Government Does Suck!

A huge h/t goes out to BOBBY HARRELL over at the Wall Street Journal Online. Bobby is simply one of the folks responding to the previous article I posted by Karl Rove.

Bobby points out magnificently how Government is to blame for healthcare getting so damned expensive. Enjoy a really good read.

Gio-

I Have Heard it All Before

This is about health care and its high cost. I am one who has had experience with the US health care system over a very long period of time. I have had enough experience to tell you that The Democratic Party is directly responsible for the high cost of health care today. I can tell you that before government entered health care it was much less expensive. The garbage about “we have to fix it” is not new! There was a time when I was able buy insurance with the income from a very small business. There was a time when I used my equity in a very small home as my catastrophic insurance policy. Thanks for the fact that we did not have a catastrophe. I have heard it all before. It was expensive and destructive then as it will be now. Any sensible person knows this.

One of my most vivid memories is seeing Ted Kennedy on television pushing the need for the first Medicare bill to be passed. I wonder why someone does not find a copy of his television interview and play it for the people (I have a site listed below where you can hear LBJ tell what a great thing Medicare passage was) . Is a TV interview from around 1965 still in the archives? I was attending Hillsborough Community College at night and the instructor had just discussed the fact that government does nothing well. I knew that if the government got involved nothing good would happen. Ted sounded sooo … convincing and concerned about our mature citizens.

Kennedy said that our old people should not have to worry about having all their savings consumed by a serious illness in their old age. At the time Medicare was passed most people paid for their own health care. It was a free market item. It had to be priced so that people could buy it or the provider could not market the product. I remember my wife calling me and telling me that a private room at Tampa General was $19 a day. She thought that a bit high. She was having a procedure done and I had told her to get a private room. To put this in prospective the Howard Johnson Motel at Gandy and Dale Mabry was new and it cost $10 a night. Howard Johnson’s was considered to be pretty nice at the time.

Employers once provided health insurance at many jobs as a way to keep employees happy. Employers were glad to do that! The health of employees in important to any business. Heath insurance was affordable because government was not involved. I remember paying $45 a month for Blue Cross and Blue Shield and thinking it not too expensive. Soon after the passage of Medicare the bill came and it was $500 a month. Effectively that was a cancellation notice. BT (before Teddy) doctors made a good bit more that teachers but not outrageous amounts. In the late 50’s a doctor customer and friend was getting rich taking out tonsils every morning at Tampa General for the rate of $100 per child. What would the charge be today? I was making about $90 dollars a week fixing televisions and other electronics.

Teddy and the Democratic party got their bill passed. It is easy for you to look up the Medicare vote on the internet. The site is listed below. Government and the Democrats are making something free for the people. I know! But the people don’t! After Medicare was passed it was difficult for the recipients to find a doctor at first. No doctor wanted to bother with filling out the forms and waiting to get paid. I well remember my grandmother hunting a doctor to treat her on Medicare.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssa/lbjmedicare1.html#2
http://www.ssa.gov/history/mpeg/videosound.html
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/tally65.html

What happened? Doctors and hospitals soon figured out that they were no longer constrained by the free market. The government would pay the average of what a procedure cost in the area where it was preformed. Pretty simple to mine this gold! You just raise the average price! That is exactly what happened. It was not long before doctors and hospital preferred Medicare holders! I remember when doctors were not too anxious to work for people who paid money. It was difficult to tell a man the price of an office call. Doctors didn’t have the gall to tell a man who made $100 a week that a ten minute office call was $80. The cost of medical care was soon beyond reason. There were many attempts to place blame. High insurance cost for doctors took some blame. It was true that people were ready to sue doctors. The new outrageous cost caused people to have little respect for the medical profession. Anyone who sued Doctor Grable or Doctor Greenwell in the old days would be a town outcast.

I must emphasize that the medical profession bears loads of blame. Government gave a blank check and they took unreasonable amounts. I often wondered how a doctor felt when he took $100 for spending 5 minutes with a guy who made $125 a week. Pretty bad I think. It got to where they hid behind the office personnel. You don’t see your doctor at McDonalds much. Once they had coffee at the local coffee shop. Seeing a doctor around town is like seeing the Easter bunny. I think they group up in a herd at Hilton Head.

In the defense of the doctor please notice that almost everyone in state and local government as well as individuals are happy to grab all the “stimulus” money and any other handouts that are offered. Also note that all this casts a reflection on good people who wish to serve the people in medicine. That is very unfair to great doctors who don’t care about money. There are some who worked hard against all odds to serve there fellow man. (I am thinking of you Veronica).

To make it so simple that a Democratic senator can understand it I will summarize.
1. Medical care was very reasonable when it was a free market item.
2. Ted Kennedy and his Democratic buddies passed a “Medicare” bill.
3. The government entered the picture and prices sky rocketed because no one cared what the price was. The government was paying.
4. Teddy wants to give it to everyone. It will be free! Employers will give ever one insurance.
5. No business can ever gives anything to anyone. The cost is always in the product or service the business provides. This is not a criticism but a simple business fact unknown by government!.
6. Teddy and Bo are about to give it to you!
7. Ted Kennedy and the Democratic Party are directly responsible for the high cost of healthcare.