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I always enjoy reading Dr. Walter E. Williams columns. He has the talent of making a complex situation understandable. Or, as I like to say, he puts the cookies down where the kids can get them.
That being said, how many times have you heard the radical, anti-American, anti-Constitutionalists lefties proclaim the virtues of a single payer (read government/socialized medicine) health care system? That we should emulate the incredibly successful system that Canada employs? I've read of weeks and months wait for MRI's and 6 to 8 months for an angioplasty, etc. Well, Dr. Williams has a column( www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20050622.shtml ) where he starts out telling about a lawsuit that sought to overturn the statute that outlawed, that's right, outlawed private health insurance. It was illegal to buy private health insurance in Canada. What I found incredible was the findings of fact from the Canadian Supreme Court.
The high court found the Canadian single payer/socialized medicine system literally inflicts unwarranted and needless pain and suffering on its citizens. And that the system also kills those who it's supposed to help.
But, the very simple question from Dr. Williams that I found so intriguing was why, if this system , much heralded by Hitlerary Clinton, Barbara Boxer and their ilk, is such a superb system, why is there any need for private insurance?
And once again, the arrogance and self-piety of all socialists and leftists is that they are willing to let you suffer while they get it right. This reminds me so much of Dr. Thomas Sowell's comments about the self-righteous left and their outlook on the failed systems they inflict on us. As Dr. Sowell puts it from his book "The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy-"The anointed steadfastly refuse to acknowledge mountains of evidence that their policies have failed while accusing their critics of dark motives ".
As Dr. Sowell says in another column (www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell042103.asp ) , the "anointed" (left wing elites and their acolytes) don't want you to be independent:
"Those things that help human beings be independent and self-reliant -- whether automobiles, guns, the free market, or vouchers -- provoke instant hostility from the anointed.
Automobiles enable you to come and go as you wish, without so much as a "by your leave" to your betters. The very idea that other people will go where they want, live where they want, how they want, and send their children to whatever schools they choose, is galling to the anointed, for it denies the very specialness that is at the heart of their picture of themselves.
Guns are completely inappropriate for the kind of sheep-like people the anointed envision or the orderly, prepackaged world in which they are to live. When you are in mortal danger, you are supposed to dial 911, so that the police can arrive on the scene some time later, identify your body, and file reports in triplicate.
The free market is a daily assault on the vision of the anointed. Just think of all those millions of people out there buying whatever they want, whenever they want, whether or not the anointed think it is good for them.
Think of those people earning whatever incomes they happen to get from producing goods or services for other people, at prices resulting from supply and demand, with the anointed cut out of the loop entirely and standing on the sidelines in helpless rage, unable to impose their particular vision of "social justice."
The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites."
Listen to what the Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin says about their mutilating and mis-named health care system:"Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin responded to the court's decision saying, "We're not going to have a two-tier healthcare system in this country. What we want to do is strengthen the public healthcare system." That's the standard callous political response. He's telling Canadians to continue waiting, continue suffering and perhaps dying until the day comes when there's no more waiting. And though Canadian politicians can't give their citizens a date certain when there'll be no more waiting, they're determined to deny them alternatives to waiting for government-provided healthcare. I'd bet you the rent money that Prime Minister Martin and members of the Canadian Parliament don't have to wait months and years for a medical procedure."
Yup. It's what I once heard 10 years ago from a lefty on why all their programs are such failures "Well, we need just a bit more time and adequate funding."
Once again, it's the failure of a democracy versus a constitutional republic (like we're supposed to have).
posted by Amendment X at 2:11 PM permalink
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