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National Healthcare Not What The Doctor Ordered
Granny Sykes
As the stock market and Main Street crashed, many of our personal lives crashed as well.
No, I don’t mean financially. When our personal lives crash, we realize how little our financial lives mean in comparison.
We would easily move out of our adjusted-rate mortgaged homes if it meant keeping our premature babies alive, finding a cure for autism for our 10-year-olds, or preventing our parents from coming down with Alzheimer’s.
My family, too, has a health crisis. I am in rural South Dakota sitting in the hospital with my 89-year-old parents. My dad admitted my mom into a caring hospital close to his home on the very day he learned she had cancer and needed surgery.
In spite of our distress, what I don’t want is the government to provide us healthcare. The nurse here tells me if we get nationalized healthcare, as Canada has, my mother would have suffered greatly in the long delay. And we couldn’t have chosen our doctor, either.
No, my dad isn’t one of the privileged few. He doesn’t even have health insurance —just Medicare. But even in today’s supposed failed healthcare system, privatized medicine allows him to retain his dignity to be where he wants, when he wants and with whom he wants.
All I want from my federal government is a national defense, some infrastructure, a few judges, a nature reserve here and there and some custom officers. I’m sure I might be talked into a few other bureaucracies that represent the public good.
I am pretty much a purist on shrinking the government. As far as I’m concerned, the post office could be privatized. As expensive and ineffective as the public schools have become, I’m ready to go back to private ones. I’m willing to give up social security.
But I am also a pragmatist. I understand the bailout of these huge corporations that deserve to go under is not really a bailout, but a loan. I also understand the ripple effect if they go under.
So, I am willing to negotiate my point of view. Perhaps a government loan is a necessary evil. Perhaps we need to keep social security for a generation. Perhaps the post office is working for now.
But I am not willing to add to the bureaucracy and weight us all down with governmental healthcare, particularly after we tax payers are stuck with new debt from the recent bailouts.
Governmental healthcare, though, like everything else the government gives us, is never a gift at all. It is darn expensive. And once the sprocket is turned on, it never is turned off long after the immediate emergencies are over. Waste and fraud are attracted to it.
I am not trying to be heartless. I simply believe charity is between neighbors, family, churches and charitable organizations. It is not the job of the government.
So I really don’t have anger toward the tax-and-spend government. I have anger toward many churches that profess charity but sit in communities without integrating into them, leaving the gate open for a tax-and-spend government.
I am happy to report my parents have a church, which rises to my expectation of providing a safety net. The pastor and his wife have spent three days with our family so far. Others in the church are stopping by, bringing gifts and just staying most of the day.
And of course, my parents have five kids who adore them. So when all else fails, I recommend having children as insurance against a crisis. If you can’t have many, adopt some and raise them right.
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As the stock market and Main Street crashed, many of our personal lives crashed as well.
No, I don’t mean financially. When our personal lives crash, we realize how little our financial lives mean in comparison.
We would easily move out of our adjusted-rate mortgaged homes if it meant keeping our premature babies alive, finding a cure for autism for our 10-year-olds, or preventing our parents from coming down with Alzheimer’s.
My family, too, has a health crisis. I am in rural South Dakota sitting in the hospital with my 89-year-old parents. My dad admitted my mom into a caring hospital close to his home on the very day he learned she had cancer and needed surgery.
In spite of our distress, what I don’t want is the government to provide us healthcare. The nurse here tells me if we get nationalized healthcare, as Canada has, my mother would have suffered greatly in the long delay. And we couldn’t have chosen our doctor, either.
No, my dad isn’t one of the privileged few. He doesn’t even have health insurance —just Medicare. But even in today’s supposed failed healthcare system, privatized medicine allows him to retain his dignity to be where he wants, when he wants and with whom he wants.
All I want from my federal government is a national defense, some infrastructure, a few judges, a nature reserve here and there and some custom officers. I’m sure I might be talked into a few other bureaucracies that represent the public good.
I am pretty much a purist on shrinking the government. As far as I’m concerned, the post office could be privatized. As expensive and ineffective as the public schools have become, I’m ready to go back to private ones. I’m willing to give up social security.
But I am also a pragmatist. I understand the bailout of these huge corporations that deserve to go under is not really a bailout, but a loan. I also understand the ripple effect if they go under.
So, I am willing to negotiate my point of view. Perhaps a government loan is a necessary evil. Perhaps we need to keep social security for a generation. Perhaps the post office is working for now.
But I am not willing to add to the bureaucracy and weight us all down with governmental healthcare, particularly after we tax payers are stuck with new debt from the recent bailouts.
Governmental healthcare, though, like everything else the government gives us, is never a gift at all. It is darn expensive. And once the sprocket is turned on, it never is turned off long after the immediate emergencies are over. Waste and fraud are attracted to it.
I am not trying to be heartless. I simply believe charity is between neighbors, family, churches and charitable organizations. It is not the job of the government.
So I really don’t have anger toward the tax-and-spend government. I have anger toward many churches that profess charity but sit in communities without integrating into them, leaving the gate open for a tax-and-spend government.
I am happy to report my parents have a church, which rises to my expectation of providing a safety net. The pastor and his wife have spent three days with our family so far. Others in the church are stopping by, bringing gifts and just staying most of the day.
And of course, my parents have five kids who adore them. So when all else fails, I recommend having children as insurance against a crisis. If you can’t have many, adopt some and raise them right.