Odds and Ends: Terror and Health Care
I post like this every now and then. Two stories of real interest caught my attention.
Low Level Terrorism: The first comes from Instapundit. The Pentagon now considers protesters possible terrorists. Oh brother:
A written exam administered by the Pentagon labels “protests” as a form of “low-level terrorism” — enraging civil liberties advocates and activist groups who say it shows blatant disregard of the First Amendment.
Driving Doctors Into Bankruptcy: And this one from Hot Air. It won’t get much atention, maybe not even on their site … but it should. Here’s a portion but please take the time to read at least the Hot Air post.
If the government program were to expand, the number of privately insured people to absorb that extra cost would shrink, driving up the cost of insurance for everybody else. Eventually, two things would happen…. First, nobody could afford the non-government program, and secondly (and this is what the providers are truly afraid of), providers would not be able to cover their costs. This would drive them to bankruptcy. We would then either be in a position where there are no health care providers, or the government would have to nationalize them as well.
Let me explain. Right now Doctors and providers make up for what they don’t get from government run health care by charging us. The more people you put on the government program … the fewer who are left to carry the load. Doctors and insurance companies either must raise rates and premiums, or fail. Got it?
Lived in Italy for awhile. More than once, I was in for a doctor's
"appointment". Got there 10 minutes early for my 1:30 appointment, my relatives snickering just enough for me to hear. I understood why when at 4:45 I got called into his office. And that wasn't bad, I've waited another hour and a half for a couple other visits.
Our government at work. The more I read stuff like this, the more I end up shaking my head.
"The Pentagon now considers protesters possible terrorists."
Maybe for accuracy, we should necessarily call it the Obama Pentagon. 'nuff said.
Re: doctors and health care costs.
In the private sector, they say for any job or service to pick two of any of the following: good, fast or cheap. In government health care, we won't have any of those choices (or maybe just "universally bad?").