To be frank, I share neither the euphoria nor the enthusiasm that seem to surround the rush to “reform” health care. Of course, the optimistic aura surrounding Obama’s push for reform is largely media induced, leaving us little hope that we’ll see or read anything to detract from what’s going on.
My position is that there is no reform of health care going on; there’s just a push to get government more involved with an eye toward eventually creating “Medicare for all,” for lack of an easier description. Once that happens, then the real, intended reform can take place–bureaucrats will dictate to doctors and hospitals what they can and can’t do based on cost effectiveness. In other words, if it’s expensive, don’t expect to get it once Obamacare takes full effect–unless you want to take a medical vacation to India and pay for it yourself.
Consider this example from Great Britain, which I actually found in a real, live American newspaper (but appearing below and inferior to a more “positive,” pro-reform article):
In Britain, for example, politicians were getting pressure from constituents because hospital emergency rooms were so crowded that patients were left on gurneys in hallways awaiting care, sometimes for days. Politicians told the hospitals this had to stop and that they had to admit patients faster.
The response of some hospital administrators: Take the wheels off the gurneys because they then fit the definition of a ‘hospital bed.’ The patients were no better off, but the statistics looked better to the politicians.
The article was written by someone named Grace-Marie Turner, whom the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quickly described as “president and founder of the Galen Institute, which is funded in part by the pharmaceutical and medical industries” (my emphasis).
At least the AJC let the article see the light of print before quickly disavowing and discrediting it.
So you see what I mean about how hard it is to find and read the truth.