Concerns about the health-care reform bill
rom Margaret Turk
Creston
Cheers to the Missouri voters for passing the referendum to reject Obamacare. Seventy one percent of the voters rejected the notion that the federal government had the right to force its citizens to buy a product (healthcare) that they did not want to buy and rejected the federal government’s right to determine the content of that product.
Consider this analogy. Warning: liberals please don’t read any farther. This analogy is for those of us average Americans of average intelligence that have not yet accepted the idea that the liberals are the only ones smart enough to tell the rest of us how to think and how to live. Suppose the federal government mandated that every American had to have an automobile. Not only must we own one but it must meet certain standards of engine size, warranty, gas mileage, etc. City dwellers might argue they don’t need a car. They walk to work or take the subway. Children and the disabled might question why they have to buy a car when they do not qualify for a driver’s license. The government says this mandate is for the greater good because it will help the economy. To make you feel better, they tell you you can keep the car you already have. However, if that car won’t meet federal standards, you have to give it up and buy another more expensive car. The federal government says they won’t tell you who you have to buy that car from; you can keep your old dealer. The only problem is that the new car standards require a Cadillac engine. Your Toyota doesn’t have a Cadillac engine so Toyota can no longer sell cars and they go out of business. Now you have a choice of one dealer in town or going for the government option of buying your car from the government. The government had to get in the car-selling business because there are not enough dealers to take care of the increased number of customers. Now that the government is in the car-selling business, it has found that all these guarantees and warranties are too expensive as there are more cars on the road than they thought there would be and the cars are getting so much older they need more service. The government will have to ration services to just the newer cars or the ones they feel qualify. This is the process the federal government will use to take over the healthcare industry and turn it into a mediocre failing system.
This healthcare reform bill is just a foot in the door. Once inside, they will expand regulations and restrictions until there is no longer any private healthcare. The savings that Congress claims will pay for healthcare reform are dependent on cutting billions from Medicare. To make the Medicare population feel better they say they’ll be taking it from physicians and hospitals. Well, duh, who gets paid by Medicare? Those who provide the services, physicians and hospitals. Medicare never pays patients. The physician fee schedule is to be cut more than 30 percent in the next couple of years. When reimbursements become so low, how can hospitals survive and who will chose medicine as a career? Will young intelligent college students consider entering the medical profession when there is no financial incentive? When they look at their choices, are they going to opt for the one that requires them to be on call every couple of days to deliver babies? There is no malpractice reform in this bill, so they will be faced with increasing premiums and the chance of being sued if the baby they deliver is not perfect Gerber baby. When they consider the possibility of having to be the one to pronounce a teenager dead at the scene of an accident or tell a mother of three that she is dying of cancer, will they chose medicine or something less stressful? When they incur in excess of $200,000 debt and have to attend school for 12 years to be paid a mediocre wage, will medicine be worth all the sacrifices personally and financially? These are serious questions that need to be addressed.
It is amusing when those sitting in the nosebleed section of the stands tell those of us playing the game down on the field how medicine works. Believe me; you do not want our healthcare system in the hands of the government. Send that message to Congress this November and demand a repeal of this travesty they call healthcare reform.
