Thomas Sowell
The Detroit News
8/25/2010
There is so much political spin, and so many numbers games being played, when it comes to medical care, that we have to go back to square one and the simplest common sense, to get some rational idea of what government-run medical care means.
In particular, we need to examine the claim that the government can “bring down the cost of medical care.”
The most basic fact is that it is cheaper to remain sick than to get medical treatment. What is cheapest of all is to die instead of getting life-saving medications and treatment, which can be very expensive.
Despite these facts, most of us tend to take a somewhat more parochial view of the situation when it is we ourselves who are sick or who face a potentially fatal illness. But what if that decision is taken out of your hands under Obamacare and is being made for you by a bureaucrat in Washington?
We won’t know what that leads to until the time comes. As Nancy Pelosi said, we will find out what is in the bill after it has passed. But even now, after Obamacare has been passed, not many people want to read its 2,400 pages. Even if you did, you would still not know what it would be like in practice, after more than 150 boards and commissions issue their specific regulations.
Fortunately, you don’t have to slog through 2,400 pages of legalistic jargon or turn to a fortune teller to divine the future. A new book, “The Truth About ObamaCare” by Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute lays out the facts in the plainest English. While she can’t tell you the future, she can tell you enough about government-run medical systems in other countries that it will not take a rocket scientist to figure out what is in store for us if Obamacare doesn’t get repealed before it takes full effect in 2014.
It is not a pretty picture.
The article continues at The Detroit News.
