Healthcare: A Failed Experiment
Written by PeacockWatch on November 1, 2009.
The healthcare debate is another glaring example of a mainstream news media with an agenda that is congruent with that of the administration. Most of what has passed as news reporting during this debate has been the usual bleeding heart stories of people dying or going bankrupt without access to healthcare, the typical misleading statistics (47 million people without insurance). Not contented with just distorting the facts of the debate, the media then took it upon themselves to launch attacks on those citizens who had the nerve to show up at town hall meetings to express their feelings about government run healthcare.
Yet, the most obvious reporting that has been totally ignored is the status of government run healthcare in other countries. In all instances, these countries report long waits and rationing of services, a shortage of providers, and spiraling costs. (France is looking to reform their model and is actually looking at elements of the current free market practices in the U.S.)
If our mainstream news media is hesitant to go abroad to bring this story of failure to the public, they need only to look a bit to the north of where most of them sit, to the state of Massachusetts. This state’s healthcare model, which was sponsored by Mitt Romney, is very similar to the plans coming out of congress. Although only being in existence a few short years, it is already being deemed a failure. By most reports the program “in practice has been a colossal failure, expanding state bureaucracy and government control over the health care market and provider-patient dealings, while simultaneously driving up health insurance premia, increasing health care costs, and creating a chronic shortage of providers – all at an annual price tag of over twice the originally-estimated $600 million.” This is the fate of all government run healthcare, and one cannot point to a country on the face of this earth that has achieved varying results.
As we contemplate turning over 17% of our GNP, as well as our lives and future well-being over to the political class, the Massachusetts experiment would seem to be a worthwhile news story. It is not.
On the other hand, maybe the mainstream media reporting of the Massachusetts experiment would not change a thing. Even without fair reporting on this issue, there has been an historic firestorm of protest, and by a growing majority the American people do not favor government run healthcare. Yet, in spite of this outcry, the Obama administration and its congress are intent on jamming this failed concept down our throats, and, at a time when this country can ill afford it.
Why would our government put in place a program that has failed everywhere it has been implemented, and that they know will certainly fail here? The answer is that this debate is not about healthcare, it is about establishing government control over people’s lives and liberty.
Although this will surely be political suicide for the Democratic Party, Peacock’s prediction is that they will put the gun to their head as government run healthcare has been the holy grail of liberalism for well over 70 years, and they know this is their last chance to achieve it. If they cannot strong-arm or buy 60 votes, they will ram it through in the middle of the night with 51 votes.
All of this without any real public debate.
In short, the Democrats believe this legislation is the hallmark of a social democracy, and you just cannot be one without it.



