August, 2019, Part 6, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: The Failure of Single Pay Health Care Systems Around the World, Continued

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements its rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, sugar, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and copays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care. To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

Several posts ago we reviewed the many, many failures and disasters of Obama Care, probably the worst piece of legislation ever passed when it comes to comparing it to its objectives and its promises. This was the Federal government’s most recent and deepest attempt to try and control the healthcare of Americans and it has ended badly. 

In subsequent posts, we showed the numbers and realities around the world of how single payer healthcare systems always fail to provide effective and efficient health care to its citizens. Despite these realities, many Democratic candidates for President want to implement a failed system like this in this country. Today we will continue that discussion of failed single payer healthcare systems from other countries, further proof that this approach to healthcare is a bad, bad idea.

We continue that discussion today, the failures of the single payer healthcare model:

1) Let’s start with the British single payer system using a Freedom Outpost website article by Mac Slavo on January 24, 2018:

• According to a recent BBC broadcast, hospital patients are dying in British hospital hallways according to 68 British doctors.
• These 68 doctors sent out an open letter that was addressed to the British Prime Minister which detailed what they called inhumane conditions that are occurring in the nation’s socialized National Health Services (NHS) hospitals.
• In addition, the doctors cited statistics that show that just in December, 2017 alone, over 300,000 British patients were forced to wait for more than four hours in hospital waiting rooms before being seen by medical personnel.
• And those folks did not include the thousands of others that were forced to wait hours in ambulances since they could not even fit into emergency rooms.
• The letter further noted that it was now routine for patients to be left on gurneys in hospital hallways for as long as 12 hours before getting a regular hospital bed.
• In further disgusting details the doctors showed that around 120 patients a day actually receive medical treatment while in public hallways and waiting rooms, and are “made to undergo humiliating treatments in the public areas of hospitals, and some even dying prematurely as a result….One patient reported having gone to the emergency room with a gynecological problem which had left her in severe pain and bleeding, a lack of treatment rooms led hospital staff to examine her in a busy corridor, in full view of other patients.“
• In the first week of 2018, over 97% of the National Health Service facilities were operating at levels deemed overcrowded which made them “unsafe.”

What a mess, people waiting for long times to get substandard health care.

2) Let’s get another view of the British single payer system from a Businessweek article:

• The NHS is being overwhelmed by patients and complaints while complaining about being underfunded.
• One driving force for all of this is that under their single payer system, everyone gets any medical treatment they can get to, no questions asked, even if those treatments are highly likely to be unnecessary.
• A few years ago the British Red Cross said the British single payer system was on the verge of a humanitarian crisis.
• And this observation/finding was before a bad flu epidemic hit the NHS system.
• There are currently too many patients, whose overall average age is increasing along with the medical needs of an older population, and not enough medical staff.
• Britain has fewer doctors, CT scanners, and MRI units per capita than most European nations.
• It ranks near the bottom of European countries when it comes to infant mortality.
• Many other European countries score better when it comes to avoidable deaths, cancer survival, innovation, consistency of service, and other medical and health measurements.

Again, what a mess. The article does try to make the case that more money might solve a lot, but not all, of these problems. But then it turns around and quotes a former government official who calls the NHS a “bottomless pit” when it comes to funding, implying that shoveling money at the problem will not resolve the lousy healthcare that the British people currently get for their tax dollars.

That will do it for today. Anyone who still thinks that the single payer model is a great idea for the U.S.since it worked so well in England obviously did not read the above horror stories.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Bush and Obama - Maybe it Was and Is Only About Middle East Oil

I found it interesting yesterday when a cluster of articles about the Middle East all appeared within two pages of the St. Petersburg Times. Consider what is going on in the following Middle Eastern and African countries and ask yourself if it does not all sound familiar:


- According to a Los Angeles Time report, the International Red Cross is reporting that over 1,000 civilians have been killed within a three day period last week in civil war fighting in the Ivory Coast. The Ivory Coast has two factions, representing two people who think they are the country's president, fighting each other since election results were made public last November. It is unknown what side did the civilian killings.


According to the article, there are between 800,000 and 1.1 million displaced people or refugees as a result of the fighting. Despite the civilian deaths, the UN, the Arab League, European countries, NATO, and the Obama administration have not sent in military assets to protect the civilian population like they did in Libya. I do not believe the Ivory Coast is a large source of crude oil.

- An Associated Press article reported that Syrian government forces and agents have tightened security in that country, cracking down on civilians rebelling against the dictatorship of President Assad. The acts including massive arrests of protesters, according to the article. The article also reported that over the past two weeks, 80 civilians had been killed protesting Assad's rule.

Despite the civilian deaths, the UN, the Arab League, European countries, NATO, and the Obama administration have not sent in military resources to protect the civilian population like they did in Libya. I do not believe that Syria is a large source of crude oi.

