Thursday, September 11, 2008

JUST SAY NO to "Free Healthcare"

To no one's surprise, Barack Obama is touting the utopian idea of "free" health care. Sound too good to be true? Well there's definitely a reason why.

As a matter of ethics and respect for human dignity, I agree that some level of government-funded health care should be available to those who otherwise could not afford it. While I agree that basic health care is a human right, high quality health care is a privilege that, like all other privileges, must be EARNED.  

What good is free healthcare if the quality of that healthcare is substandard at best? Just ask the veterans who have suffered through a stay at Walter Reed Hospital in DC. If anyone has earned the best health care possible, it's brave men and women who suffered permanent injury or disability (physical and/or mental) while fighting for our country. If the military hospitals are unable to provide this, I say we shut them down, layoff all the employees, and use the money to pay private hospitals to treat the veterans instead. They would receive much better care, and however expensive a price these hospitals charge, the government will probably still end up saving money in the long run because it no longer needs to pay to operate VA hospitals and pay the salary and benefits of the people who work there and perform such a poor job.

If my grandpa is having a heart attack, I can't afford to watch him die in the hospital waiting room because the doctors are too busy trying to revive someone from a crack overdose or deliver a baby several months premature to some trashy teenage girl who injected heroin while pregnant (and of course doesn't even know who the father is). That doesn't even count all of the illegal immigrants who are ahead in the triage line waiting for yet ANOTHER free handout.  

I'm sorry, but I work hard for MY healthcare. If I wanted to be a nice guy and pay for someone else's, then I'd choose to do so myself instead of having the government decide for me. Anyone can have quality health care who wants it, if they would stop whining, get an education or else learn an important trade, and then procure a full time job where health benefits are provided not as a free handout, but part of compensation for hard work. As Ronald Reagan said in his farewell address back in 1989, he was always taught that "you had to pay your way for the blessings bestowed upon you." That is the American way, and it's what has made our country so great. If everyone just sat around waiting for a free handout, how would we have ever made the progress we have as a nation? Would this nation still even exist? Grappling with these difficult questions a few years ago is what finally proved to me that the liberal nonsense I'd bought into for so long was just that- nonsense.  

Although all this may sound harsh, I challenge people to visit any county hospital and see for themselves how long people are forced to wait in the emergency room to be treated for even the most serious, life-threatening conditions. If we had universal health care (aka socialized medicine), every hospital emergency room would operate this way, including the hospital where YOU may someday need lifesaving surgery or medical treatment. 

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