Jake Tappert may be the only honest reporter left in Washington. Today he points out that the new recess-appointment healthcare czar (this is like Number 42 or something) is known internationally as an expert on rationing systems.
No way! Rationing! You mean like the "death panels" that everyone laughed at Sarah Palin for? THAT kind of rationing?
We've got to face the facts that we either ration healthcare in this country by price or by "something else." When "something else" becomes "who you know" or "who you will vote for," and it will, inevitably, how are we different from Cuba?
Can you imagine showing a voter registration card at the doctor's office? Not far away.
I've written about Medicare here before. If you've ever had to deal with Medicare, you know that it's not about care, it's about rationing. Getting better service with Medicare requires you to yell louder than everyone else is yelling, figuratively speaking of course. Having better attorneys maybe. "Knowing somebody." Having an "in." What Medicare requires is for nobody to have more so that everyone can have less. With paperwork & admin types. Medicare has driven up the cost of insurance and senior care enough that private options aren't available in most cases, or may be illegal in others (doctors can't negotiate fees with patients, for example, short-circuiting the supply-demand process).
Dr. Berwick (the new czar, see above) seems to understand what free markets mean, and he is on the record opposing them, and stating that health care requires a redistribution of wealth. Don't take my word for it - here are his words.
I can promise that "rationing" (read as "allocation of services") will happen - that's just basic economics. I'd like to think that it would happen via a price system rather than the political system, but it looks like limiting choices and raising costs to healthy and successful folks is the order of the day. You see, there's no reason to worry about national health care if YOU have health insurance. Even if you've worked hard and been successful and you live your life carefully, you can't be allowed to have nice health insurance because government can't control it. Because if you have your own insurance & doctor choice, you'll have no incentive to work toward solutions to the health care "crisis," or sign off on government control.
If you give government control over your healthcare, what incentive will you have to take better care of yourself, etc.? None, so they'll have to legislate what we eat. Better not ask Justice-to-be Kagan about that one, because she doesn't know if it's Constitutional or not. The Commerce Clause might just let them do that, you know.
Final note:
If anyone still thinks that all of this is unrelated, guess again. There's an agenda in Washington that goes against the wishes of the vast majority of regular folks. Unfortunately, there will be just enough things that people like, as individuals, that most of this will be allowed to stand or progress over time. Once that curtain closes, people will vote their pocketbooks. For some of us, that means voting to lower our taxes. But for millions upon millions in this country, and the number is growing every day, voting means a chance to shaft everyone else and put something in their pocket.
Don't believe me? Look up "earned income tax credit" sometime.
