Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Compare health care to public schools

For those of you who want the government to take over health care let’s take a look at how they have done with one of our other critical infrastructures that needs the best and brightest to work – our schools.

We get our public schools funded by our taxes and run by our government. Over the past few decades we have seen our standing in the important subjects like math and science continue to slip against other courtiers. We are constantly hearing about how our kids are not being taught what they need to in order to compete in this global economy and how they can’t pass the standardized tests. Thank you big government.

The Feds got involved and started to tell us what we need to teach each year in school. Then they called for the tests to prove they are teaching what the Fed wants. . .now our schools are diploma mills. Most big school districts like in the cities can’t get good teachers, can’t pay for good teachers, and can’t teach the kids, and don’t care. There are some good teachers out there, but not many. Most folks who want a home and a family won’t go into teaching because they know they won’t be able to afford the life they want If they do. The best and brightest may teach for a bit but not long. . . eventually most leave and go to private schools or private industry where they can get the pay that their skills are worth. Meanwhile the school systems won’t hold a child back because he may feel bad about failing so we just push them on. He can’t read or write but he graduated high school ok. . . .
How do you think this will play out with the health care? Doctors will be told what and where they can practice. They will be paid what the government thinks is fair. They will be allowed to run the tests and prescribe the drugs and treatments that the government will pay for. Welcome to public health.

What will this get us? The same problem all over again. Just like the schools we will lose most of the talent to other private industries where they can get the pay the market will support for their skills. The best and brightest won’t want to take on the debt of a medical education that they will never be able to pay back on a civil servants pay. They also may not like being told what they will study and that they will have to move to an inner city or the middle of nowhere to practice because that is where the government wants them. Would you do it?

And let’s look at the diploma mill issues. The government will tell you what you can have for test and treatments. If they work great! If not, you MIGHT get more tests or another treatment but most likely you will live with the pain and the lower quality of life. Or you might die and get moved out of the system into a nice plot of ground in place of the meaningless diploma. Problem solved for the Fed. . .

Lastly I want to look at healthcare as a right. . . it is not. Rights do not allow you to take from another or make them your slave. Put yourself in that boat. Would you do what you do for a living if you were told you will get paid what the government wants, and you will be told where you can work, and you can’t leave for a better opportunity at a new company or new location? What? you don’t want to work in the city? Too bad – we won’t give you a license to work at all if you don’t move to where we want and do what we want for the pay we decide. You don’t get the option of leaving for another company that pays better or is located where you want to live. That is a form of slavery folks, like it or not. This version of the bills in question will make doctors no more than slaves of the state – ya, that will pull in the best and brightest to the medical field. . . .

Folks, our system is not perfect, but it is much better than most. Does it need work? YES! But not big government control. We don’t want to turn our medical system into an inner city school system do we???? Things need to be looked at one piece at a time and fixed. We cannot fix this with a new huge government program that we can never pay for. More government is NEVER the answer.

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