Politicians + Healthcare = Death
 | | Your government is hard at work battling the real threats to your children's health and well-being, like these maliciously evil candy cigarettes, which will soon be illegal. |
Last week, Congress sent legislation to the president that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate and control tobacco products, ban candy cigarettes, and enforce strict rules about the advertising of tobacco, all in the name of public health (and lowering healthcare costs). Two weeks ago, the state Senate of Connecticut gave final approval for a bill that would tie the hands of the Department of Health when it comes to doctors who treat chronic Lyme disease. And finally, today, President Obama got in front of a crowd of booing doctors and told them that, while he had no interest in limiting the size of medical malpractice awards, he wanted their support in his efforts to give the government more power in regulating the healthcare industry.
Many people fear that this country is going to socialize medicine and wind up with a bureaucratic system that treats patients as statistics rather than people, doctors as slaves to political interests, and new healthcare technologies as pointless spending. President Obama has repeated multiple times that he will not socialize healthcare, but he continues to rant about how the government needs to "do more" and offer healthcare for all. Only a fool would believe that free government healthcare would come without red tape or fine print, and only an idiot would believe that lowering the cost of medicine can be done without stemming the tide of rising malpractice awards (which passed the ludicrous watermark decades ago).
But the naysayers are ignoring a frightening fact: we're already there.
 | | Who do you think is more likely to read these: a physician, or a politician? |
The bill that gives the FDA complete control over tobacco was passed with overwhelming support. Now the government is free to put all kinds of restrictions and taxes in place that will cripple the tobacco industry and make it more expensive for a person to smoke. Smoking kills, surely, and is a terrible, obnoxious habit. However, the government has no right to tell you that you can't do it, nanny you into stopping, or just making sure that the habit becomes so expensive that all smokers will be poor. You better believe that, if you are a recipient of government healthcare in the near future, you'll be denied coverage if they ever find out you smoked a cigarette. (Yes, that means Obama's healthcare would likely not cover Obama himself.)
Chronic Lyme disease is most likely a myth, according to the medical literature*, and yet if a doctor in Connecticut decides to prescribe an irresponsible amount of antibiotics to combat the disease, the Department of Health can't tell him or her to stop. The problem here is that there is already a system in place--one governed very well by itself by medical specialists, scientists, and doctors--and it should not be circumvented by a bunch of legislators who probably don't know which end of the stethoscope they should put to their ears.
*The facts behind chronic Lyme disease are complex and would require another rant to fully delve into. Sufficed to say, there could be a syndrome related to Lyme disease, though there is no proof that a chronic form of Lyme disease exists. However, due to the vague symptomology of the alleged syndrome (fatigue, depression, etc.), it is tough to know for sure. Additionally, there has been no treatment shown to be any more effective for this supposed disease than a placebo. In other words, any doctor forming a course of treatment for chronic Lyme disease is not working under the benefits of any known medical science.
And as for Obama, does anybody actually believe him when he says he has no interest in socializing healthcare? Anybody? (Yes, I remember writing in a previous blog that I didn't believe Obama is a socialist, but his economic policies since taking office have made me second guess that belief.)
 | | Yep. |
The government is already far too involved in the medical profession, and it goes much deeper than a few outrageous laws. Most doctors agree that the rising cost of malpractice has more to do with how doctors operate than the latest medical literature has (or, at the very least, that it is too easy to file and win a medical malpractice suit). In other words, it is the judicial branch that is largely the problem today, by constantly allowing unbelievably large sums of money as rewards for medical mistakes.
Let me be clear here: medical malpractice should be treated with extreme seriousness, and doctors who have been caught being irresponsible should have their license revoked. However, this is not the role of the government or the courtroom; this is the role of the healthcare community itself. Certainly victims of malpractice deserve compensation, but for a judge to tell a doctor to pay tens of millions of dollars for a mistake is unacceptable.
The whole thing has been a downward spiral. The cost of malpractice goes up, so the cost of malpractice insurance goes up. The cost of malpractice insurance goes up, so the cost of healthcare goes up. The cost of healthcare goes up, so the cost of healthcare insurance goes up. The cost of healthcare insurance goes up, so the cost of malpractice goes up. Rinse and repeat.
This has been going on for quite some time, and to say it has gotten out of control would be a vast understatement. Most people don't realize that healthcare doesn't need to be expensive; hospitals can actually be run without billions of dollars floating around. Unfortunately, the system hasn't allowed healthcare costs to go down, and the problem is anything but a lack of government intervention.
 | | If you love the way the government runs the Department of Motor Vehicles, just wait and see how well they run healthcare! |
But cost isn't the only problem. Defensive medicine is the new standard, where doctors are so afraid of lawsuits that they take the safest possible way out and won't let patients take any risks whatsoever, even when the patients are willing. Treating patients in ways that involve an increased risk (using a new drug or new technology, for example) is like playing Russian roulette; chances are, you'll be fine, but every once in awhile, you wind up with a hole in your head. Patients, therefore, are seen as statistics, not people. Doctors have to weigh the odds rather than giving the patient much choice, and in the long run, everybody loses.
Unless, of course, the patient is diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease. Then you can do whatever you want to them and nobody can stop you.
The bottom line is this: the government and the healthcare industry need to stay as far from each other as possible. The more they intermingle, the worse things get. America has the most advanced healthcare in the world, but if we let the government take control over it like they've been doing for several years now, it will quickly fall behind the pack. Capitalism, freedom, and liberty have gotten us this far, and yet we're doing our level best to forsake them.
-e. magill 06/15/2009
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