Ron Paul did a piece yesterday which, quite frankly, has me absolutely flabbergasted.
The title of his piece is 'Healthcare is a good, not a right', and the name almost says it all. Alas, not quite. A link to the full article is provided below, as well as a YouTube of him reading his ‘article’, but I will be quoting it in full throughout this diary.
From the start, his skewed thinking [sic] comes shining through and he expresses it through misconceptions, inaccuracies, and downright falsehoods; with a good dollop of assumed ignorance thrown in for flavor.
Ron Paul, ye olde stalwart of Liberty, starts off where any talk of health care should, but he gets it all terribly, terribly wrong:
Political philosopher Richard Weaver famously and correctly stated that ideas have consequences. Take for example ideas about rights versus goods. Natural law states that people have rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A good is something you work for and earn. It might be a need, like food, but more "goods" seem to be becoming "rights" in our culture, and this has troubling consequences. It might seem harmless enough to decide that people have a right to things like education, employment, housing or healthcare. But if we look a little further into the consequences, we can see that the workings of the community and economy are thrown wildly off balance when people accept those ideas.
Here Paul equates 'natural law', the term itself a bit of a misnomer, with the 'inalienable rights' scripted in the Declaration of Independence. While the one is most certainly the basis of the other, the two should be seen in their own light.
The concept of 'Natural Law' is generally attributed to Stoicism. Stoics emphasized the ideas of individual worth, moral duty, and universal brotherhood. Though the definition and meaning has changed from one society to another, based as it is in the concept of morality determining the authority of legal norms, the inherent tenant is one of justice and of the duty a society has to care for its members.
'Inalienable Rights', as provided in the Declaration of Independence, establish that 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness' are rights which the state can not abridge or enact laws in opposition of, on pain of the right of the People to alter or abolish said laws. Paul, being a Federalist, does not believe in natural, inalienable, rights. Rather, he believes one may have only that which one earns and that having failed to earn, no matter the means of that failure, even if by virtue of the actions or inactions of the State, one has no 'rights' to such 'goods'.
His mistake here is to juxtaposition the 'earning' of personal accomplishment with the 'earned' right of the population to services provided by the State to guarantee the population the rights delegated to the members of their society; 'life' itself being one of. To Pauls thinking, if you have not personally 'earned' health care then you have no right to that health care or the life which it would help maintain.
First of all, other people must pay for things like healthcare. Those people have bills to pay and families to support, just as you do. If there is a "right" to healthcare, you must force the providers of those goods, or others, to serve you.
Obviously, if healthcare providers were suddenly considered outright slaves to healthcare consumers, our medical schools would quickly empty.
Here he seems to make the assumption that providing heath care as a right of the population equates to health care becoming a free service. Not only is this a wholly false assumption, a 'straw man' if you will, but it is also grievously maleficent in that it equates anyone seeking that service as a freeloader and a drain on society.
A healthy society is a happy and productive society. Rather than a drain on that society, it is a boon to the society as a whole to have its members healthy, not to mention unconcerned with the probability of an illness effecting the security of those others who make up that society.
When illness threatens not only the life of the individual but also those in close association with that individual, be it fellows in business or members of the individuals family, it threatens society as a whole.
If I run a business and someone in that business becomes ill then it is in my best interest to have them well again to return to their place in the organisation. Otherwise, I would be faced with replacing the worker with someone who is not familiar with the responsibilities of that worker, and my business, and who might not have the same skills as made the worker a benefit to my business.
Likewise, should a member of a family become ill then that illness can affect the lives and livelihood of the other members of the family, either directly by a loss of the earnings threatening the stability of the family or indirectly with the members of that family being emotionally incapacitated or otherwise effected in such a way that their productivity, whether it be social or economical, deteriorates.
Any way one looks at the situation, it is in society's best interest to have a healthy population. Whether it is classed as a 'good' or a 'right' in immaterial to the nature of the effect it has on society as a whole.
