continued…

Are there really people that think Social Security is just used as a retirement fund for people that paid into it?  Are there really people out there that honestly naïve?
Later in the article the supposedly objective journalist said all this was bad news.  However, there was a bit of “good news”:  60% of these upset Baby Boomers that were polled were in favor of a National Health Care System. 
 
Huh?  Questions immediately sprang to my mind…
 
1. Why was this mentioned in the same article?  Can you say agenda?
2. Why would the journalist consider this “good news” (actual quote)?
3. If these Boomers are pissed the government is defrauding them on Social Security why would they be pleased about a plan to put their health care in the hands of the government?
 
In the case of Social Security all the government has to do is:
 
1. Collect your money.
2. Keep your money until you retire.
3. Give your money back to you.
 
And they can’t even do that right.
 
And some people seriously think the government would be able to do a better job collecting their money and then have to use it to make complicated decisions regarding medical procedures and payments?
 
As it stands now government sponsored health care pays approximately 10 to 30 cents on the dollar to health care providers for services provided.  And that’s when they pay at all.  I know of several cases in which a state sponsored health care program refused to pay on the grounds that “maternal delivery of new born child” was a “medically unnecessary procedure”.  You’ve heard the complaints about bottle of aspirin in a hospital costing $50?  The hospital charges $50 because they know that they will only get between 10 to 30 percent of that amount from Medicare, Medicaid or even some private insurers.  Of course, most of the people that complain about these things don’t even pay their own bill; I do for them through taxes.
 
I spoke with an individual once that related this story to me:  “These people I know had a sick child with some horrible disease.  The doctors and the hospital fixed their child but they left these poor people with a bill for a million dollars!  Now isn’t that outrageous?  A million dollars?!”
 
First, what good is your money if not for fixing your kid’s horrible illnesses?  Next, how the hell am I supposed to know, from the context of the story as it was told, whether or not the services rendered were worth a million dollars?  Maybe the equipment and medication used actually cost $900,000 and there was 10% profit for the doctors and the hospital added on.  Maybe the expenses were only 37 cents and the docs and the hospital were really trying to scam these people (after taking the time to make sure their child was cured, of course).
 
Of course, this is all irrelevant, because here is the final line to the story, “So the child’s parents just didn’t pay at all.”
 
Oh.  But they got their child cured, didn’t they?  And if the real expenses incurred were 37 cents or $900,000 makes no difference in my discussion, because the point is that someone other than the people that incurred these costs had to cover them.  This is a real life case of people thinking and acting as if they have a Right To Medical Care.  This is the essential premise to all governmental intervention in health care (and all other fields).  But there can be no such thing as an individual’s “right” to something that some other individual has to provide for them.  “Rights” are only essentially the right to be left alone and not forced to do anything against your will.  Just in case you really didn’t know that is what the word “freedom” means.  If you are in favor of slavery you should at least be willing to admit it; at most, you should be willing to practice it.  All of this has been covered man, many times before by Ayn Rand and other Objectivists.