Why Governments Want To Control Health Care (& The Solution)

Interesting article on why progressive governments (leftists) want to control health care and what should be the proper solution to healthcare. . .

Here is a repost of one of Ryan Grant's articles from the now defunct blog Athanasius Contra Mundum. In this post from 2009, Mr. Grant summarizes the problems we run into when government gets involved with healthcare and sketches a (brief) vision of a Christian alternative.

“ . . . In the 19th and 20th centuries health care has become the golden egg of totalitarian governments. Hitler used the budding hygiene movement in Germany to promote Darwinian evolution through the establishment of the courts of genetic purity (i.e. weed Jews and blacks out of society), outlaw smoking as a means of further government control, regulate doctor's visits and obtain information about the populace at large. Health was nationalized under the Nazis, much as it was in the Soviet Union.

Controlling health care gives the government life and death power over its populace. Any veterans denied care at the VA can certainly relate to that fact. If the government is benign and motivated by Catholic principles of social justice, namely that all things are done for the common good, then it wouldn't be so bad if a working system could be developed. In reality of course a bad government will turn it completely to evil. It is one of the necessary steps in the big government trap to keep the populace contained. . .

Now what does the government benefit from taking over health care?

First what is on the agenda of the elite? Population control, forced abortion, forced vaccination, sterilization, state controlled education, and state determination of what control not only of the Church but any religious and secular body which offers a different vision. Thus, homeschooling will be illegal (not in virtue of this bill but down the road as a consequence of it), private health practice, conscientious objection for immoral medical practices, conscientious and religious objection to government mandated health care such as vaccinations against non-health threats with vaccines not even tested. Many of these things are already occurring as we speak. In several states a pharmacist is not allowed to refuse contraception, even though the person could get it from the drug street down the road. Proposed legislation which is right around the corner will eliminate the right for Catholic or Protestant doctors (or any other religion for that matter) from refusing to do abortions.

The contradiction couldn't be more glaring. We don't want to tell people they can't live as they please (except for Christians), we don't want to tell people they don't have a choice (unless they don't want what we have to give them, such as mandatory health care). And that is what it all boils down to. If you must constantly check in with the doctor, and the doctor's practice is run by the government, the government can start determining what kind of care you receive, what kind of drugs you must take, and if you don't you'll go to jail and your family will suffer, your kids will get taken away, etc. It is the ultimate black hole from which the family can not escape.

Thus, what is the solution? It is neither reliance on atheistic capitalism or atheistic socialism and its variants, it is the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, that the smallest possible unit ought to do something.

Get the government out of medicine, except to work for the common good and regulate the safety of medicine. Get the corporations out of medicine, and reduce the research of new drugs to occupational guilds of physicians, who know their patients and their needs while at the same time outlawing patents so the doctor's don't see green but will be encouraged to share their discoveries for the benefits of others. Think that is unrealistic? All the discoveries of science, the dramatic increase in technology in the middle ages and the modern period was done without patents.

On the other hand, one also needs to change the culture at the same time. Modern man is a wimp who must go to the emergency room for every paper cut, and so burdens medicine with needless corrections, and this needs to be corrected. Locally owned, or co-operative clinics with lower overhead costs would mean lower costs for patients. There are many examples of low-cost, direct pay only clinics operating in many cities in the United States.

Short of that, there are other systems which may in fact work. Australia's system for example works for what it provides, doesn't run in the red and does not allow for government intrusion into medical records or care. Though vastly superior to EU and Canadian systems, I question whether or not it would be viable here. It would certainly work better than Obamacare. A short look at this bill, which many and I daresay most Americans do not want, is like a trip into an Orwellian nightmare. After reading this, please do something to let your senate/congressman know your displeasure, whether it be by letters, e-mail, phone or a town hall appearance, that is if you want Nancy Pelosi calling you a Nazi."

Read the entire article @ http://www.unamsanctamcatholicam.com/social-teaching/economics/92-social-teaching/economics/408-government-and-health-care.html