The Big Lie

I’ve written about this topic before but since I’m hearing about it daily from Democratic presidential candidates, I had to bring it up again. Some very important things to think about when it comes to Medicare for All:
 

1. These candidates constantly use the term “Government sponsored healthcare,” when it’s actually “Taxpayer funded healthcare.” They do everything they can to divert attention away from the amount of money all taxpayers will need to pitch in to pay the trillions of dollars necessary for Medicare for All. 
2. Healthcare options will not exist. Customizing insurance to fit the individual needs of families will be non-existent because there will be one plan, the government’s healthcare plan.
3. The chances of keeping our doctors would be extremely slim. The good ones will work around Medicare to provide private services for those who can afford it. Many Canadians do this by coming to the U.S. for various tests and treatments. I’ve got a friend from Canada whose mother, who was in her 70’s, kept trying to get a scan because she was worried that she had cancer. After around four months she finally came to the U.S. to have it done but it was too late. She had pancreatic cancer and died a few months later. She was older and the Canadian government was trying to keep their costs down as it is a terrible drain on their economy. Quite frankly, they benefit when they can get people out of their healthcare system who are older because they’re typically the ones who costs the most to take care of and they’re no longer paying money into the system. It’s an ugly truth about socialized medicine.  
4. The candidates keep using Nordic countries as examples of how Medicare for All can work, without putting it in context. First, these small countries have less people than those who use our VA healthcare system and as everyone knows, VA care is horrendous; I know from personal experience. It's easy to manage a system their size when their populations are smaller than New York City. It takes forever to see a doctor in many VA's so you can’t just pop in to see someone when you’re sick. Getting scheduled for tests takes at least four times longer than an average citizen is experiencing today. There are tests that the VA won’t even offer without constant pressure. It’s a bureaucratic system that is all about keeping down costs, as the VA is part of the federal government’s budget. As everyone knows, healthcare expenses go up each year, yet the VA’s budget is always a struggle to increase. This means only one thing and that is worse benefits and services. To think otherwise would be insane.
5. There’s absolutely no correlation between the health of citizens of Nordic countries to that of their socialized medicine. Meaning, they were healthy because of their lifestyles which helped keep costs down when they shifted to a federal program. We wouldn’t have that luxury. The costs of healthcare in the U.S. is high because we aren’t as healthy of a country as Norway or Sweden, it’s not even close. We have higher obesity rates which leads to numerous health problems and extremely high medical costs. Nordic countries aren’t known to have many smokers, so they don’t deal with these high healthcare costs either. Nordic countries don’t have the diversity issues we have as their countries are practically all white (86% of their populations are Nordic). African Americans and Hispanics bring in additional costs due to genetic and lifestyle issues. There’s no way that comparing Nordic countries to the U.S. is statistically viable. Any credible researcher would throw out any attempt to use countries like Norway or Sweden to model possibilities for Medicare for All in the U.S. These politicians aren’t stupid, they know the truth about this subject, but they’re willing to lie to us in order to get elected. It’s an easy sell on their part as most people don’t have a clue about the topics I’ve just mentioned.  

 
I’ve not even touched on the financial impact as over 600,000 employees in the private healthcare sector would be out of work. We’ll pay them unemployment.  They won’t be paying any federal or state income taxes. They won’t have discretionary income to spend in their communities. They would become close to a $50 billion drain on our economy. You hear any of these Democrats mentioning this? Then there's the fact that all the financial instruments in the market that are tied to healthcare would crash and burn causing terrible damages to a majority of U.S. citizens and negatively impact the interest rates that the federal government pays other countries for borrowed money. When the government's costs go up, taxes go up, there's no way around it.  
 
The bottom line is that these presidential candidates are using smoke and mirrors to push their socialized medicine agenda and so many Democrats are falling for it. They’ve got people convinced that healthcare is a right when there’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution that would support this line of thinking. I know that health insurance didn’t exist back then, but the foundation of a right to life, liberty, and to pursue happiness, in this country doesn’t mean a right to a good life. Our nation would crumble if we did all the things necessary to make life better for U.S. citizens such as paying college tuitions, providing housing for every homeless person, creating a “Living Wage,” etc. 
 
A parent could give their child everything she wants but when they go bankrupt, they wouldn’t be able to give her anything. They must temper the wants and needs of their child to remain fiscally sound for long-term stability. This is what politicians should be doing. They should be honest about us not having enough money to go around and that we must pick and choose based on needs. Democrats are thinking short-term as they need the votes now; they’re not concerned about the long-term affects of their agendas. They’ve got tunnel vision in their pursuit of influence and power and they’ll say anything, to get it. Some things never change.