stupid.
Michael Mealling Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Jim,
But if I decide to not use your system and I pay cash to a doctor, are you going to stop me? If so then you aren’t really interested in saving money so much as controlling me and mine
But it is about control.
Paying cash will not be an option
To return to the original subject: Rand made the argument that socialized medicine would hurt the country’s financial position. People here have raised various objections to socialized medicine — it removes choice, requires rationing, etc. But no one can deny that socialized medicine in France, Germany, Finland, etc. delivers as much health (if not as much health care, which is a different thing) as our current system, at a fraction of the cost. Even in the U.S., the most cost-effective health systems, Medicare and the VA, are also the most socialized. Whatever its good points, our current system is outrageously expensive for what it delivers.
So complain about spiraling health care costs, or complain about socialized medicine, but complaining about them together is like complaining about both drought and rain.
Whatever your opinions, the fact that we spend more on health care in total and per person, and have nothing to show for it speaks volumes. It’s telling that our system is neither efficient nor effective.
…the fact that we spend more on health care in total and per person, and have nothing to show for it speaks volumes.
Surely you meant to write something more intelligent and less ignorant than that?
But no one can deny that socialized medicine in France, Germany, Finland, etc. delivers as much health (if not as much health care, which is a different thing) as our current system, at a fraction of the cost.
Really? Don’t get out much, do you?
Try here or here. Notice the country with the highest cancer survival rates in the Western world. Hint: it’s the country without socialized medicine.
Perhaps you should make yourself aware of the fact that the Democratic/MSM Party have a strong vested interest in keeping the facts of the situation from you, in order to enhance the prospects of something coming to pass that will increase their power. If you just idly listen to the news and read what is predigested and deliverd to you, you will continue to believe this error.
If, on the other hand, you try thinking independently and digging for your own facts, you might be surprised. Even horrified, once you realize what they have in mind for you.
Yes, there will be someone to baill out America when she will despair for cash and president Obama knows it, as he carefully plans to use this oppoprtunity.
I am talking about the rich Arab states (like Saudi Arabia) who will do anything to increase their religious and financial influence in the USA. Barak Hussein Obama also wants this to happen and I suspect he will lead the way,
by increasin the American debt tremendously, then, when the time will come, America will care no more from where the money comes from. That is when America will widely open her doors to Saudi Arabia and the rest is history.
Learn from Europe and how she is loosing her identity fast, day by day and turning into an Islamic continent……
I hope I am wrong though…..
Have a great day.
Armageddon