Tea Parties Visit Congressional Offices
by Sylvia Bokor
On July 17, Tea Party members throughout the nation visited the offices of their Congressmen to deliver grass roots’ “pink slips”---notices suggesting that representatives could be “fired” (not re-elected)---for their support of various welfare schemes. The central concern was socialized medicine. The number of visitors in all cases was impressive.Tea Party visitors pointed out that government health care constitutes gross violations of individual rights. They discussed the nightmare of long lines and wait-times, the specter of rationed health care, and rising medical costs causing higher taxes. It was stated that even under partial government control emergency rooms are presently jammed with patients while fraud amounts to $68 billion per year. One visitor asked, “Why does the Obama Administration want to take the best health care in the world and turn it into a third-rate system?”
Congressman Heinrich’s District Director said that the Congressman has not decided one way or another about the health care bills. “We may end up being on the same side,” she said. “Or on opposite sides.”
When a Tea Party member read aloud a few of the “pink slips,” Senator Udall’s Field Representative was visibly shaken to discover that Americans are deeply upset with government health care.
At Senator Bingaman’s office everyone was given opportunity to see the District Manager. But according to their web sites and form letters sent to constituents, both Senators Bingaman and Udall favor government health care no matter what it costs. Their position rests on the view that the medical needs of the indigent should take precedence over the individual rights of those who earn the money that pay the indigent’s medical bills.
But you cannot kill the goose that lays the egg and get more eggs. The largely unstated but over-riding factor at the root of any government medical program is the inevitable, unavoidable exhaustion of the medical profession upon whom socialized medicine makes unrealistic demands. And more: the consequent disappearance of medicine through stagnation and attrition.
When one has to pay for treatment, one makes sure the treatment is necessary, then finds the means to finance it. When “the government pays”---meaning the taxpayer, since government has no income except what it confiscates from the producer/earner---then every minor ache and every malady caused by irresponsible behavior overwhelm serious needs.
Demand swamps supply, draining financial resources. Doctors and their staffs no longer have time to do research, to improve techniques and treatments. Health care quality declines. The medical professional’s mind and body are overworked. Bureaucrats demand reams of paperwork. The spirit sags.
Government edicts become the standard of medical practice. By violating individual rights government health care castigates ambition and crushes youngsters’ interest in making a career of medicine. Therein lies the death of medicine.
Politicians weep ostentatiously for the poor, and write long, complicated utopian health care bills. They cry, “soak the rich”---an obscenely immoral position that is venomously mendacious.
For even if every dollar of the 400 richest Americans were seized by the government, their combined wealth of about $1.57 trillion would give each citizen $5,233. After that, zero. It would be the end of the wealth builders and of the recipients---all rendered destitute.
The fact is that the entire nation relies on one-third of the population---the employers and wage earners who will be forced to pay for government health care by committing financial suicide.
Mr. Obama has never worked in business. Neither has most of his staff. They know nothing about capitalism or its benefits. Under laissez-faire capitalism, medicine flourishes. Under free-market medicine, doctors work harder to make more money. They see more patients, improve treatment and expand medical knowledge. Under government controlled medicine, fraud and bribery proliferate. The deserving are shunted aside in favor of bureaucrats’ pals.
Under free market medicine, charities flourish. Those who are in desperate circumstances are assured they will be helped. New Mexico, for instance, has a program to help those who cannot afford medical insurance or treatment. The program offers discounted rates depending on income up 75% of costs. Under government medicine, charities shrivel and die.
The government that promised to “bring us together” is tearing us apart with its obsession to change this country into a socialized state. Government health care will finish the job. If one truly wants to alleviate another’s medical difficulties, free market medicine is the only sane answer.
Sincerely,
Sylvia Bokor
http://sylviabokorcomments.blogspot.com
[Published with permission]
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