John Stossel, in his column over at Real Clear Politics, points out a fact that appears to completely elude the folks on the left: government is force. The fact that we get to elect a few of the people that exercise that force does not change that.
That same week I happened to interview filmmaker Michael Moore for "20/20." Moore wants government to monopolize health care. His new film, "Sicko," argues that Canada and France approach paradise because their governments provide health care and more. This brought him standing ovations in Cannes.
"But government is force," I said to him. He was incredulous.
Michael Moore: Why do you see it as force?
Me: Because government takes money with force from people and gives it to others.
Moore: No, it doesn't, actually. The government is of, by, and for the people. The people elect the government, and the people determine whether or not they'll allow the government to collect taxes from them.
Is it really necessary to explain that government is force? When the Salvation Army asks you for a donation, you are free to say no, and you suffer no consequences. When the U.S. government demands a tax return and a check on April 15, you can't say no and go about your business. You comply or face fines or imprisonment. Yes, you get to vote for candidates periodically. But having an infinitesimal say in who will coerce you doesn't change that fact that they are using force.
Increasingly, it seems that the biggest difference between conservatives and "liberals" is that the conservatives know government is force. But that doesn't stop them from using it.
Michael Moore may not have thought about it, but there are only two ways to get people to do things: force or persuasion. Government is all about force. Government has nothing it hasn't first expropriated from some productive person.
Stossel then goes on to point out that the private sector can and will provide superior service to almost any government-run program because they have to compete for people's money – not take it by force. Because government does not have to compete, government programs tend to bloat rapidly and become entrenched bureaucratic fiefdoms in short order. There is no incentive to keep costs under control – quite the opposite. There is always pressure to increase the amount of money a program or department gets – taken by force from the people.
Your premise sounds fine, in a perfect world. But in this world of governmental favors and protectionism and lobbyists, there is not much left of free enterprise and the private sector. Health care is a case in point. There is no private sector here, just companies setting prices by collusion with themselves and with the government.
You can’t get past the fact that the poorest people in countries with socialized health care are as healthy as the wealthiest Americans.
When people have to choose between medicine and food, then you have a problem and the health care industry and it’s abettors in the U.S. government are not going to solve this problem the way the system is today.
‘You can’t get past the fact that the poorest people in countries with socialized health care are as healthy as the wealthiest Americans’
I can and have. Having lived in both Athens, Greece and Moscow, Russia from my personal experience government provided ‘free’ health care doesn’t at all mean quality. The condition of the hospitals, though in Greece are not as severe as Cuba, are horrible and availabilty of perscription drugs nominal.
That said, I know a healthly person 36 years of age who works for a major corporation here in NYC. All his mental, dental and physical health care is provided for by the company and because of this he is always going to the doctors for one thing or another. He openly admits he visits all of the services often simply because he never directly pays for any of it. As a result he is taking valuable medical time and resources away from people who really do need to see the doctor while at the same time because of supply and demand he is driving the cost of health care up. But he dosen’t care about that, all he cares about is satisifying himself.
Nanny Bloomberg has covers NYCers ‘freebie’ health care for the poor by taxing cigarettes. Talk about insane idiocy. We have everything here at our fingertips yet so many NYers whine and complain as if they are poor, oppressed living in a third world country. What I know for a fact is that socialist environments produce mobs of miserable whinners even when they are surround in the worlds wealth; socialist mecca NYC offers free art/music/theater, free education, free abortions,free food yet many people here compain that they have nothing. It is disgusting!
A friend of mine in Germany has spoken of the same problem, so many people go to the doctor because the cost is provided for by someone else that people end up waiting forever to be seen; it’s called supply and demand. When the demand is too high the supply goes down and as a result, the cost soars.
I’m self-employed, provide for my own medical insurance and have found that I get direct quality treatment, faster because my doctor knows I am paying cash. Doctors have bills to pay just like the rest of us however for them trying to collect their fees, mostly months later, from the government often places them in a financial bind.
Could anyone imagine having to work in any field where one is forced to wait months before being paid for the services provided?
All socialized medicine will do is drive quality doctors and nurses out of practice, drive drug companies out of business and leave everyone, except for billionaiare Collectivists, without any form of health care.
If we do enact socialized medicine Individuals will be left with constant complaining and whinning from the ignorant, selfish narcissitic Collective about how miserable they are.
Government keep you nasty hands off of the medical system!
How come those advocating for socialized medicine insist on ignoring the fact what socialized medicine where ever it exists is failing
Syn,
In recent posts on my blog I have been examining what one might call the “voice of the National Healthcare system” in the UK, one Alice Miles London time Columnist. Most recently she has come to understand why the Six Doctor-bombers did what they did…they are guilty and angry over making the decision to come to the UK to be doctors for a tidy sum and thus leave their homelands without proper medical care.
You see they come because NHS has been expanding services due to greedy and self centered patients, the ones who pay for it, demanding (the nerve) better treatment! Meanwhile, greedy English health care professionals are fleeing to the rest of the Anglosphere to make more money.
Of course, she opposed the last contract increase designed to prevent such flight as being “overgenerous”. Doesn’t make much sense, but then most Liberal politics isn;t really based on logic, is it?
Therefore, Syn, it really isn’t the fault of socialized medicine; rather it is the fault of the greedy people that overtax it with their petty concerns, their demands for proper care and their lack of socially correct patience whilst waiting in que.
See?
Any one who thinks the Canadian “health” system is good or desirable has never lived under its tyranny. It represses poor people most of all. Those in the political and sports class can and do go to the EEEEVIL USofA to get timely treatment. Cats and dogs get far better, far quicker treatment than humans do under the Canadian “health†care system. A human can wait six to eighth MONTHS to get an MRI; a cat or dog can wait less than six DAYS! Waiting for treatment after the scan can be AT LEAST as long.
The peasants who MUST stay in Canada for treatment wait and wait for it; and wait and wait, often in great pain (they are too poor to go to the USA, unlike the politicians and sports stars). An older guy in my building needed a hip replacement; he spent TWO years in extreme pain before he finally got it. Horror stories like this are all too symptomatic of the “systemâ€.
The politicians often moan in public about the excessive wait times for treatment; but they do nothing about it. The system is massively inefficient and massively expensive (like any and all government run bureaucracies).
“You can’t get past the fact that the poorest people in countries with socialized health care are as healthy as the wealthiest Americans.†What absolute drivel! What absolute uniformed, STUPID drivel! The poorest people in Canada are in multi-year long line ups to get treatment; even the governments acknowledge this indisputable fact about the “glorious†socialized Canadian “health†care system. The peasants in Cuba are hardly as “healthy as the wealthiest Americansâ€. What uniformed drivel! Why did Castro HIMSELF get help from NON- CUBAN doctors, if his socialized “health†care system is so grand?
The same could be said about socialized health care, in fact about anything that is prefaced with the word socialized. No effort that requires the collective cooperation of the society as a whole for an extended period of time will be successful. Humans are too self centered to be able to sacrifice for the “common good”, if they have the resources to be able to skirt the system, they will, every time.
You can’t get past the fact that the poorest people in countries with socialized health care are as healthy as the wealthiest Americans.
Which of course is why Fidel had to be treated by an imported Spaniard rather than one of his own fine doctors, right?