Speaking of the next fix, special thanks to Frank Drackman MD for his spotlight on The Week. It can be read here. The Hideout is a daily read for me between classes and it keeps me laughing when I am not laughing at the gunners.
I now leave you with a great editorial piece:
October 2008
ACEP News
By David F. Baehren, MD
The United States has enjoyed the most successful and enduring form of elected government in the history of mankind. In spite of our political class being populated by some of the most unworthy scoundrels ever to run for office, our system of checks and balances has served our nation well, and we have prospered.
The genius of our founding fathers is evident in their deliberations over the writing of our Declaration of Independence and the Articles of the Constitution.
The signers of the Declaration were accomplished and serious men. Almost all were wealthy, and each had much to lose by signing his name. At the end of the document, they wrote, "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." They knew the dangers they faced. Many were hounded by the British and eventually lost family, fortune, and their lives. They died, however, with the thing they cherished most still intact: their sacred honor.
Fast forward to present day, when our politicians and candidates spend more time trying to get and stay elected than they do thinking about the preservation of the republic--a republic for which so many have risked and given their lives. Our current crop of public servants couldn't shine the boots of the likes of John Adams, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin.
An election year seems to bring out the worst in them. The dishonorable pandering that goes on is most vexing. There seems to be little talk about what's best for the country as a whole, and lots of talk about what can be done to please this or that interest group. The latest redistribution-of-wealth scheme disguised as a stimulus package is a very good example of this kind of nonsense.
The biggest prize of all in the pandering game is health care. Some are ready to give it away to all at the expense of the taxpayers. Assuming one believes that expanding the federal health care system would actually help people, it's easy to appeal to voters based on stories of individual hardship. How could anyone deny health care insurance to a working mother of three?
When the poster child approach is used, it becomes difficult to make an argument against a national health plan without sounding heartless. And those who are pushing for national health care are counting on this. A rational person might first ask what kind of coverage would be provided. Would it be like Medicaid, where access to care (except emergency care, of course) is quite limited, and the only guarantee is that nobody will try to collect money after the government pays 30 cents on the dollar?
Would everyone have Medicare, where money gushes like Niagara Falls? (Some of that money actually splashes at the feet of doctors on occasion.) Medicare pays for people who don't recognize a soul or know the year to get dialysis. Ambulances shuttle patients all over creation at $500 a ride--but Medicare won't pay a doctor a reasonable fee to make a house call. Amplify this kind of waste five times, and the budget deficit will soar. The money will dry up quickly, and then the rationing will begin. At first, it will be relatively easy, and we won't dialyze people who don't know what planet they inhabit. Later, choices will become more difficult, and people will wait months for bypass surgery or will be disapproved for hip replacements.
Will we allow people to purchase supplemental insurance and maintain a two-tiered system, or will everyone be forced to live under the same cash-strapped federal system? That's the way it is in Canada. Those with means choose to come to the United States and pay out of pocket when they are put on the waiting list for surgery or chemotherapy, because they are prohibited from buying private insurance.
Americans will demand choice in their health care coverage. Just as people with money abandoned city schools 40 years ago, people will flee the federal health care system. Access to good care will be diminished for those who are stuck in the federal system and will improve for those who can afford the private system. Our elected officials may feel better for having done something to "help" people, but everyone else will be the worse for their efforts. And the very people they set out to help will suffer the most. Just look at the failed public school system of every large city in the country to get a look into the future of health care.
There is more to this than guaranteeing health insurance for a mother of three. The larger debate should surround what's best for the survival of our republic. This is what our founding fathers pledged their honor to. They put the good of the nation ahead of their parochial interests.This is a rare discussion in Washington anymore. Remember, it is our elected representatives who have created the Social Security system but failed to put money aside to pay the tens of millions of people who are about to start collecting from it. These are the numbskulls who gave us EMTALA and demand our servitude (under threat of stiff penalty) without any promise of compensation for our efforts. This is the fiscally irresponsible lot that spends money on useless earmarks while our collective debt soars. I don't have high hopes that any of our candidates or elected representatives will look at the big picture and realize that our Constitution does not guarantee happiness. We have no right to it. We are free only to pursue it.
Our founding fathers did not believe that pursuing happiness involves sitting on the couch waiting for your federal insurance card. Thomas Jefferson said, "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." He would not be pleased with our current entitlement state and our punitive tax code. He might even look at our current government in the same way he saw his British oppressors and say that it is his right--it is his duty--to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for our future security. No doubt, today he would be branded as a crazy extremist. Every election provides our nation with a crossroads. For physicians, this is a particularly important one. I fear that the implementation of a national health care system will propel us further down the slippery slope we travel already.
When the majority sees fit to tax the wealthy minority to pay for something not promised in the Constitution, our republic creeps closer to collapsing into socialism. And then we will be a mere shadow of the great republic forged over 2 centuries past.
Dr. Baehren lives in Ottawa Hills, Ohio. He practices emergency medicine and is an assistant professor at the University of Toledo Medical Center. Your feedback is welcomed at David.Baehren@utoledo.edu
ACEP News
By David F. Baehren, MD
The United States has enjoyed the most successful and enduring form of elected government in the history of mankind. In spite of our political class being populated by some of the most unworthy scoundrels ever to run for office, our system of checks and balances has served our nation well, and we have prospered.
