Universal Health Care – The Final Solution to the Social Security and Medicare Problems
April 29, 2009
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Universal Health Care gives the public the Hope that all will be able to receive excellent health care at little or no cost. Unlimited health care will now be elevated to a right without responsibilities. In this new Utopia each person, independent of citizenship or legal status, will be given a card, which opens the doors to the best of medical care and with the guarantee of satisfaction. At least this is the perception, but not the reality. In keeping with the rhetoric of the new administration we are asked to have faith that the benevolent government will keep us healthy and safe.
The financial reality of supplying unlimited excellent care is that the fees charged by health care providers (physicians, nurses, therapists, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and other health care providers) must decrease substantially to avoid bankrupting the US government. Some cost savings will be achieved by cutting out the middlemen insurance companies. Many of these insurance companies will likely become failed businesses as the US government takes over as the primary insurer for the country. Unfortunately, the expected government waste associated with managing this program will eat away at any potential cost savings. Which means that health care providers, who stay in the system, will see an unlimited amount of work, but very limited reimbursement.
But remember that medical practices are mostly small businesses, which provide the service of medical care. These business have employees, office space and other usual costs of business. The physicians and other health care providers of the practice who are allowed to bill for services are the main revenue generating parts of the practice. Some groups also have other sources of revenue such as labs and imaging services. With Universal Health Care, fees paid to health care groups will have to fall substantially to achieve a neutral cost, when compared to the current system. Initially, groups that are well managed may survive the reimbursement cuts, but as good paying insurance companies go out of business, even these financially sound groups will become financially compromised.
If possible, some physician groups will opt out of the government plan and transition to a cash for service business. In time, the population of medical providers will decrease. This will result in limiting medical access to those holding only government sponsored medical coverage. A two-tiered medical system will evolve unless the government outlaws private medical practice, by state or federal regulations.
In addition to the financial stress to medical practice groups caused by decreased reimbursement, the physician owners will also be hit by higher federal and state income taxes, creating a disincentive to work longer hours. Again, this would result in a further shortage of health care providers, since the remaining providers would be motivated to work fewer hours.
Some physicians will seek out local hospitals for direct employment, similar to the VA system. But unlike the VA system, these physicians' loyalties will be to the hospital first and the patient second. In the VA system, the patients are the first priority since the government is the hospital and the government does not expect to make a profit by providing health care to its veterans. Physicians employed at "for-profit" hospitals who are unwilling to work by these rules will be replaced by better workers.
So how does Universal Health Care fix Social Security and Medicare? By helping to create a younger healthier population who are not old enough to receive Social Security and are not ill enough to require expensive medical care.
It is not just urban legend but true that a large sum of health care dollars are used in the last few months of a person’s life. Imagine a large segment of older sick Americans with only government-sponsored insurance and few local health care providers. Some of these people won’t be treated, not for lack of insurance but because Universal Health Care is a lie. Heart failure, cancer, diabetes, myocardial infarctions, strokes, pneumonias, and other chronic illnesses and infections will provide the final solution to the aging baby boomer problem. Dead people don’t get to collect Social Security!
So if the President tells you that Universal Health Care will make us a healthier nation in 4 years, believe him! If he tells you that Universal Health Care will save the government money in the long run, believe him! If he tells you that the ranks of the unemployed (retired Americans) will decrease during his first term, believe him! Just don’t ask for details, you'll sleep better. Denial I'm sure helped the Germans durring World War II!
We Americans will eventually learn to live and die in a more natural way. The environmentalists would be expected to support the population control and the decreased carbon utilization of a smaller, healthier society.
Survival of the fittest and financially well connected will become the greatest irony of the progressive movement, who did not envision the extermination of the old and sick as the consequence of Universal Health Care.
But in a neo-fascist system of progressive authoritarian rule, the ends also justifies the means.
God help us!
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