Yesterday I drove from Memphis to Nashville to attend a health care rally, on the eve of the Presidential debates to be held tonight in Nashville. I did not want to attend, couldn’t care less, knew it wouldn’t change a damn thing, but I wanted to support the friend who is the Memphis representative of the organization that sponsored the rally. She needed a large van driver to take a bunch of people, and the Memphis contingent would have been significantly smaller had I not volunteered my services.
What I saw did not surprise me. There were a bunch of people there who are hurting like my family from lack of affordable health care. But they don’t understand what is going on, and their “Single Payer” health care system.
I have several things to discuss in this post, so let’s start at the beginning.
When I was growing up, it was not uncommon for doctors to make house calls. I remember my family doctor, Dr. Rose, coming to visit me while I was sick as a child. Back then, health care was affordable. You paid the doctor when you needed his services. But, and this is a very big but, major illnesses were usually terminal.
If you had cancer back in the 60′s, it was a death sentence. They could cut the tumors out, but if they grew back, that was all they could do. Major illnesses like this were untreated and not diagnosed usually until it was in the end stages anyway.
Mental illnesses in the 60′s were also untreatable. The had some medications, but they were not that effective, had lots of side effects and so on. If you had a mental illness severe enough to debilitate you, you were put away in a hospital to rot.
Today it is totally different. People get early diagnosis of cancer, and can survive several occurrences of cancer before it finally becomes fatal. Mental illnesses are extremely treatable today, allowing many of those like myself with SPMI (Severe and Persistent Mental Illness) to reintegrate successfully into society and become productive members.
But all of this comes at a cost.
The diagnostic machines we use to find diseases at their earliest stages cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions. The development of the medications we use are very expensive. It can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and test new drugs. One of my medication costs over $500 a month.
Why is it so expensive? Because it is expensive to produce, and the drug company has only the length of the patent to recoup the cost of the R&D for the medication, before it becomes a generic medication. Of course Wal-Mart, et. al., can charge $4 for generic medications, that’s all it costs to actually make it. But when you factor in the years of testing to find a medication that is safe and effective for people, it is very expensive like I said. Somebody has to pay for those costs.
When Liberals talk about “windfall profits,” that’s a talking point that’s supposed to get you riled up. But let’s take a look at what that actually means. Like I said, one of my medications costs me $500+ a month, where it actually costs about $1-2 to produce the medications. That’s called gross profit. Price minus raw costs. But remember that that medication only has 7 years (the length of the patent) to recoup the R&D costs. Price minus expenses minus raw costs equals net profit.
Would it infuriate you that when you go into your favorite fast food place you were to learn that the $1.39 soda you bought only cost about 25 cents in syrup and water? Would you consider that “windfall profits?” Why not? It’s the same kind of price margin. But when you add in rent, utilities, labor and equipment costs, that drink costs the restaurant more like a dollar.
Also, a lot of these “big drug” companies are publicly traded. That means Lilly and everyone else must show a profit to keep their stock price high. Are you in the stock market? Mutual funds? You probably own some “big drug” stock, at least indirectly. Are you so hot to “punish” Big Drug now?
Now let’s talk about the uninsured. The Liberal number is about 47 million. Like all Liberal numbers, you need to do due diligence on these. As an example, the “10 children a day” that die from firearm related deaths. If you look at the demographics, you find out that 8.5 of that 10 is 15-21 year olds. That’s right, you can be up to 21 and still be considered a “child.” And 99% of those 8.5 deaths a day are directly or indirectly gangbangers.
Now, how many are people who opt out of health care programs? How many switch plans and are uninsured for only one day of the year? I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet that it’s a major part of that number.
Let’s say we institute the single payer health care system that the people in the rally last night want. Single payer just means that the government is the one who collects the premiums in the form of taxes and pays the providers. Just like Canada. Just like Cuba.
As an aside, which way are the rafts going? I mean, how many Americans are boarding dangerous rafts and small boats to make the treacherous 90 mile trip to Cuba? How many do the reverse? How many people come from Canada to the US to have routine tests and medical procedures done? How many US citizens go to Canada to partake of their “free” health care system?
Okay. Now time for an example. Here you have a plot of land that can feed 100 people. You have 100 people in your village, so everyone eats well. Then, one day an extra 30 people show up and you try to feed that now 130 people off that plot of land that can only feed 100 people. What do you think will happen? Of course the portions are going to get smaller, and people will starve until 30 people die off and balance is restored.
If you decide to force 47 million people into a presently already overloaded health care system, what is going to happen? Everyone is going to get a smaller chunk of the same pie. Many people will starve, just like they already are.
If you want to know what socialized medical care will be like in the United States, just ask a vet about the Veterans Administration. Where you have health care doled out by the drop. It is absolutely terrible. I know, because I have used it personally.
Please show me one, just one thing where the federal government has done something better than the free market. I don’t think it exists, because I sure haven’t found it.
I can already point to Tennessee’s own TennCare program. Champagne taste on a beer budget. The system was supposed to insure everybody, and it did, for a while. But in the end it almost bankrupted the state.
If the feds get involved in health care, they will have to print trillions upon trillions more dollars to pay for the health care costs of everybody. And that will be on top of the taxing us into oblivion.
All you have to do is look at how Liberals define “equality.” Conservatives define equality at the start of the race, everyone should have an equal chance of success. The winner of the race is determined by how much training each person is willing to invest, how much effort and how badly they want to win. Liberals define equality at the finish line. Everyone finishes at the same time, even if some have to run farther than others.
I hope that all of this clears some of the debate up.