As if we did not already know it, in the onslaught of the Obama socialist administration, NEWSWEEK Magazine stated last week that we are now a socialist country. Socialism does not come all at once. The segment of our society that is now socialized is that of healthcare. 45% of every tax dollar is now spent on healthcare. If the presidential administrators and the power brokers in the congress had been exposed to the care given veterans at the VA facilities, they would be more aware and afraid of such. ( I am a totally blind 100% disabled service connected veteran for over 40 years). If you want to see the treatment of the 26 million veterans of this nation who are entitled to VA care, you should visit a VA hospital and walk amid the phalanx of wheelchairs and the many waiting endlessly holding a number. The veterans I know, do not complain about their care because they realize there are 126,000 of their fellow veterans buried on foreign soil in military cemeteries, to say nothing of thousands buried in this county, where the only care involved is mowing grass.
Under Obama’s plan, families who make less than $85,000 a year are entitled to such care. The question has never been answered as to where the doctors and others will magically arrive from to care for all these patients. I remember the first issue of “Medical Economics” when the profession had determined that medical care was a business. When I graduated, there were advertisements for operating room doctors with salaries of $10,000 to $12,000 a year. Doctors, nurses, highly specialized technicians today, get very high salaries. Countries where socialism has taken over, have a continued loss of healthcare personnel because after the long years of expensive, strenuous education it takes to get a license in any professional health field. Most expect to make a better than average living. Castro’s Cuba graduates many physicians each year, an estimated 2,000 overflow. This is the reason Cuba always sends doctors and other specialized healthcare workers to places of disaster throughout the world. But you never hear of any exciting discoveries made in Cuba, nor do you find sick patients from the rest of the world going to Cuba for treatment.
Dr. Merrill Matthews, a specialist in medical economics, has said , “ the quality of healthcare goes out the window with the single payer plan.”
Socialized healthcare will have the same empathy as the IRS, just faceless, heartless people getting paid a livable wage for doing a job. I attended one of the first seminars at Duke University pertaining to Medicare when it was introduced. I remember asking the speaker from New York University, Dr. Alden Haffner, (I was the only one with guts enough to ask about this matter), “what will happen when the government decides to cut the fees for services, as they have done constantly.” The others at the conference, were just thinking of those government checks that were going to pour in for this socialized care, without them having to go through the process of collections. Many doctors have left the profession because of the uncertainty of the socialized system. The paperwork involved and worst of all the scrutiny and slavery involved.
We are all aware of the incompetence of assembly line care, the little rooms where you wait while the doctor runs from room to room, confused and constrained by expensive facilities and help. Most offices in recent years have been full of white haired seniors there because the bill was being paid by the government. Home remedies went out the door when it became cheap to get professional care at the government's expense.
When I was young, you went to a doctor or a doctor came to your house only in the matter of life and death, home remedies worked real well. Over many centuries remedies had been developed and remembered by our ancestors. I do wish I had kept records of the knowledge of one uncle who knew certain plants and roots from which teas and plasters could be made that were as effective as most modern treatment.
In the socialized system which is now in effect, your care will be determined by a team of bureaucrats about 15 in number who will make the decision about your care and give instruction to the doctor, hospital, nursing home, etc. In a nation that has had no problem electing the most pro-abortion politician in history. If the most innocent of life can be slaughtered before or shortly after birth, certainly the thinking person can predict that the vast number of elderly patients filling nursing homes and specialized care facilities, will be put to death (85% of all healthcare dollars are spent in the last years of elderly patient's lives, the oldest group of Americans are those over 85 years of age). Euthanasia has become a fact of life in some countries of the world, particularly Holland.
Recently, a man who works for me carried his father, who is about my age, to a local hospital emergency room because he was not feeling well. They said Mr. Rush, leave him in the hospital overnight and we will do some tests tomorrow. When he went back the next morning, they apologized that his father had died during the night.
We do not hear of these tragedies very often because, sad to say, most families are just ready for the old, sick and disabled to get out of their way anyhow. Families accept the death of a disabled or old person with great tolerance because the involvement of lawyers and autopsies is more of a burden than the deceased. They just go home and wait for the neighbors to bring the potato salad and fried chicken. And , in most cases now, make minimal final services.
Life has become very cheap and with the increase of health care 2.3% each year concern has become a lost word in our vocabulary. It takes all our tax dollars to finance social security, medicare and medicaid, all other dollars to finance wars, grants, highways, airports, entitlements of military and bureaucrats must be borrowed. FICA now claims 15% of your paycheck, it will be increased to 30%. Just to keep the Chinese Mafia, debt collectors from the door, taxes must be raised, and services must be cut. Everything pertaining to economic “artificial respiration” has been a failure.
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