The New Third Rail: They Touch it- We Die

Save Individual Private Health Insurance

by Robert Tracinski, editor www.TIADaily.com

"President Obama is pushing hard to get his health care bill up for a vote in
the next few weeks. The trademark tactic of this administration is speed.

They try to achieve their agenda by ramming legislation through Congress as fast
as possible—too fast for opponents to subject the bills to scrutiny, search for
objectionable provisions, or develop effective counter-arguments in a public
debate.

Heck, Obama and his allies in Congress push through the bills so fast that
congressmen and administration officials themselves don't even have time to read
the damned things.

If we're able to block his health care bill, it will be because we actually got
a little bit of time to read it. The folks at Investor's Business Daily did just
that, and what they found right away is that Obama's bill would outlaw
individual private health insurance.

It was already known that the so-called "public option" for health insurance was
an attempt to "crowd out" private health insurance by luring people into
government-subsidized insurance, but the plan to kill private health insurance
is actually much more direct: the bill bans insurance companies from writing new
individual policies.

Government-provided health insurance turns out not to be an "option": it's
mandatory.

Killing private health insurance is the only way the left can achieve its dream
of a government-run health-care system. They have to do it, because
government-provided health coverage, even if it is subsidized, cannot actually
compete with private insurance.

Government-provided care always leads to cost-cutting—isn't that the whole
stated purpose of health-care reform, to cut costs?—which always means rationing
the amount and kind of care we will be provided.

Given that risk, many people would refuse to go onto the government program and
cling to their individual private plans instead. And this makes it harder for
the bureaucrats to impose rationing on government-funded care, because they know
patients in the government program will compare the quality of their care to
what is available from private plans.

Private health insurance sets a kind of gold standard for the quality of care
people expect—and that's a standard government-run health care has never met and
can never meet.

All of the relentless propaganda about how "our health care system is broken" is
an attempt to blind us to this fact. It is supposed to make us think that we are
not getting the best care in the world, when we are.

I know, because my family has been a pretty significant user of medical care in
the past few years. Two years ago, our first child was born, and we now have a
second child on the way. In between, my wife was in a semi-serious car accident.
So we've spent our share of time in hospitals and examination rooms recently,
and I cannot adequately express my gratitude for the quality of care we have
received.

Three experiences stand out.

When my first son, Walter, was born, one of the pediatricians noticed that his
heart was making a slight noise, so he sent us up for a consultation with a
pediatric cardiologist. I have a decent knowledge of science, and I have a few
friends who are doctors and engineers, so I consider myself a decent judge of
experts.

It's not too difficult to tell when you're dealing with a physician who really
knows what he's talking about and is able to answer your questions clearly and
thoroughly.

I was very impressed with this cardiologist, who performed an echocardiogram (a
high-precision ultrasound imaging of the heart) and explained that what the
pediatrician heard was actually a normal sound—what he called the singing of the
"heart strings" that connect opposite walls of the ventricles.

It was a thorough cardiac workup that relieved all of our anxieties—with no need
to get on a waiting list or ask anyone's permission or go through some arcane
cost-benefit analysis.

After Sherri's car accident, she experienced some vision problems. Since she is
very near-sighted, she is at heightened risk for retinal detachment, and she was
afraid that the impact of the collision—she was rear-ended by a truck going
about 60 miles per hour—could have broken her retina loose. So again we searched
around for the best expert we could find, a very impressive retina specialist,
who did a very thorough check.

More recently, we went in for an ultrasound on the new baby. If you think an
ultrasound is just about getting a grainy image of the fetus, you haven't seen
one lately.

In this ultrasound, our physician looked at the development of the baby's
internal organs and the brain (I could clearly see the cerebellum). Using
Doppler ultrasound, which is able to track the direction and rate of motion, he
looked at the blood flow through the baby's heart. And he performed a whole
other series of measurements (the length of the femur, the circumference of the
skull, etc.) which are markers for potential birth defects. It was a thorough
physical check-up—way more thorough than anything I've ever had—performed long
before the baby is born.

All of this offered us the reassurance that we have another healthy child on the
way. This is not something we take for granted. My wife and I waited a long time
to have children, and with age, the risk of complications increases. So it is an
enormous benefit for us to be able to check thoroughly and be sure.

Now notice that all of these examples are, fortunately, about medical problems
that did not exist. Which makes them precisely the kind of tests that would be
very easy for bean-counting bureaucrats to deny on the grounds that they are not
cost-effective. Not cost-effective, that is, for the government.

But I didn't have to worry about what was cost-effective for the government. I
only had to think about what was cost-effective for me.

I was able to make the choice based on what my insurance would cover and—since I
have a Health Savings Account, one of the few pro-free-market health-care
reforms Congress has managed to pass—what I could afford to pay in deductibles
and premiums.

My experience with the "health care system"—i.e., with my own doctors and
nurses—has been a dream. I am not wealthy by any means (I am a self-employed
writer, which should say just about everything right there), and I have no
special connections or "pull." Yet I have had no difficulty making sure that my
family receives top-quality care.

The key is that we are in control.

We are able to shop around for the best doctors and the best insurance coverage,
and we are able to decide if we want to spend, say, $1500 on an ultrasound or
amniocentesis in order to avoid greater costs (or more tragic consequences)
later on.

