Then why isn't there ever a sale on treating broken arms?
The Republicans have been arguing for decades that the best way to allocate health care resources is Free Market Capitalism. It's like a religion with them. They claim the way to reduce costs is to force MORE people out of their "Cadillac" health care plans (mainly union workers) and "let the market decide". Idiots!
Let's think about the implications their beliefs for a minute. It's obvious that they have not spent much time analyzing their own beliefs. The cognitive dissonance would have made their heads explode.
More after the jump...
Of course there's no such thing as a "Free Market" when your kid breaks an arm - you just want it fixed - NOW!. But the Right Wingers just can't wrap their minds around why the Market is not the answer when you or a member of your family is suffering.
I'm going to ask all you to suspend your disbelief for a few paragraphs and assume that Republicans are sincere in their faith in the free market. I realize that's a stretch considering the $Millions they rake in from Big Medicine, but bear with me.
If - as the anti-Obama Health Plan spokesmen keep claiming - delivery of heath care should be left up to market forces, then a number of changes to national health care policy are implied. Either the free market is best or it isn't. If it is, then they're also advocating.....
- No more Medicare. Keep Grandma healthy only as long as you can bleed her savings dry. Then, when she can't pay for any more medical care, let her suffer and die.
- The end of VA Health care. Once those Vets are not serving their country any more, why should they be sucking up tax dollars that would be better spent on $Billionaire tax cuts? Once you're out of the Armed Forces, pay for it yourself!
- That Medicaid would be gone, of course! Free Marketeers think Medicaid is equivalent to letting poor people steal medical care.
- Elimination of SCHIP. If you can't pay for your children's insurance, you shouldn't have had them!
- Defunding any other programs, like subsidies for rural hospitals, support for Native American or inner city low-income clinics. If you can't pay - tough! You don't get a new HDTV for free, why should you get free vaccines for your children?
- Elimination of the health care of last resort - the requirement that emergency rooms have to accept everyone regardless of the ability to pay. Can anything be more socialistic?
Health care Free Market advocates need to be asked repeatedly if they advocate the elimination of all the above. If not, then they must be closet socialists, or in the pay of Big Health, or just plain dumb.
Another argument is that Government intrusion into the Health Care "Market" will force rationing. What they fail to admit is that we ALREADY HAVE RATIONING based on the ability to pay!
Final point. Wing-nuts argue that it is 'unfair' for the government to offer a health plan that competes with private companies as in the Obama plan. But they also argue that private enterprise can do everything better than government. Which is it? If Blue Cross, United Heath Care, etc. can't compete with something as obviously inefficient as a (shudder) Government-run insurance system, then that must mean they are even more inefficient. Isn't that the obvious logical conclusion?
Just like everything else about right wing economic policies, their arguments are based on fear, lies, and distortions. Every time those falsehoods are used - they must be challenged. Every time!