Freedom
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
The events of this past week have caused me to take pause and consider the motivations and ramifications of the landmark legislation that our Congress has enacted and our president has signed into law, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act".
While the stated objective - providing affordable health care for all Americans - is noble, can we really expect that government's involvement will make it so? Do we need to completely scrap a system that provides the best care in the world to nearly 90 percent of its clients? Recall that the government that is going to assure that you have access to healthcare has brought you the following agencies: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who between them are responsible for insuring roughly $1.5 trillion in toxic loans that helped fuel the financial meltdown from which we are just now beginning to emerge. Another favorite government agency of mine, AMTRAK. After decades of government support they have failed to return a profit of any sort to those who fund its operations, you and me.
Let us also consider the season's favorite government agency, the IRS. This agency's stated "service goal" for this tax season is to answer 71 percent of calls, but only after an average taxpayer wait time of 12 minutes. Applying this same 12-minute wait time goal to healthcare would be fantastic. The downside, you may be in the 29 percent that will not have your call answered. Space limitations preclude discussion of the mess that our legislators have made of the social security system.
I fail to comprehend how timely and adequate (let alone world-class) healthcare will be provided in a government-managed system when our government has such an extensive track record for failure. Make no mistake, government managed health care is the true goal of this legislation. To force the insurance industry to cover all Americans will create an increase in costs that will be passed on to those of us that do pay our own way. As premiums increase exponentially over the next few years the howling and hand wringing will begin. The government's solution will be a system where the government becomes the insurer of first resort. The end result of that system will resemble the train wreck that is AMTRAK. However, in this case it will be our nation's collective health that is run off the rails.
Guy Bigler
Syracuse, via e-mail[[In-content Ad]]
The events of this past week have caused me to take pause and consider the motivations and ramifications of the landmark legislation that our Congress has enacted and our president has signed into law, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act".
While the stated objective - providing affordable health care for all Americans - is noble, can we really expect that government's involvement will make it so? Do we need to completely scrap a system that provides the best care in the world to nearly 90 percent of its clients? Recall that the government that is going to assure that you have access to healthcare has brought you the following agencies: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who between them are responsible for insuring roughly $1.5 trillion in toxic loans that helped fuel the financial meltdown from which we are just now beginning to emerge. Another favorite government agency of mine, AMTRAK. After decades of government support they have failed to return a profit of any sort to those who fund its operations, you and me.
Let us also consider the season's favorite government agency, the IRS. This agency's stated "service goal" for this tax season is to answer 71 percent of calls, but only after an average taxpayer wait time of 12 minutes. Applying this same 12-minute wait time goal to healthcare would be fantastic. The downside, you may be in the 29 percent that will not have your call answered. Space limitations preclude discussion of the mess that our legislators have made of the social security system.
I fail to comprehend how timely and adequate (let alone world-class) healthcare will be provided in a government-managed system when our government has such an extensive track record for failure. Make no mistake, government managed health care is the true goal of this legislation. To force the insurance industry to cover all Americans will create an increase in costs that will be passed on to those of us that do pay our own way. As premiums increase exponentially over the next few years the howling and hand wringing will begin. The government's solution will be a system where the government becomes the insurer of first resort. The end result of that system will resemble the train wreck that is AMTRAK. However, in this case it will be our nation's collective health that is run off the rails.
Guy Bigler
Syracuse, via e-mail[[In-content Ad]]
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