Mr Paul then goes on a wild tangent and equates providing heath care as a right to enslaving the providers of that care. I find this not only reprehensible given the history of our country, but also a concocted ignorance of how society treats those who provide services to the population.
Pre-school through high school education is provided by the State and yet teachers and administers of that service are paid, abet not overly well in most, if not all, instances, and yet one would be hard pressed to make the claim that those in the industry are 'slaves' to society.
Likewise, those who provide heath care are not currently, nor would they in the future, be indentured to their professions. Just as students still study to become teachers, so will they also continue to study to become doctors, nurses and technicians no matter if heath care is provided to only those who can afford at any price the 'goods' are set to or whether it is provided as a basic human right available to all and paid for by society with the production of that society.
While some members of the medical establishment may well choose to do so with the goal of great personal wealth and achievement, I'm convinced that the great majority do so because they find they have the want and need to help others. Everyone likes the security of a well paying job, and that will not change with the classification of heath care, but I do not see it as the overriding draw of the profession and do not agree that the medical schools would empty of students because heath care is granted the status of a 'right' of humanity as opposed to a 'good' for sale.
As the government continues to convince us that healthcare is a right instead of a good, it also very generously agrees to step in as middle man. Politicians can be very good at making it sound as if healthcare will be free for everybody. Nothing could be further from the truth. The administration doesn't want you to think too much about how hospitals will be funded, or how you will somehow get something for nothing in the healthcare arena. We are asked to just trust the politicians. Somehow it will all work out.
Another contrived argument not based in any fact whatsoever. No one has suggested, or would suggest, that heath care be 'free' or that it would not be paid for. Perhaps this is where he gets his 'slaves' from. I did split his paragraph, mainly because I found his statement fragmented in meaning as well as purpose, and so perhaps his concept of 'free' heath care can be attributed to 'forcing' providers into service, one assumes also for free? I can't quite get my head around his reasoning, if he did indeed use any, for this.
His 'something for nothing' is so very appalling in its ignorance as to not even meet the measure of a 'straw man'. I shall call it an 'air man'. Perhaps a 'hot air man'.
Only a fool, and/or those suffering from self-inflicted delusions, can follow the ongoing discussions on heath care in our society and come to the conclusion that anyone is proposing that health care will be made 'free', unless one is thinking of, and only of, those in society who have no means with which to pay for the care they receive; the very young, the very old, and the poor of our society.
So perhaps his primary meaning is that children and the elderly, as well as anyone who is in higher education, has been laid off from their job, is unable to work due to illness or incapacity, or unable to find adequate employment, shouldn't have health care as society will have to help provide that care.
It would seem his statement of 'Natural Law', the assumption of a society to 'moral duty', has no place in his religious beliefs or how society should treat the less franchised of its members. Perhaps his Jesus wasn't the same Jesus many of us were taught as children to emulate in our lives and in how we treat the lesser of us in society. Or perhaps Mr Paul is just a dick who would walk past an injured man on the side of the road, after first asking how much money he had in his pocket.
Universal Healthcare never quite works out the way the people are led to believe before implementing it. Citizens in countries with nationalized healthcare never would have accepted this system had they known upfront about the rationing of care and the long lines.
This could not be in any way more false. Anyone who knows me and/or has read my comments on multiple diaries on this and other sites will know that I am an American living in the UK. No one not of Paul's ilk in the UK has any want or need to rescind our nationalized care or wishes it had never been established. The vast majority is extremely happy with the care we receive and, with the exception of the malcontents who will always find something to complain about in any system, would not change the provision in any way, shape or form.
While some areas of the country can, at times, become stressed, health care is in no way 'rationed' and waiting times are entirely manageable. Not only that, but they are required by law to be reasonable and within medical guidelines. Urgent need demands urgent care, as appropriate.
