printAnn Coulter: “There are roughly 1 million examples of the free market doing a better job and the government doing a worse job. In fact, there is only one essential service the government does better: Keeping Dennis Kucinich off the streets.
So, naturally, liberals aren’t sure. In Democratic circles, the jury’s still out on free-market economics. It’s not settled science like global warming or Darwinian evolution. But in the meantime, they’d like to spend trillions of dollars to remake our entire health-care system on a European socialist model.
Sometimes the evidence for the superiority of the free market is hidden in liberals’ own obtuse reporting.
In the past few years, the New York Times has indignantly reported that doctors’ appointments for Botox can be obtained much faster than appointments to check on possibly cancerous moles. The paper’s entire editorial staff was enraged by this preferential treatment for Botox patients, with the exception of a strangely silent Maureen Dowd.
As the Times reported: ‘In some dermatologists’ offices, freer-spending cosmetic patients are given appointments more quickly than medical patients for whom health insurance pays fixed reimbursement fees.’
As the kids say: Duh.
This is the problem with all third-party payor systems – which is already the main problem with health care in America and will become inescapable under universal health care.
Not only do the free-market segments of medicine produce faster appointments and shorter waiting lines, but they also produce more innovation and price drops. Blindly pursuing profits, other companies are working overtime to produce cheaper, better alternatives to Botox. The war on wrinkles is proceeding faster than the war on cancer, declared by President Nixon in 1971.
In 1960, 50 percent of all health-care spending was paid out of pocket directly by the consumer. By 1999, only 15 percent of health-care spending was paid for by the consumer. The government’s share had gone from 24 percent to 46 percent. At the same time, IRS regulations made it a nightmare to obtain private health insurance.
The reason you can’t buy health insurance as easily and cheaply as you can buy car insurance – or a million other products and services available on the free market – is that during World War II, FDR imposed wage and price controls. Employers couldn’t bid for employees
with higher wages, so they bid for them by adding health insurance to the overall compensation package.”
Good Ann Coulter column. Now, if only the Republicans were not a party of selfish, cold-hearted, hypocrites…
That asteroid over Indonesia was only 30 feet in diameter and exploded with the force of 50 thousand TONS of TNT, three times the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima. I suggest both parties repent. There are plenty more where that came from.
Diagnosis, surgery, and sutures – all free of charge, courtesy of Ms. Coulter. A lesson in health care that even liberal collectivists could understand were they not perpetually under the anesthetic effect of their own thought processes.
“Republikeynesians” Ilana
Does wit get much better?
How about this mean spirited swipe:
Keynesianism : Economic AIDS
Amazing how most Americans seem to buy food or eat in restaurants by paying for the food/meals themselves instead of having a Union negotiating with an employer to buy a “dining care policy” for them, regulated by the states and the feds, managed by insurance companies, and overseen by a phalanx of lawyers & accountants & clerks.
If, in fact, we went to such a system, we would more likely resemble Darfur
in our dining habits.
However, statist politicians will never concede any of this since their entire “raison d’etre” is to SECURE CONTROL over us. — Note the contradiction with Jefferson’s purpose of government being to SECURE OUR RIGHTS.
The NY Times is full of it.
I had a malignant melanoma removed a year ago. I was able to see a dermatologist within a few days of detecting an abnormal mole. The doctor saw me on a Wednesday; I had the melanoma surgically removed the very next afternoon.
Moreover, many folks delay seeing a physician for such things. They do so out of fear, lethargy, ignorance and a host of other factors. But I doubt if long lines contribute to delays.
Best of all, I had a second round of surgery at a nearby medical school. I saw the department chair in surgical oncology. I had no health insurance at the time. I was able to score a 25% discount on the cost of the second round of surgery. I then paid half of the remaining amount upfront and the remainder was spread out over 2 years.