- The Associated Press reported that protesters in Oman were demanding an investigation into the the abuses by state security forces that may have resulted in at least one death and possibly more of protesters. The protests have been going on for the past six weeks as protesters are trying to shake off the rule of Sultan Qaboos bin Said.

Despite the civilian deaths, the UN, the Arab League, European countries, NATO, and the Obama adminstration have not sent in military assets to protect the civilian population like they did in Libya. I do not believe that Syria is a large source of crude oil.

- Although not mentioned in yesterday's papers, news reports today indicate that the Yemen dictator and his security forces are also cracking down on freedom protesters, killing at least fifteen protesters today in addition to the scores that his security forces have already killed.

Despite these ongoing civilian deaths, the UN, the Arab League, European countries, NATO, and the Obama administration have not sent in military assets to protect the civilians like they did in Libya. I do not believe that Yemen is a large source of crude oil.

- Similar behavior has happened in Bahrain and Egypt without any repercussions like there have been in Libya. Egyptian freedom protesters were beaten and killed by Mubarak's security people but no military intervention occurred to protect civlians. Egypt is not a major oil resource.

It makes you wonder, is this really the same situation Bush found himself in, that his invasion of Iraq was all about oil like many Democrats and those on the left claimed? Is this not the same situation, where the West only deploys military assets when a country, Libya, is a major source of oil, supplying about 2% of the world's crude oil and which supplies a much higher percentage to European countries? Could this be Obama channeling Bush again, military force is used only when oil supplies are in danger?

No need to bother with those silly people in the Ivory Coast with thousands dead and possibly a million people displaced. No need to bother with those silly people in Darfur, hundreds of thousands dead and millions more displaced. No need to to bother with those Yemen civilian deaths, no oil involved.

And it is not like the whole Libyan excursion is going well either:

- The New York Times reported this weekend in the St. Petersburg Times that NATO air strikes have mistakenly killed rebels fighting against Gadhafi forces. One of the problems with the air strikes is that Gadhafi's forces are now moving in smaller groups and using civilian vehicles, making them almost indistinguishable from rebel forces, effectively neutralizing a lot of NATO's firepower.

- The President promised that U.S.military forces would be out of most of the heavy lifting and fighting by this past weekend but that deadline was extended. Thus, more U.S. forces will be involved and more expenses rung up for at least a few more days in support of this ill-fated action.

- It appears that the President has still not explained all of the questions to Congress as he should since the war making powers in the Constitution reside in Congress, not in the Obama White House.

- I still cannot find any news reports that indicate any nation within the Arab League is providing substantial military, financial, or personnel support to this effort. This could be because they really do not need the oil like the rest of the world does so no big deal if they provide only token support.

- Now Iraq's Prime Minister is getting involved. In another news article yesterday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki nailed the issue right on the head when he correctly called the military action against Gadhafi as "selective." By that he meant that foreign countries were singling out one oppressive government even though many other peaceful freedom protesters were being massacred in other countries. Specifically, "Whatever decision is made on Libya should be applied on any government that suppresses its people with iron and fire...The process should not be selective."

Well said, Mr.Prime Minister. This military action in Libya makes no sense from a logic perspective unless you include oil as a big part of the equation. What is going on in Libya is going on in many other African and Middle Eastern countries, common people finally getting a taste of freedom and wanting more, many times at the expense of their lives. Unfortunately, where you live determines whether the West steps in to protect you. Oil = protection, no oil = you are on your own.

I am not lobbying for the U.S. to intervene in all of these countries. We should not intervene in any of them, we do not have the resources, plans, patience, or the preparation to do so. You see what happened when we intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan, quagmires.

Obama's Libyan folly is no different from Bush, indicating yet again that the American political class, regardless of party, has no imagination, no creativity, no preparation, and no strategic plans in place to deal with the world's realities. This military action shows that the Obama foregin policy was just as illogical, ill planned, and unprepared as the Bush foreign policy was.

Yes, it is all about oil. And without a sane, integrated, and comprehensive energy plan in this country, we will continue to pay the high price for oil in foreign policy embarrassments, dead U.S. soldiers and wasted taxpayer wealth.

Don't believe me? Consider some recent observations by Michael Graetz of the LA Times:

"The spread of popular revolt in the Middle East to Libya has exacerbated a spike in oil prices and gasoline prices. In turn, this has stimulated widespread complaints about the lack of a coherent U.S. foreign policy toward despots in the region. The problem, however, lies in U.S. domestic policies. For 40 years, we have had no effective response to our addiction to oil. The United States has 4% of the world's population, but we consume 25% of the world's oil. Today, we import more than 50% of our oil, compared with 35% in 1973. The President recently described Libya's oppression of popular unrest as unacceptable. But so is our long-standing failure to address our inadequate domestic policies concerning oil."

Well said, Mr. Graetz




Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.


Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendmen.com/