As bureaucrats take over medicine, costs go up and quality goes down because doctors spend more and more of their time on paperwork and less time helping patients. As costs skyrocket, as they always do when inefficient bureaucrats take the reins, government will need to confiscate more and more money from an already foundering economy to somehow pay the bills. As we have seen many times, the more money and power that government has, the more power it will abuse. The frightening aspect of all this is that cutting costs, which they will inevitably do, could very well mean denying vital services. And since participation will be mandatory, no legal alternatives will be available.
Putting aside the belligerent falsehood of 'bureaucrats take over medicine' for a moment, how can he explain the fact of the US having higher per capita costs and yet lower outcome quality of care than the UK? The facts are the facts. The US is hurting because it shoots itself in the foot daily. Those who can pay, and pay well, get great service while those who can not, or not adequately, get poor care or no care at all.
Doctors in the UK are not spending time filling out paperwork rather than seeing patients. The costs are not skyrocketing. The government is not 'confiscating' more and more money. Doctors are seeing patients, heath care trusts are submitting bills and paying the doctors and nurses, apothecaries and technicians. The people are being taken care of and are happy.
Now back to the 'take over'. The fact is that heath care was taken over years ago by insurance companies who see the sick as nothing more than an opportunity to make billions upon more billions while refusing care to those whom they are entrusted to provide that service to. It's despicable and inhumane. It should, quite frankly, be illegal in this day and age to treat people like cash cows to the slaughter.
He mentions the abuse of power and yet says nothing of the abuses we see testament of on a daily, in fact hourly, basis. Can he show how the UK government has abused the system in any way? I dare say not, the people would not stand for it. But he is willing to stand by as people get sick and die due to lack of even basic care or due to the denial of care by those who they have dutifully paid, in advance, for that care.
And so his last canard, 'participation will be mandatory, no legal alternatives will be available'. I don't even have to refute this, as it refutes itself, but I will. No one will be 'forced' into any plan, though they are currently forced to purchase insurance, at whatever price the insurance companies decide to charge for it, if they decide to 'let' someone be a 'customer' at all. There are no choices, no options, and justice.
No alternative? What 'alternative' do people have now? Heath care reform is all about alternatives. That is its sole purpose and the reason it is needed is the lack of alternatives now and for the last 50+ years.
The government will be paying the bills, forcing doctors and hospitals to dance more and more to the government's tune. Having to subject our health to this bureaucratic insanity and mismanagement is possibly the biggest danger we face. The great irony is that in turning the good of healthcare into a right, your life and liberty are put in jeopardy.
Instead of further removing healthcare from the market, we should return to a true free market in healthcare, one that empowers individuals, not bureaucrats, with control of healthcare dollars. My bill HR 1495 the Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Act provides tax credits and medical savings accounts designed to do just that.
We, the people, will be paying the bills and we, the people, will be deciding the care we need and who is best to provide that care. The 'great irony' is that so many of us have no care now, neither as a 'good' nor a 'right' and that many of us who are paying and think have care will find they do not should they ever have need of that care. That their lives and liberty are already in jeopardy and will remain so should Mr Paul and his kind have their despicable way.
And what is his way? Tax credits mandated to insurance companies who are left to their own devices while guaranteed higher profits and the whole of society forced to dance to their tune.
'Free market'? It's already a free market! They are 'free' to charge what they like, refuse who they choose, and sentence those who have paid them billions to a slow and agonising death while they pad their profits and pay off the Ron Pauls of the world.
Empowered? Is giving a family $5000 and telling them to go buy $15000 worth of 'insurance', then denying them the coverage when they need it, 'empowering'? I call it ripping off The People and I call it putting your own self-interest above that of those same people and the country.
Funny how he calls 'insanity' on heath care reform when the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
The US has been pounding a square peg into a round hole for decades. A bigger hammer isn't the answer.
Here's is Ron Paul's 'article': http://www.dailypaul.com/...
And here, if you can stomach it, He Himself:
Thank you for taking the time to read my diary.