Why Medicare for All is an Idea worth Considering

Born in the former USSR, and having seen socialism first hand, I’m not a big fan of this political legerdemain. Although, I think that the program aggressively pushed by Senator Sanders and his minions, may be worth our consideration.

What could be the problem with providing government-sponsored health insurance for all 320 million citizens of the United States? Especially when virtually all democrats and a significant number of republicans seem to favor it? With the health status of the average person in our nation declining from one year to the next, isn’t this the natural next step for us to take? Isn’t it humane and righteous to provide care for all those who need it?

Or is it this system that is the very reason for the precipitous decline?

I of course understand, and am certainly not immune to the suffering of others. And at least in theory, I would love to see everyone provided with all of their worldly needs. As all suffering is extinguished and the sick healed. It is the real-world practicality of the situation however, and my experience in actually living in a society that was built up on the very pillars of this misleading ideology, that wanes my enthusiasm for it.

And please believe me when I tell you, I have no interest in changing your mind on the topic, either one way or another. For, I’ve lived on this planet long enough to realize that it’s not that ‘if we do not know our history that we’re doomed to repeat it’. We will repeat those tragic events of the past regardless. Being familiar with them however, may give us a glimpse of where the wind will be blowing the inevitable inferno, allowing us a few extra moments to make our own plans accordingly.

Before the passing of Medicare into law on July 30 1965, Ronald Regan warned us of its dangers, and predicted that our placing a toe into this particular pond, one receiving the lava spillage from an erupted volcano spewed from the depths of hell, will be the beginning of our demise. At the time of course he was thought heartless and callous, but today his prophetic vision is much more palpable, as we find ourselves up to our neck in simmering water, convinced that once we submerge the head, all of our problems will be solved.

Please bear with me as I do some math so as to clarify my point. In 1960 our healthcare expense as a nation was 27.2 billion dollars per year. That’s when you can go to the hospital and give birth for under $100.00. Then with the passing of Medicare in 1965, we opened a Pandora's box that made the management of disease, and not its resolution, the most profitable business in our nation.

By 1995, the healthcare expense hit a trillion dollars per year, as most of the payments for health services were relegated to third-parties, such as the government, and the insurance companies. Which, with some 2000 governmental mandates, became an arm of this entitlement bureaucracy.

It would be at this point, or more likely much earlier, that any sane entrepreneur would recognize this trajectory unsustainable, and abandon the project post haste. The government however has a different view on the topic, and eternally seeks to answer the illusive question of: how can we find the funding to sustain and even grow this burgeoning program. So, by 2005, healthcare spending hit 2 trillion dollars. What it took 40 years to do the first time, it now easily accomplished in just 10 fast years. And today, at 3.67 trillion dollars in annual healthcare spending, we’re about to double again.

Practicality be dammed you say!

England has made it work, Canada, Switzerland, and Australia all have some version of socialized medicine. All ‘civilized’ nations in fact are providing ‘free’ care to their citizens except the United States. And although I won’t pretend that I understand the financial and social nuances of those nations, I am very clear on the fallacy of this system. And no matter how loud the masses become, as they chant ‘healthcare is a right’ you cannot convince someone who has seen the devil with their own eyes, that she does not exist.

It is so easy however to sell people on fleecing their neighbors when it benefits them personally. Although we would not gather as a mob and walk down to the biggest home in our neighborhood, to take some of their furniture, and give it to someone who has been eating off milk crates. Even though, in some minds, that would be the ‘fair’ thing to do.

But somehow, we don’t have a problem in doing exactly this, with their bank account.

If we look throughout history, especially if we agree with the premise that ‘healthcare is a right’ it would be interesting to know its biggest promoters. You’d think it would be the more righteous men like Winston Churchill, or Abraham Lincoln perhaps, who were our most revered historic leaders.

But I was surprised to learn, that socialized medicine, the brainchild of Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of Germany, was embraced by non-other than Adolf Hitler. As he began to subdue the masses by offering them something of value for free. Eventually of course, the simple math of the situation, suggested that he begin to exterminate those who we’re the biggest burden upon the system.

Stalin as well promoted socialized medicine. But maybe you would expect that in a communist society. And yet we can be pretty sure that he was not so much concerned with the health and well-being of his constituents, since he put millions of them to the death with very little cause or thought.

Our ‘problem’ here in the United States, is that unlike the above dictators, exterminating those who place the biggest burden on our system of healthcare, is not in vogue. But don’t for a minute believe that it’s not possible, even likely, when the system suggested becomes fertile for the unthinkable.

No, my friend, the only hope our system of care has, in fact our future as a nation, is when we rebuild the relationship between the physician and the public. Get rid of all third-party intervention and refocus our attention from the indefinite management of chronic disease to the art and science of human optimization.

Because socialized medicine is hell.