he just doesn t get it re will they ever learn in article d f b w w cellar org techie cellar org william a bacon writes they refuse to learn from history or from the present pointing to canada s vaunted socialized medical care program he contends that it is failing even while the cost is catching up with angry taxpayers he notes americans don t go to canada and elsewhere for medical care it s the canadians and others who come here why should the united states duplicate what doesn t work well in other countries we have the world s best medical care let s not mess it up with hillary clinton s plans for socialized medicine john f mcmanus national president of the john birch society when mcmanus says we have the world s best medical care i can hardly believe he s referring to a system that costs us percent of our gdp while there isn t a single other country in the industrialized world that spends more than percent that leaves million of us with no coverage even though all the other systems in the industrialized world cover virtually everyone yet americans rank near the bottom of the list in terms of life expectancy childhood immunization rate infant mortality and many preventable diseases we pay on average about each for mris to put that in perspective they cost in japan the average us company spends over dollars a year per employee on health benefits seven hundred to is the range just about everywhere else how can anyone say that such a system is the best in the world the only thing the usa health care system is good at is showering well insured patients with a champagne treatment of care and outrageously overcharging for it and the private system of insurers and paperwork is so bloated and inefficient that it itself sucks up over billion dollars a year in money from every other sector of society individuals government and industry of the billion dollars americans threw into the bottomless pit of health care costs last year the consumer s union estimated that at least billion was thrown away on overpriced useless and even downright harmful tests and procedures and the most bureaucratic regulated insurance system in the world there are more than different private insurers in the usa but did the private competition stimulate more efficient paperwork ask any doctor who s had to hire a full time clerk to deal with it all the competition among hospitals is driving costs up not down the competition among hospitals for both doctors and patients has encouraged the hospitals to traffic in expensive superfluous equipment spending millions on expensive machines of dubious value that spend percent of the day idle isn t my idea of the world s best health care system competition among specialists is driving them to perform dangerous and expensive procedures where they are very marginally helpful i m especially thinking of heart surgery and some women s surgeries like hysterectomy and cesarean section sound like the world s best health care system ever notice how every time someone tries to bring about some real change in health care the libbies start bashing canada s system first of all hillary clinton is not advocating another canadian system i think that s been made abundantly clear in the news for the last couple of months where did john f mcmanus get that idea anyway let s say you re a canadian living in a small town near the usa border your child needs a complicated procedure only available in city hospitals the nearest canadian cities are hours west and hours east and there s an american city one hour south which way are you going to go is it because the american system is the best in the world or just for convenience it still amazes me that people can t seem to see more than just black and white on health care reform there are a million different ways we ould restructure the system it s not just a choice between total government control and total private control i wish the people screaming socialized medicine every time soemone wants to change the current syste would inform themselves on health care issues the current system sucks i want to keep providers private but that doesn t change the fact that we will never be able to deal with the deficit if we don t reform the health care system purely private health care without any government intervention doesn t work hillary clinton is not thinking of nationalizing providers or evern insurers how can you scream socialized medicine at her programs don t you even know what you re talking about ever see clinton s graphs of projected deficit versus year for the rest of the decade notice how the line falls then starts increasing why i ll give you one wild guess as to which component of spending will overwhelm us if we don t do something about it peope just doesn t get it the current health care system is a cancer which is killing our economic well being costs are still rising percent a year even as americans by the tens of millions go without or are forced into managed care programs which are certainly pretty socialized already if you ask me a couple of months ago i posted a message asking any hillary bashers to please come forward and present no gimmicks straight talk just how they would set about keeping costs down i didn t get a single answer the only thing i keep hearing from libbie organizations are press releases filled with evasive platitudes like give health care back to the people just do you expect to do that without serious reforms what is it about the current system that you would change and how would that help how can anyone read the news live under our system and not see these faults how can we deal with the deficit our cities our educational system our infrastrucure aids modernizing our industry etc if we don t quit throwing away money which could be used to solve those problems america needs health care reform now don t just sit there and hillary bash inform yourself jim reynolds james p reynolds that s jim to you and me jpr lehigh edu