The genius of our founding fathers is evident in their deliberations over the writing of our Declaration of Independence and the Articles of the Constitution.
The signers of the Declaration were accomplished and serious men. Almost all were wealthy, and each had much to lose by signing his name. At the end of the document, they wrote, "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." They knew the dangers they faced. Many were hounded by the British and eventually lost family, fortune, and their lives. They died, however, with the thing they cherished most still intact: their sacred honor.
Fast forward to present day, when our politicians and candidates spend more time trying to get and stay elected than they do thinking about the preservation of the republic--a republic for which so many have risked and given their lives. Our current crop of public servants couldn't shine the boots of the likes of John Adams, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin.
An election year seems to bring out the worst in them. The dishonorable pandering that goes on is most vexing. There seems to be little talk about what's best for the country as a whole, and lots of talk about what can be done to please this or that interest group. The latest redistribution-of-wealth scheme disguised as a stimulus package is a very good example of this kind of nonsense.
The biggest prize of all in the pandering game is health care. Some are ready to give it away to all at the expense of the taxpayers. Assuming one believes that expanding the federal health care system would actually help people, it's easy to appeal to voters based on stories of individual hardship. How could anyone deny health care insurance to a working mother of three?
When the poster child approach is used, it becomes difficult to make an argument against a national health plan without sounding heartless. And those who are pushing for national health care are counting on this. A rational person might first ask what kind of coverage would be provided. Would it be like Medicaid, where access to care (except emergency care, of course) is quite limited, and the only guarantee is that nobody will try to collect money after the government pays 30 cents on the dollar?
Would everyone have Medicare, where money gushes like Niagara Falls? (Some of that money actually splashes at the feet of doctors on occasion.) Medicare pays for people who don't recognize a soul or know the year to get dialysis. Ambulances shuttle patients all over creation at $500 a ride--but Medicare won't pay a doctor a reasonable fee to make a house call. Amplify this kind of waste five times, and the budget deficit will soar. The money will dry up quickly, and then the rationing will begin. At first, it will be relatively easy, and we won't dialyze people who don't know what planet they inhabit. Later, choices will become more difficult, and people will wait months for bypass surgery or will be disapproved for hip replacements.
Will we allow people to purchase supplemental insurance and maintain a two-tiered system, or will everyone be forced to live under the same cash-strapped federal system? That's the way it is in Canada. Those with means choose to come to the United States and pay out of pocket when they are put on the waiting list for surgery or chemotherapy, because they are prohibited from buying private insurance.
Americans will demand choice in their health care coverage. Just as people with money abandoned city schools 40 years ago, people will flee the federal health care system. Access to good care will be diminished for those who are stuck in the federal system and will improve for those who can afford the private system. Our elected officials may feel better for having done something to "help" people, but everyone else will be the worse for their efforts. And the very people they set out to help will suffer the most. Just look at the failed public school system of every large city in the country to get a look into the future of health care.
There is more to this than guaranteeing health insurance for a mother of three. The larger debate should surround what's best for the survival of our republic. This is what our founding fathers pledged their honor to. They put the good of the nation ahead of their parochial interests.This is a rare discussion in Washington anymore. Remember, it is our elected representatives who have created the Social Security system but failed to put money aside to pay the tens of millions of people who are about to start collecting from it. These are the numbskulls who gave us EMTALA and demand our servitude (under threat of stiff penalty) without any promise of compensation for our efforts. This is the fiscally irresponsible lot that spends money on useless earmarks while our collective debt soars. I don't have high hopes that any of our candidates or elected representatives will look at the big picture and realize that our Constitution does not guarantee happiness. We have no right to it. We are free only to pursue it.
Our founding fathers did not believe that pursuing happiness involves sitting on the couch waiting for your federal insurance card. Thomas Jefferson said, "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." He would not be pleased with our current entitlement state and our punitive tax code. He might even look at our current government in the same way he saw his British oppressors and say that it is his right--it is his duty--to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for our future security. No doubt, today he would be branded as a crazy extremist. Every election provides our nation with a crossroads. For physicians, this is a particularly important one. I fear that the implementation of a national health care system will propel us further down the slippery slope we travel already.
When the majority sees fit to tax the wealthy minority to pay for something not promised in the Constitution, our republic creeps closer to collapsing into socialism. And then we will be a mere shadow of the great republic forged over 2 centuries past.
Dr. Baehren lives in Ottawa Hills, Ohio. He practices emergency medicine and is an assistant professor at the University of Toledo Medical Center. Your feedback is welcomed at David.Baehren@utoledo.edu
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Posts
How did I hear about this blog? Frank Drackman.
ReplyDeleteI'm spending my study break reading your blog. Some great posts. We are future colleagues, and I just blogrolled you on my page.
Check me out:
http://medschoolforfools.blogspot.com/
If we want to know how well the government organizes and oversees things, let's all go to the Post Office! Or better yet, let's allow the Wise Washingtonians to regulate the legal profession. Hey, free legal services help ME pursue happiness!
ReplyDeleteGood luck on your finals, and watch out for those appetizers stuck to your cell phone!