Sitting at my post at The Raisin Farm, and this month’s issue of Texas Monthly* dropped into my lap. Not having anything else to do, I paged through it. One of the articles to catch my eye was bemoaning the state of the healthcare system.
Sigh.
Is the Healthcare System broken? Probably. The question that everyone should be asking is: “Why is the Healthcare System broken?”
Nobody ever asks that one.
It’s broken, Gentle Readers, because the Federal Government can’t resist dabbling its meathooks off in every conceivable aspect of it.
It’s broken, because the Federal Government decided to pass a law to make it better — and made it worse. Then — instead of getting rid of the idiot law that bolloxed things up — they passed another law and piled it on top of the first, flawed law.
Lo! This law, also, was badly flawed, and screwed the system up further. And — yet again — instead of getting rid of the legislation they had passed that made things worse, they passed more legislation, and piled that on top of the already crappy laws.
We’ve had decades of this. Hundreds of thousands of laws, most of which — if they fix anything at all — simply exacerbate the greater problems with the whole mess.
Anyone who genuinely wants to fix the healthcare system in this country needs to start with scrapping every law, regulation, and rule issuing forth from the Federal government. Every bloody one. Start with a blank slate at the Federal level.
Once we have a blank slate, for a period of about ten years, every time a Federal Congresscritter proposes new legislation to “fix” anything regarding healthcare, take him (or her) to the Capitol Reflecting Pool and lovingly hold their heads under the tranquil waters until the bubbling and thrashing stops.
Seriously. To the extent that the American healthcare system is broken, it’s only broken because idiot lawmakers just had to pass laws at the Federal level to “fix” issues at the State level, made the whole mess worse, then happily piled more idiot laws on top until what we’ve got is a groaning, creaking mess of Federal digital intrusion …
… And now well-meaning idiots are shrieking that the Healthcare system is “broken” and demanding that the idiots who broke it to begin with step in and “fix it”.
How about “No.” They’ve “fixed it” enough already.
LawDog
At least our healthcare is not as broken as Canada’s or Britain’s.
Yet.
They’re working on it, though.
A year or two ago, British National Health told the parents of a boy with a rare condition all they could do was wait for him to die. They got wind of a possible treatment in the U.S. and tried to bring him here.
They were arrested at the airport. For ‘child endangerment’ because they were seeking ‘unapproved treatment’. The kid died while they fought with the government.
Back in 2020, the Italian government decreed that nobody 70 and over could get medical treatment. For anything. Their socialized healthcare system was ‘overwhelmed’ by the ‘COVID Crisis’ so sacrifices had to be made.
I don’t think they meant to imply that Socialized Healthcare == Human Sacrifice, but…
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Under socialized medicine, each patient incurs expenses which end when the patient dies. In private practice, each patient provides profits which end when the patient dies. Which patient would YOU rather be?
Sorry, Dog, that would make sense.
Once we have a blank slate, every time a Federal Congresscritter proposes new legislation, take him (or her) to the Capitol Reflecting Pool and lovingly hold their heads under the tranquil waters until the bubbling and thrashing stops.
Fixed it for you.
We have a sick care industry that has no real desire to make anyone well or healthy as there’s no money in it. The system is not broken…it’s fixed.
You could replace “health care” with just about anything
And you left out the ‘unfunded’ mandates… That ‘we’ end up paying for out of pocket.
There’s also the problem that the intended desire of all the fixes is to make the thing fall apart so we have to go full socialized medicine.
This is nothing new. Back in the mid 70’s the CBS show “60 Minutes” did an episode as to why medical expenses were climbing so quickly.
The reason? Federal Government meddling in the form of set prices for services along with a huge increase in paperwork due to Medicare and Medicaid.
What’s that scariest line ever? “We’re from the Government and we’re here to help.”
“Where, then, is the warrant for the constantly proposed extensions of legislative action?… In a large class of cases, government measures do not remedy the evils they aim at… in another large class, they make these evils worse instead of remedying them… in a third large class, while curing some evils they entail others, and often greater ones; if… public action is continually outdone in efficiency by private action; and if… private action is obliged to make up for the shortcomings of public action… what reason is there for wishing more public administrations? The advocates of such may claim credit for philanthropy, but not for wisdom; unless wisdom is shown by disregarding experience.” – Herbert Spencer
Who is Herbert Spencer? He coined the term, Survival of the Fittest.
The goal is single payer system, then onto socialized “healthcare.”
Here, at the extreme southern border in Arizona, the local hospital is in the hole to the tune of 20+ million. They are being flooded by our ‘guests’ from further South, who have no money, but lots of ailments.
Meanwhile, the local folks are getting long wait times to see an exhausted, disgruntled medic.
So, we’ve got that going on, too.
A stretch of bad road. Construction crews have been all over it for months (or years). And the road surface is rougher than a cob and pitted like acne scars. Passenger in a car bouncing over the road says, “They need to fix this road.” Driver responds, “I wish they’d quit fixing it.”
For Politicians, the goal is to be seen to be “doing something”.
Results are somebody else’ problem.
I once went to a talk where a Congressman pointed out that every one page of written law generated an average of seven pages of regulation. Often the regulations had little or nothing in common with the written and approved law.
When said Congressman wanted to pass a law that all regulations would be reviewed one year after they were enacted, he couldn’t get it out of committee.
What a friken mess.
One cause of the problem is patients are the product but NOT the customer. Once upon a time healthcare was a personal expense. When the Feds imposed wage controls during WWII employers were allowed to provide medical insurance as a benefit AND deduct the cost as a business expense. It all spiralled down from there. The only way the patient is the customer is if you purchase your own insurance as an after-tax expense for a huge fee.
Add in mandates for all kinds of excess coverage and state-specific plans and the cost of care skyrockets as clerks are added to keep up with all the paperwork.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
Remember, the goal of the government is more and more control, no matter how tyrannical, nonsensical, or ineffective.
When you get a 25-50% cash discount for paying up front, so they don’t have to do the Paperwork War with the insurance company or .gov, you can see right there where a chunk of the problem comes from.
Add in the feds/state paying less than a penny on a dollar for some care, and gee, no wonder docs are bailing out of the system and hospitals are overrun. (One friend-of-the-family doc was paid $.05 for a $35 well-child visit by MedicAid. She finally just went to seeing needy patients for free one day a week. It cost less in office expenses and time and stress. That was over 30 years ago, and it’s not gotten better.)
I am always reminded of Ronald Reagan’s statement that the most terrifying words are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”
Let. The market. WORK.
Why so many people are so terrified of individual initiative, and trusting in central government control, is something I have never understood. Free markets gave us everything good, and technocratic control gave us an army of Karens who produce nothing of value, just endless petty tyranny over everybody they can grab power over. And that’s the best case scenario.