Socialized health care has been the Left’s wet dream for 40 years. Nearly all of the problems Americans face as regards health care (including those enumerated in President Obama’s speech on Sept. 9, 2009) have their genesis in government interference or the machinations of the Left. There is nothing in the current or modified legislation that addresses these; it only further coalesces the power of the government.
For the use of the reader, I have included the viable market solutions to reforming health care outlined by Whole Foods Markets’ CEO John Mackey in August of 2009, so that we know what to ask for:
1. Remove the legal obstacles which slow the creation of high deductible health insurance plans and Health Savings Accounts.
2. Change the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have exactly the same tax benefits.
3. Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines.
4. Repeal all government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover.
5. Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors into paying insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
6. Make health care costs transparent so that consumers will understand what health care treatments cost.
7. Enact Medicare reform.
8. Permit individuals to make voluntary tax deductible donations on their IRS tax forms to help the millions of people who have no insurance.
Bear in mind that the government (particularly those on the Left) have no interest in enacting such reforms. It would be akin to asking a pimp to send his girls to college. The imperative in actualizing the necessary reforms in health care is the same as for most of the significant problems this nation faces: Vote the bums out!
