A local news broadcast last night aired a piece about the impending digital switch for televisions. The reporter offered various resources for viewers in need of assitance in making the transition. Cut to a fire chief sitting behind a large, tidy desk. The fire chief announces to the camera that the fire fighters at his fire house are available to come to people's homes to help set up the converter boxes. As if THAT wasn't service enough, they will stay and talk people through the inevitable remote confusion and channel searching.
Flash to the inside of my head. A voice is saying, "My god! Is there anything a fire fighter won't do to help other people? There must be an altruism test you have to pass in order to even qualify for the academy. I would NEVER pass that...HEY!...How on earth do these people have the time to offer all of this help? Most doctors get into medicine to help people but they don't even have the time to use the bathroom on any given day because of all that insurance paper work...Aaahhhh...that's the answer." Now get out of my head.
So if Socialism (that's right, I said the "S" word) is an acceptable system for public services such as fire departments, police departments, libraries, and education, why is it such a leap to include health care among those services? Perhaps the alternative question should be asked; if Capitalism is such a superior method of delivering services to a population, why not privatize EVERYTHING?
Countless new "_MO's" would emerge. Fire Management Organizations (FMO's), Police Management Organizations (PMO's), Education Management Organiztions (EMO's),...you get the idea. Think of the billions of dollars yet to be siphoned from the needy American public. Not to mention the number of jobs that will be created in other countries staffing the ever-ringing customer serivce lines of every management company. Oh! the glorious potential of free market!
Let's play with it for a minute. Say your house is on fire. You call your fire fighting provider (a list of approved departments will be sent with your enrollment paper work). After the front desk operator checks the schedule, you have an appointment in an hour and a half. Of course you'll need to provide proof of your FMO enrollment and pay the $30 co-pay.
The fire department comes, does a thorough job putting out the fire (though, to be honest, in the lag time the fire was free to spread into multiple rooms). At least it was extinguished before you lost everything. Just as you're beginning to recover from the devastation, the bills begin to arrive. Your deductable is $5,000 so fortunately for you, everything over that amount will be covered by the FMO. Unfortunately, you don't have $5,000. Not to mention the expenses of rebuilding your home and replacing your things.
Oh, and whatever you do, don't EVER need the fire department again. Once you have a fire, you are "unextinguishable".
The same goes for the PMO's, the LMO's, the EMO's, etc...
The EMO's even have the luxury of denying educational services for genetically predisposed conditions such as dyslexia or lisping. And once your child is labeled "uneducateable" your only option will be moving to Europe (where they will educate him/her all the way through college at no out of pocket expense to you).
This is the reality of health care in America. The claims of superiority over socialized health care systems in other countries is nothing more than propaganda spewed by the managed care organizations. Privatized health care is NOT superior; it IS more profitable however. I guess since I'm not personally profiting from it, I have an ax to grind. Well, okay, it's really because my husband has cancer and the scenario described above didn't happen to our house, it happened to a human being. The only difference is that while you can rebuild a house, I won't get my husband back if the health care system decides to let him die.
I don't really feel like playing anymore.