This system works at allowing me to protect myself and my loved ones. And that's
why I am terrified that Barack Obama wants to smash it all to pieces.

A few days ago, I got an e-mail from Vern Hodgins, a long-time subscriber in
Canada, who recounted a very opposite experience with Canada's health-care
system.

Read this carefully, because if Obama gets his way, the happy story I told above
is not the future.

This is:

"My wife and I relocated to a new community. For my wife, that meant finding a
new doctor, which became a six-year wait. During that time, she had to do with a
local outpatient clinic, which rotates its medical staff.

It is rare to see the same doctor twice, which renders continuity feeble at
best. As well, the rules do not allow rotation doctors to provide full physical
examinations; only a family physician may do that.

"While waiting in line for a family doctor, my wife became ill. Typically, a
patient gets about ten minutes with a community clinic doctor, which for my wife
meant cursory examinations and referrals to physiotherapists and chiropractors.

"My wife's condition worsened and we could not do anything about it. Finally,
the government granted her a family doctor. That doctor also gave her a cursory
exam, diagnosed her ailment as a sports injury, and referred her to more physio
and chiropractic treatment. Her condition worsened still, and still her doctor
insisted it was a sports injury.

"Fed up with my dear wife whimpering her nights away in pain, I visited her
doctor. The doctor's receptionist rudely rebuffed me, saying my wife had to wait
in line just like everyone else because despite what I thought, she was no more
or less special than anyone else.

"The next morning I described my wife's condition to a work colleague who is a
doctor. Having never met my wife, and with only my description, that doctor told
me to get my wife into a hospital immediately because she was certain it was a
metastasized cancer.

"Sure enough, as soon as the hospital emergency staff saw my wife, they knew; it
was advanced non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which had dissolved some of her collarbone.
My wife had to be told her prognosis was not good, that she had to prepare for
the worst.

Fortunately for me, my doctor colleague, a high profile media individual, used
her influence to get my wife the best specialists in the country—which, yes,
meant that my wife is somewhat more special after all.

She survived. She endured the most aggressive treatment regimen there is, and
though she's left with considerable damage from the radiation, she's alive.

"The incompetent family doctor, who misdiagnosed, suffered no consequence. As
well, my wife must keep the same family doctor unless she wishes to wait another
six years or so.

"That's socialized medicine. Worse still, one may not openly criticize our
system without being told to move to America if we don't like the world's finest
socialized medical system.

Criticizing our system is tantamount to being a global warming 'denier.' The
propaganda is that effective."

Anyone can have a family doctor who makes a wrong diagnosis—but in America,
you're not stuck with him.

I'm a fan of the TV show "Mystery Diagnosis," which tells the real stories of
people with very rare medical conditions who spend years trying to get a proper
diagnosis and treatment.

One of the things these patients talk about is how you have to "be your own
advocate," and most of the cases are solved when the patient himself searches
for information on the Internet, finds a specialist who is an expert in the
disease, and seeks out that physician's advice.

But how can you be your own advocate under socialized medicine?

It is outlawed, because you are no longer in control of your own health care.

You have no freedom to choose a physician, or to seek out a specialist on your
own, or to decide what medical tests you will pay for.

Mr. Hodgins concludes his story by saying, "In Canada, the patient is not a
client; deference goes to the doctor." I don't think that's quite accurate,
because I've known a few doctors who had to work under the Canadian system, and
it's no treat for them, either—not for the decent ones.

In Canada's system, deference doesn't go to the doctor. It goes to the state.
Care is denied in order to cut costs and save trouble for the government.

The Democrats' attempt to eliminate individual private health insurance,
combined with the enormous, multi-trillion-dollar price tag of their health-care
bill, tells us that this is what they want for America, too.

The purpose of this bill is not to save money or provide better care or—try not
to laugh—provide "health choices." Its purpose is to make us dependent on the
government for the most important needs of our lives.

For the political leaders on the left, the purpose of socialized medicine is
control: they want us to turn to them as the saviors we have to supplicate for
every need in life.

<< An example of government breaking your legs, giving you a crutch and
announcing: " See? You would't be able to walk without the government!" >>

For the political supporters on the left, the motive for socialized medicine is
envy: the want everyone held to the same equal standard, even if it is an
equally low standard, so that no one will be allowed to think that he is
"special" and has a right to seek out better care.

What we need, and we need it urgently, is a political rebellion in favor of
independence, which is the only real guarantee of our security and happiness.

And to preserve our independence from government, we need to send the message
that any legislation that even remotely threatens individual private health
insurance is a red line that politicians dare not cross.

President Obama is already frightened of this issue. Late last week he tried to
defuse it by responding that "If we don't get health care reform done now, then
no one's health insurance is going to be secure."

In effect, he's telling us that he has to destroy our health insurance in order
to save it. I don't think anyone's going to find that very convincing.

For years, Social Security has been the "third rail of American politics"— an
analogy to the electrified extra rail on commuter train lines.

The rule has been "touch it and you die": any reform that even threatens to
scale back Social Security has (supposedly) caused the political demise of the
person who attempts it.

I think we should create a new third rail in American politics: individual
private health insurance.

If we can block Obama's health-care bill— causing Barack Obama to fail on one of
the central goals of his presidency— then we will send the message: leave our
health insurance alone. Touch it and you die.

That's a harsh rule for politicians, but it reflects the harsh fact that if they
touch it, we die.

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