Hillary care scare

It is a mystery as to why anyone with normal intelligence and the ability to count past ten without using their fingers would support Hillary Clinton's proposal for universal healthcare. If you've been walking around this planet for more than a couple of decades with eyes and ears intact, one thing should have become painfully obvious: Whatever government touches turns to crap. One only has to look to Social Security, Medicare and the Medicare drug program, Medicaid, the Postal Service, Fema, the IRS, the Viet Nam War, the Iraq War, ad nausem. Can you name one government bureaucracy that is run with the efficiency and cost effectiveness of Microsoft, Walmart or Toyota? Of course you can't; nonetheless, we still demand that the government take charge of our health. For those of you still clamoring for Hillary care, let me drop one more name: Walter Reed Hospital. It was only a matter of months ago that we found out about the deplorable conditions at that facility--a facility that is supposed to provide state-of-the-art care for our brave warriors injured in the ongoing war on terrorism. It is no coincidence that Walter Reed Hospital is run by the Federal Government.

Those with a socialist mindset attack our healthcare system, while praising the Canadian, Cuban and European systems. If you want a similiar system put in place in our country, consider this:

In the Canadian "single payer" system, every major medical procedure is put on a waiting list. According to Canadian physicians, patients are forced to wait twice as long as is medically reasonable for specialized care such as surgery and chemotherapy. As a result, cancer death rates are twenty percent higher than in the United States. Those who are financially able come to the US for their healthcare. So much for the glory of the Canadian system.

The National Center for Policy Analysis in Great Britain says that one in eight patients in that country is forced to wait over a year for neccessary surgery--the same surgery that patients here receive within a matter of days following diagnosis.

In his documentary "Sicko," Michael Moore paid homage to the Cuban system. What the movie didn't show was its two-tier approach to medical care. The top tier, which has access to the finest doctors and facilities, is reserved for Communist Party leaders and other elites. The bottom tier, infamous for dirty , understaffed and woefully ill-equipped hospitals, is for the average Cuban citizen. The best testament to Cuban healthcare came months ago when Fidel Castro fell seriously ill. He was cared for, not by the doctors of his glorious Socialist healthcare, but by doctors flown in from Venezuela.

Finally, someone, somewhere has to pay for universal healthcare. Again, taxes in Canada are 28 percent higher than in the US.

Libertarian writer P.J. O'Rourke said it best: If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait till it's free.