A G K Y R A

With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama going back and forth about whose government healthcare plan is better, it seems that the Democrats are committed to some kind of universal healthcare. Just a few questions I’d like to throw out there for you to think about as you consider how to vote later this year.

1. What happened to the Social Security crisis we face when the Baby Boomers retire en masse? Doesn’t anyone remember that a big part of the working population is starting to retire and the government hasn’t saved up enough money to pay for them the way it was supposed to? Did the U.S. government win the lottery and I just didn’t hear about it? No solution to that, and yet the Democrats are talking with straight faces about universal healthcare. So, in addition to promising people a secure retirement when we might not be able to deliver on it, now we’re promising to give them health security too. Please, people, let’s solve our actual problems that face a big proportion of the population before we drastically re-engineer huge sectors of the economy for the sake of a small minority. After all, there is no question that most Americans have adequate healthcare. Don’t listen to easy talk about universal healthcare from any politician who won’t talk straight about the hard times ahead with Social Security.

2. Related to Social Security are the ongoing problems with Medicare. Aren’t politicians always talking about Medicare reform? Now let me ask you: why would Medicare need to be reformed? Because it doesn’t work very well? Surprise, surprise, a health care program administered by the government is inefficient and doesn’t provide good quality care for the people it serves. Wouldn’t it make better sense to tell Hillary and Barack that they have to prove that their ideas about healthcare work by making Medicare work first? If they can’t make Medicare work, what makes you think they can make a comprehensive health coverage for everyone work?

3. The problems with Social Security and Medicare lead me to ask you something else. I challenge you to name one federal government program that is a resounding success. Which agency has done such a great job that you would like to take those bureaucrats and give them total responsibility for providing your healthcare? The FEMA folks? TSA perhaps? Obviously we don’t want the IRS or the Social Security Administration. The Postal Service? Which agency do you want put in charge of your healthcare? Feel free to name your favorite state or city agency too.

Maybe MTA, the agency that can barely maintain the creaky old subway trains and keep the escalators working at the stations here in New York City, can take over our healthcare system.

If none of the above, what makes you think some other agency would do it any better?

Do you remember all the fallout over poor quality care and physical deterioration of the facilities at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the flagship military medical facility for the area around Washington, D.C.? Do you have any good reasons to believe that ObamaCare or ClintonCare will be any different?

Social Security worked fine for two generations, and now it’s failing. The federal highway system has served us well for two generations, and now our infrastructure is falling apart. My two points are these: we should fix the problems we have with the programs that are already in place, keep the commitments we’ve already made; and, you should be very careful about listening to easy talk and big promises from candidates, especially when it would involve the creation of massive government agencies. The Big Federal Government has only been around for 70 years or so, and a pattern is emerging. I hope this generation can spot it before we create even bigger problems for the next.

This post is my submission to the Facing Up blog carnival.

Technorati Tags: barack obama clinton hillary+clinton barack+obama healthcare health+care democrats

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