Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
- No one will be compelled to buy coverage.
- No new taxes on employer benefits.
- Government can control rising health care costs better than the private sector.
- A public plan won't be a Trojan horse for a single-payer monopoly.
- Patients don't have to fear rationing.
This week, I was speaking with a hospital executive in San Diego. I asked her how the proposed changes in healthcare will impact her work. She answered that it will make healthcare much more difficult, because so many million new patients will be infused into a system that already doesn't cope with the numbers very well.
Change is needed, we both agreed. Costs must come down. But we also agreed that Obama's arbitrary road leads to the government rationing of healthcare; there is no other logical conclusion. There are simply not enough physicians. Numbers don't lie, and, as John Adams once famously remarked, facts are stubborn things.
Parents with idealistic young adults, who hear the choirs of heaven in the background whenever the president speaks, need to ask their children some very direct questions. If Mom gets breast cancer, are they willing to watch her wait nine months to a year to receive radiation treatments? Are they comfortable with her being declared ineligible for an expensive chemotherapy treatment that might cure her? If Dad needs heart surgery after age 60, or 65--whatever the "cutoff" is determined to be--are they prepared to accept his denial of treatment by a government health control board?
These are real questions that deserve honest answers, and very quickly. Cap and trade (and tax) can be reversed, as can government control of banks and car companies. But if we shatter our healthcare system, there is no going back. That thought alone is enough to make me sick.
