Socialized Medicine and some of the consequences
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009I was writing an email to a friend about socialized medicine. I figured since I had gone to all the work of writing it I should post most of it to the blog.
Let us look at this from two points of view. Either the amount of medical care can grow or it is set. If there is only a set amount of medical care available then who should get it? The wealthy? The poor? The young? The old? Wouldn’t it make sense to allocate the resources to those it will most benefit? Wouldn’t it best to allocate the resources to those who are young, working, and in relatively good health to allow them to work and produce more? What about those who do not fall into this class?
If it is variable then what can be done to ensure that enough health care is created and that advancements are made? Either the government or the free market could attempt to do this. History has shown that government does a terrible job at this. Health care ends up becoming rationed and innovation comes to a halt. The do not create incentives for innovation and efficiency but instead remove those incentives through high taxes, inflation, and over-regulation. Instead government creates “bread lines” and we end up with the first case. I know this first hand with health care. My grandmother, who lived in Canada, was very ill in April of 2008. She was in the hospital but they ran out of beds so she was kicked out as younger people had the priority. She was readmitted after a few days but died soon after. Old people should be very afraid of socialized medicine, especially when the general population is getting older. In the view of the government with limited resources they are a much lower priority to take care of, unless of course you have connections. I don’t believe that top government officials have to wait in the ER for endless hours like the ordinary citizen.
Just look at their management of capital during the current ‘bailouts’. What they are doing now is removing capital from those who have managed things properly and giving it to those who have poorly managed it. Doesn’t the parable of the talents in the Bible teach us the exact opposite?
What we have also seen is that government policies have actually encouraged waste, risky loans, and just overall stupidity. Shouldn’t those who design the best products and the best processes get the capital? This is only done through the free market.
I say that people are much better at running their own lives than government is. I say that people are much more qualified to know what their excess is, consecration, instead of government just taking it, socialism. I also say let people chose to give their money to the organizations they deem most efficient at achieving their goals, which isn’t the government. I also say let people have the choice not to give to organizations who promote things they feel are immoral, such as abortion.