There Is No Free Lunch... or Health Care

Ever since Michael Moore's latest movie, "Sicko", came out, there has been a new debate raging on the United States getting universal government-run health care. Moore has made Canada and European systems look like the envy of the world when they certainly are not. CNN medical expert Sanjay Gupta debated Moore on "Larry King Live" and won handily. Despite this, Moore for some reason gets instant credibility among many because of movies like "Bowling For Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9-11". These movies "rang true" for so many people despite dubious credibility and tactics such as quotes being taken out of context or fraudulently edited.

I've certainly seen enough "form letters" in the newspaper in recent weeks calling for universal health care and saying we should have it because it works in other places. Naturally, as is the case with many letters, no facts were given to back this up. Well, here are some facts...

There is an unofficial holiday in the United States, which this year fell on April 30th, but changes from time to time. It's Tax Freedom Day, the day when Americans have made enough money for the year to pay off all the taxes they will pay to the federal government in a calendar year. Here in New York, it was actually on May 16th this year due to the high state taxes we have to pay. However, in Canada, Tax Freedom Day doesn't happen until late June. Look at some of the other nations on there with late Tax Freedom Days... the U.K., Sweden, Germany... just like Canada, they all have government-run health care, the best system there is according to Moore and his ilk because it's "free". How is something free when you have to pay two months extra salary just to pay off the taxes needed to run it?

Speaking of health care debates and tax hikes, we currently have what many seem to say is a proxy war in this battle between fans of universal health care and fans of free market-based care. The future of the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) is currently being debated in Congress. The House and Senate have both passed similar versions of a bill that would expand the program with $35 billion in additional spending, paid for by higher tobacco taxes. Paul Krugman, the New York Times' resident knee-jerk liberal, proclaimed that the bill had bipartisan support and was really only opposed by the president and nobody else. As usual, he's embellishing badly. The House vote on SCHIP was virtually on party lines, while some Senate Republicans only felt the need to vote for this bill because they don't want to lose their next election. How nice of them to sell out their principles for votes.

Also, how nice that when the Democrats need more money, they always feel that they can milk the cash cow known as America's smokers. The sad thing is that smokers keep buying the more and more expensive packs of cigarettes, but really it's getting to the point where it's just plain exploiting people's addiction for financial gain. They're really no better than the tobacco companies. There's an inherent contradiction here... they want to pass all these anti-smoking laws (going so far as to ban smoking in public parks because of the chance that a kid on the opposite side of the park from the smoker will somehow inhale secondhand smoke), but they won't ban smoking altogether because they can't kill the cash cow. The way that I see it, there's only one solution to this: legalize marijuana. Stay with me, folks... if you make smoking marijuana legal, and you throw taxes on it like you do with tobacco, then you won't need to raise tobacco taxes again! And think of how much money it will save because you won't need to pay for the DEA raiding every medical pot clinic on the West Coast! Just a suggestion...

Of course the real debate here is whether or not the program should even be expanded, not how it's going to be paid for. Every Republican presidential candidate has said they don't like the SCHIP bill, causing Mitt Romney to declare that he was sure that the media would brand them all as being against children. Krugman and his liberal ilk have certainly done that with Bush. What is so wrong with keeping a program the way it is? Does it work? Sure it does. Then how is just keeping the status quo hurting anyone? That's always the problem with these spending bills. Vote to keep something the same instead of taxing and spending, and you'll get accused of wanting to kill people, sometimes old people, sometimes children. You would think people would see through this left-wing schtick by now.

Yeah, I know, we keep hearing "45 million uninsured" all the time. That's not entirely correct, as you can see here. And are we counting the 12-plus million illegal immigrants among the 45 million uninsured? Of course, 45 million is a pretty powerful number, and that's how a number like that can be used to sway people when they don't know (or don't bother to check) the details behind the numbers.

There are plenty of things wrong with our current health care system, don't get me wrong. However, there are plenty of things that can be done without a government-mandated "cure-all". During yesterday's Republican debate in Iowa that was televised on ABC, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California emerged, in my view, as my 3rd-favorite Republican candidate (behind McCain and Giuliani), because among other things, he pointed out a clear problem that CAN be fixed. Currently, you cannot go across state lines to purchase health insurance, which causes policies to cost different amounts in different states. Here is one area where the government actually can do something, because the federal government controls interstate commerce. Enable Americans to go across state lines to purchase insurance and costs will go down, just like Hunter says. Actually, I'm impressed that Hunter was able to state his point to completion without interruption, because every time someone started to make a good point in today's debate, that reporter from the Des Moines register would try to cut him off and move on to the next candidate (bias showing?)

Actually, speaking of the debate, I do have to note that Giuliani did an excellent job in this debate, but of course Mitt Romney grabbed the headlines. Gee, I wonder why the media would give Romney the attention? Perhaps because they know that Romney's easy prey for a Democratic opponent as compared to Giuliani? I certainly don't think that Romney can win, what with his position flip-flops and his solution for health care in Massachusetts... not government-run health care, but still government-mandated.

So you see, there are things that can be done to fix the health care system, and I think we should always try to fix what is wrong, because let's face it, where the federal government is involved, there's always going to be something wrong. Perhaps that, more than anything, is the ultimate argument against government-run health care...