July 21, 2013
Cal Thomas is wrong about health care
A Cal Thomas column in the Times-News on July 14 focused on the dangers of Obamacare. The apparent initiator for his claims were the opinions provided by a stranger who approached him at his lunch table in a cafe in Scotland, where he was visiting.
The stranger told Thomas he was a former assistant director of finance for a regional health authority that was part of the British National Health System (NHS). He said he had strong warnings for the U.S. about Obamacare. He went on to say that "the NHS is seen as free on delivery to everybody. It is not free."
He went on to talk about the billions of pounds the NHS has spent delivering health care to non-citizens who are not supposed to be eligible for the NHS. And today, as a result of this extra spending, the NHS is facing a 30 billion pound deficit by 2020.
Thomas then goes on to talk about other health care horror stories he has encountered on previous visits to the U.K. He said patients have been reported to have waited up to eight hours in ambulances because no hospital beds were available. Also, up to 20 hospitals across the country may close to avoid financial ruin. And officials there have said 4,000 lives a year are lost because of poor weekend care. Another story he saw in the press there had 1,200 people starving to death in NHS hospitals because nurses were too busy to feed them.
Then he gets to the main thrust of his story: "Why isn't this a lesson for the U.S.? Why do Americans believe government is more competent than the private sector despite numerous examples to the contrary?"
Thomas' new friend closes his comments by saying he would be shocked if we would be willing to scuttle one of the best health care systems in the world, which he admits has some imperfections that can be fixed, instead of moving to one in which government controls a key part, which he predicts will produce similar results to those in the U.K.
Mr. Thomas, have you conveniently forgotten that the supposedly superior U.S. health care system spends twice as much per capita as the U.K.'s or any other developed nation's system? And, in spite of these higher costs, the U.S. system does not provide health insurance for up to 50 million Americans, and our overall health outcomes are not as good by almost any measure compared to any other developed nation. All of whom, by the way, have some form of national health care.
Thomas must not be on Medicare. It is a version of the dreaded national health care system he warns us against. I do not know a single American who has been unhappy with his or her Medicare services. Do you?
Today in America, about half of all Americans already receive federally provided health care, including Medicare, Medicaid, VA Health Care and Federal Employees Health Care.
I don't think It's actually Obamacare that Thomas is against. After all, it only expands the inefficient private-sector health care the U.S. already has. I think he's mainly concerned the Democrats will gain control of both houses in 2014 and then place all Americans on Medicare — as many feel Barack Obama should have done when he had control of both houses when first elected.
If the plug were actually pulled on Obamacare, and Medicare became the main delivery system for our health care, the financial losses for the insurance and health care industries would be huge.
I actually agree with him that Obamacare is not the best solution for America's health care, but I believe the danger from it comes from continuing to allow our health care to be delivered by the private sector. I love the private sector for most things, but certain public services are more fairly and efficiently delivered by the public sector. America ended up with its broken and unaffordable health care system because of the excessive greed of the private-sector-dominated system that exists today, and that Obamacare only expands.
Perhaps Mr. Thomas' new pal should come to America and see our health care system firsthand. However, he better make sure he can first land a job with an employer that provides health insurance. He sure doesn't want to get stuck here without such coverage!
By the way, can you even imagine the number of jobs that would be created in our country if employers were no longer responsible for providing health insurance? Can you imagine the freedom American workers would have if they no longer had to worry about finding an employer who provides health care benefits?
Can you imagine the positive impact on our national debt if we could cut our health care expenses in half?
We should all be disappointed that President Obama so proudly allows his name to be connected to an expansion of our already broken health care system, when he actually had the power to improve our nation's health care and instead punted to the lobbyists for the special interests who, as usual, will reap the most benefits.
These are my opinions. What do you think?
Mike Tower
mike41tower @gmail.com
| iReader |  |
No comments:
Post a Comment