TAKE TWO ASPIRIN AND CALL ME WHEN YOUR CANCER IS STAGE 4

[Danno 1,228]

TAKE TWO ASPIRIN AND CALL ME WHEN YOUR CANCER IS STAGE 4

by Ann Coulter

July 22, 2009

All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats' idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink.

The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple "Genius Bar," is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes -- the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs.

As a result, it's easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!

We already have near-universal health coverage in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' hospitals, emergency rooms and tax-deductible employer-provided health care -- all government creations.

So now, everyone expects doctors to be free. People who pay $200 for a haircut are indignant if it costs more than a $20 co-pay to see a doctor.

The government also "helped" us by mandating that insurance companies cover all sorts of medical services, both ordinary -- which you ought to pay for yourself -- and exotic, such as shrinks, in vitro fertilization and child-development assessments -- which no normal person would voluntarily pay to insure against.

This would be like requiring all car insurance to cover the cost of gasoline, oil and tire changes -- as well as professional car detailing, iPod docks, leather seats and those neon chaser lights I have all along the underbody of my chopped, lowrider '57 Chevy.

But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they'll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat -- but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists.

As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him ... or going uninsured. People who aren't planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance -- and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don't have health insurance.

The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down -- not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you're in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas.

Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care -- especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure.

Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore. On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan.

Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you'll be out of luck.

Even two decades after the collapse of liberals' beloved Soviet Union, they can't grasp that it's easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism.

You don't have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise.

Third-party payer schemes are always a disaster -- less service for twice the price! If you want good service at a good price, be sure to be the one holding the credit card. Under "universal health care," no one but government bureaucrats will be allowed to hold the credit card.

Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.

Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care -- and health insurance -- on the free market.

COPYRIGHT 2009 ANN COULTER

Edited July 23, 2009 by Danno

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Drivel!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It is drivel - Ann's articles read a lot like filler to pad out a word count, using silly analogies to disguise the fact that she knows very little actual detail about the subject she's writing about.

I would have thought it obvious that any sort of Universal Healthcare is only going to cover the basics - in other words that a minimum standard of care (and access to it) is better than none at all.

The fallacy in Ann's free market ethos is that current insurance plans don't offer comprehensive coverage either. There are proscribed lists of conditions, the treatments of which aren't covered by health insurance, and for rare-ish diseases like Hodgkins, you're not exactly going to know when you take out the policy that that's the condition you'll need protection from.

[familyguy 2]

Ah that well respected Academic genius Coulter :lol:

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Less angry than usual, mind you. But she loses any pretense of credibility with stuff like this.

liberals' beloved Soviet Union

[mRx 16]

Less angry than usual, mind you. But she loses any pretense of credibility with stuff like this.

liberals' beloved Soviet Union

It's a shame too.

For the most part, this is a gem among Miss Coulter's usual garbage.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It just rhetoric. There is nothing practical to anything she wrote there that informs the health reform debate in any way.

Its just a list of trite analogies.

[Ban Hammer 13,658]

It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore.

[mRx 16]

It just rhetoric. There is nothing practical to anything she wrote there that informs the health reform debate in any way.

Its just a list of trite analogies.

If that's all you want to derive from it, then yes.

However, an interesting point about capitalism is made:

The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple "Genius Bar," is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes -- the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs.

As a result, it's easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!

Granted there is an underlying logic at play here; likely unbeknown to Coulter.

The free decisions of consumers shape markets. There is a crying-out-loud demand for more healthcare in America. What with all the artificial barriers to entrance imposed by the American Medical Cartel, this demand is not met as easily as a cell phone manufacturer designs a product that consumers desire, or a fast food chain creates a new tasty burger to quench consumer demands.

A government-run plan takes us down a very ominous road while completely neglecting the actual problems.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

But the thing is Ms. Coulter doesn't really offer anything in the way of an alternative - presumably there are no problems because everyone who isn't making $100K per year, ought to be - that way there won't be any problems

[mRx 16]

No she doesn't.

But I'll throw myself out there.

Here's what I think should be done:

The HC industry needs to be completely de-regulated. And no, not Reagan or Nixon "de-regulated" which amounted to nothing more than the auctioning off of state strongholds to politically-connected entities, but rather the complete absence of state coercion on free decisions of individuals. No AMA, FDA, AAMC, et al.

