Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE
Why am I opposed to a single party payer healthcare system?
I am concerned about America’s $20 trillion dollar deficit and $180 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
I am also concerned about China being a reliable buyer of American debt.
The deficit should be viewed as a house of cards that might crumble at any time.
Our country has suffered a massive increase in the deficit the last eight years under Barack Obama and Obamacare. The public knows the debt has increased at lease 1 trillion dollars a year.
No one has seen a good accounting the deficit increase. Everyone knows we have had massive inflation even though we have been told that inflation is only one percent.
The public knows Obamacare is imploding.
The public knows about the waste incurred during the Obamacare website roll out and the scandalous contracts to venders. The public knows about the massive increasing in insurance premiums and the massive subsides that were not anticipated.
The Democrats that the people have elected to congress do not seem to care about the deficits created. Now, we have finally realized that the Establishment Republicans do not seem to care about Obamacare failures either.
These officials do not care how much money the government wastes on bad deals at all levels of the economy. Obamacare has made terrible deals with the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and hospital systems.
It has not made a good deal for the middle class or their primary providers namely physicians.
I do not think American healthcare policy makers or congress can afford to make another mistake.
Winston Churchill’s famous quote about Americans stands out here.
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing after they’ve tried everything else.”
America cannot try something that is destined to fail. Socialism, especially in healthcare, does not work. Our government officials refuse to believe this even though it is demonstrated by our own failed entitlements such as the VA Healthcare System, Medicare and Medicaid.
Government officials refuse to believe that the socialistic universal healthcare systems in the rest of the world are unsustainable.
Britain is the perfect example of this as the system is crumbling.
Socialism does work in the long term.
Winston Churchill said it again.
The key to the solution of the healthcare system problem is to provide incentives to all the stakeholders, especially the consumers.I believe “My Ideal Medical Saving Account” will work to provide universal coverage at an affordable cost.
America does not need a healthcare system that makes consumers dependent on government. It needs a system that makes them independent of government.
Butch Mazzuca is a local Vail Valley Resident who wrote this article about socialism and the healthcare system that appeared in the Vail
Valley News on July 9, 2017.
Mr. Mazzuca has given me permission to republish his article.
“When it comes to socialism, will they ever learn?
http://www.vaildaily.com/opinion/vail-daily-column-when-it-comes-to-socialism-will-they-ever-learn/
Editor's note: Find a cited version of this column at http://www.vaildaily.com.
“Several weeks ago on ABC's Sunday morning talk show "This Week," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told host George Stephanopoulos, "The democrats need a strong, bold, sharp-edged and common-sense economic agenda. … That's what's been missing."
So I find it a bit ironic that seven months after losing the 2016 presidential election, Schumer feels the Democratic Party is still struggling to articulate a coherent message. Meanwhile, the Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren wing of the party delivers a very clear message. Unfortunately for their constituency, it's about a failed ideology — socialism.
Sanders and Warren are advocates of redistributing wealth; lax immigration rules, governmental intervention into health care, energy and business; and the acceptance that Washington should be the final arbiter of all problems.
SOCIALISM HAS INHERENT DEFECTS
While socialism is antithetical to the ideals of the Founding Fathers, it tends to gain its strongest support among the young and those who are uninformed. On the surface, socialism sounds great; it has always sounded great and will continue to sound great within certain precincts. The only problem with socialism is that history exposes it as a bankrupt ideology.
But rather than describing socialism's failures tenet by tenet, the following apocryphal story illustrates socialism's inherent defects in an easy-to-understand way.
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. The class insisted that wealth redistribution, aka socialism, worked because then no one would be poor and no one would be rich — a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, let's try an experiment." Henceforth, all grades would be averaged; everyone would receive the same grade, and no one would fail.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone received a B. The students who studied hard were upset but the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who had studied little now studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride, too, so they too decided to study little. The second test average was a D.
Now no one was happy. When the third test rolled around, the class average was an F; and from that point forward, the scores never increased, as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings with the result that no one would study for the benefit of anyone else and the students all failed the class.
The professor then told them socialism as a form of government always fails because of human nature, i.e., when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes the rewards away, no one will try to succeed.
HUMAN NATURE IS PART OF IDEOLOGICAL EQUATIONS
Similar to the aforementioned students, the far left consistently overlooks the fact that human nature is part of any ideological equation. They fail to understand that socialism has never and will never work because it's based on a premise that's inconsistent with human behavior.
When people work, they expect to be compensated commensurate with their effort and skill level. And capitalism does that more effectively than any economic system yet devised by man. Capitalism provides an incentive for people to achieve because they know their efforts will be rewarded.
Conversely, socialism is a disincentive to achievement because people also know their work is valued only collectively, rather than being valued individually.
Quote of the day: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." — Winston Churchill.”
Butch Mazzuca, of Edwards, writes regularly for the Vail Daily. He can be reached at [email protected].
Our politicians should stop fooling around with America’s healthcare system, our fiscal viability, and the welfare of our citizen.
It is time to try something that will work, and not another thing that is doomed to failure.
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, you are both dead wrong.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” is, mine and mine alone.
All Rights Reserved © 2006 – 2017 “Repairing The Healthcare System” Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
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