Now that my health-care story
from our July/August issue is online, I just wanted to include a
few updates.
In my article I discuss how the health-care issue should be of
significance to every branch of the conservative movement, and note
that social conservatives should be concerned about the fact that
if government dominates this $2 trillion sector of the economy, it
will be put in the position to decide who lives and dies in some
cases because of the need to ration care. Since writing the story,
I found this disturbing report from Oregon,
where it turns out that the state denied care to some terminally
ill patients, but offered them doctor-assisted suicide.
My piece discusses the problems with the single-payer healthcare
systems in Canada, the UK, and France. Since writing, I came across
the website BigGovHealth, which has video
testimony from patients who have suffered under government-run
systems.
Also, I wrote at length about how liberals in general and Barack
Obama in particular plan to achieve a single-payer, or socialized*,
system through an incremental approach. At a campaign stop this
week, Obama made it even more obvious that single-payer is his
ultimate goal. I blogged about it here, and the
WSJ has now weighed in.
*Some liberals will draw a distinction between single-payer and
socialized medicine by arguing that government being the sole
purchaser of health care isn't the same as the state actually
running the system, but I view this as a distinction without much
difference given that in any case government picks up the tab and
thus sets regulations and decides how to ration care.
topics:
Health Care