What would ensue would be a rapid, yet struggled, restructuring of an entire industry.

Non-AAMC medical schools would pop up absent government approval and train doctors who would treat patients without the blessed AMA-sponsored degree, and prescribe drugs not given the blessing of the FDA.

Their legitimacy would be determined by the collective public. There would be, as I stated, a strugglesome time. Quackery would need to be worked out, market-forged standards established, and private approval agencies reputable enough to ensure such standards are met.

The result, in the long run would be a entirely sustainable industry, akin to any other non-controlled industry, bound by the decisions of the consumer.

[Peikko 1,575]

No she doesn't.

But I'll throw myself out there.

Here's what I think should be done:

The HC industry needs to be completely de-regulated. And no, not Reagan or Nixon "de-regulated" which amounted to nothing more than the auctioning off of state strongholds to politically-connected entities, but rather the complete absence of state coercion on free decisions of individuals. No AMA, FDA, AAMC, et al.

What would ensue would be a rapid, yet struggled, restructuring of an entire industry.

Non-AAMC medical schools would pop up absent government approval and train doctors who would treat patients without the blessed AMA-sponsored degree, and prescribe drugs not given the blessing of the FDA.

Their legitimacy would be determined by the collective public. There would be, as I stated, a strugglesome time. Quackery would need to be worked out, market-forged standards established, and private approval agencies reputable enough to ensure such standards are met.

The result, in the long run would be a entirely sustainable industry, akin to any other non-controlled industry, bound by the decisions of the consumer.

We already have some pretty wacky pharmaceuticals out there in the 'diet' pills and potions market. These are not regulated, the claims proposterous, the sales phenomonal and the outcomes negligable in terms of desired effect and anything from placebo to downright dangerous for side effects.

If I were a pharma company, and I wasn't regulated, I would probably make some pretty exagerated claims for 'miracle' cures knowing that the shelf life for such products would be short, but that because of the 'hope' demand, the profits would be amazing. I could either put out something that was totally harmless, but extremely cheap, or if unscrupulous, cheap and dangerous - the latter is of course less likely.

As for real research into drugs that might actually work? I expect, there would be some progress, in diseases that are already well catered for but in new things, unless there was going to be a big demand, not profitable and unnecessary for my continued success.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Ask your doctor about why you should self-medicate, and why your TV knows what's better for you than your doctor does!

Imagine if all those ads depicting people on summer days, flying kites and playing with the kids didn't have to be accompanied by a list of side-effects that includes "Dry mouth, Heart Attack, Stroke, and Death"

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Non-AAMC medical schools would pop up absent government approval and train doctors who would treat patients without the blessed AMA-sponsored degree, and prescribe drugs not given the blessing of the FDA.

Their legitimacy would be determined by the collective public. There would be, as I stated, a strugglesome time. Quackery would need to be worked out, market-forged standards established, and private approval agencies reputable enough to ensure such standards are met.

During this strugglesome time, I'd go quack in a heartbeat. I'd wrap myself around the ayurveda label, give a slightly more religious twist to my already Hindu name, and overcharge new-age hippie types for ayurvedic remedies that don't work. I'd hawala my earnings to a cousins account in India every week and by the time my 'quackery' is worked out I'll likely have made enough money to retire in a cottage in Goa. A buncha new-age types would be dead, but they're better off dead anyway.

[Peikko 1,575]

Non-AAMC medical schools would pop up absent government approval and train doctors who would treat patients without the blessed AMA-sponsored degree, and prescribe drugs not given the blessing of the FDA.

Their legitimacy would be determined by the collective public. There would be, as I stated, a strugglesome time. Quackery would need to be worked out, market-forged standards established, and private approval agencies reputable enough to ensure such standards are met.

During this strugglesome time, I'd go quack in a heartbeat. I'd wrap myself around the ayurveda label, give a slightly more religious twist to my already Hindu name, and overcharge new-age hippie types for ayurvedic remedies that don't work. I'd hawala my earnings to a cousins account in India every week and by the time my 'quackery' is worked out I'll likely have made enough money to retire in a cottage in Goa. A buncha new-age types would be dead, but they're better off dead anyway.

You probably would not, but there are many that don't have your scruples