Government Ruin Healthcare

by
Suzann Darnall

I am opposed to Obamacare for many reasons, not the least of which is my concern about the government being capable of handling so large a program without the usual glitches,. Those glitches are the cheats, and carefully programmed overruns that seem to plague anything and everything they poke their pointy little noses into. The government has a longstanding record of not being able to handle money matters with any kind of efficiency. And, I'm not sure delays due to funding is something we need more of in our healthcare industry. Lives often depend on things being done in a timely manner.

The Veterans' Administration operates one of the largest health care systems in the nation. Currently, the VA is funded on a year-to-year basis, and funding has been late in 19 of the past 22 years. Not such a good track record and certainly not the way I want my health care system functioning!

If you go to an internet search engine and type in the words "Medicare funding" it pops up numerous suggestions for ending the phrase, such as: "warning, crisis, shortfall, gap, problems, or issues." If you then click on one of these suggested phrases, it pops up tens of thousands of website possibilities that go into the various problems with Medicare's financial well-being. Hmmm??? Is this really where we want to head with our nationwide health care systems?

In the meantime, Medicaid is wracked with fraud, which does not bode well for keeping down costs. Would another government run healthcare system fare any better in the hands of a nearly unlimited bureaucracy with few checks or balances being offered by someone other than the government? Keep in mind that Obama is giving his Administration virtually unreined freedom to carry out the Liberal agenda. So, the inefficiencies of the past are already paling into insignificance by comparison.

The government has not even been able to handle military health care with any kind of efficiency or honesty. Veterans of different eras have different health care plans. Many who were told decades ago that they and their families would have free health care are now paying to get it. Oh, they will treat you for free, if you do not have one of the "upgrades", but you will be at the bottom of the list and waiting for a while. A very long while.

We keep hearing from Obama and his cohorts that Obamacare would pay for itself, or lower the costs, or be funded without increasing our budget or.... I lost track of the latest …ummm … explanations(?) of how it would be cost efficient. The point is, they really have no idea of the cost. The Congressional Budget Office has shown repeatedly that none of the cost "predictions" of the Obama gang are close to being accurate. Let's face it! As if we didn't already know, the cost will be higher than expected and will continue to rise. This is not the kind of risk I want to take with my health care!

Possibly the only place Icould find seemingly instant access to funding in the government run health care arena was abortion. They seem to be able and willing to cough up abortion funding at the drop of a hat. Want to kill an unborn infant? No problem! Let's get you right in to see the doctor! Want to save your sick child? Ummm … could you wait in line over there and fill out this paperwork, in triplicate?

How can we not fear rationing in the face of such a history of government run health care? They are already deciding which lives are valid and which are not. They are already deciding which programs are important enough to fund immediately and which can wait. Most importantly, they have already run out of money, time and time again, in every government health care program they handle.

I say no to Obamacare! No to the government running and ruining just one more aspect of our society. Private health care may not be perfect, but it is certainly not as flawed as the government systems. Let's fix the broken parts of private health care and let the efficient parts just keep right on running. But, let's not allow government to break it all down into another money-hungry system that goobles up cash and spits out paperwork, with very little patient care actually taking place.

© Suzann C. Darnall, AUGUST 2009