We have written in the past about the detriments of socialized medicine, and informed our readers that underneath its sparkling guise of humanitarianism resides an insidious charade that will lead to less options, and worse care.
In Britain, which has the supposed gold standard of socialized medicine, the elderly are denied knee replacements and cataract surgeries, due to a collapsing economy. The weakest of society are being left to suffer, something perhaps devolving into the caveman past, or worse. Some of the nursing homes have been shutdown as a cost saving move. Perhaps the elderly will find a better life on the streets with the alcoholics and hopeless drug addicts, and perhaps they will finally feel shameful for being such parasites upon society. Parasites are exactly what they ultimately are under communistic and socialistic ideologies, and the behavior in Britain is more than proof of it.
Everyone shares with socialism; that is, until the sharing becomes too inconvenient, and then the government is in a position to simply rewrite the rules for the benefit of the people who tricked us into communism in the first place. Capitalism may be two wolves and a sheep voting on what is to be for dinner, but communism is a slavers' market, where freedoms are merely threats to the powers that be, and you, like the system itself, become property of the state. It is then that many discover with horror that their nanny state is actually governed over by wolves, and all of us are on the menu. It is usually too late to turn back.
Greece has had a socialized medical system since the early 1980's, and it is likewise struggling in the current economic depression. Thus, it is going to use a similar tactic. It is denying diabetic shoes to patients, a service that would allow patients to keep their legs for several more years at least, and perhaps even avoid amputations completely. The Greek Department of Social Security maintains that diabetic patients will eventually lose their limbs anyway, and it is a waste of money to delay the inevitable. We wonder if the same policy would apply to themselves and their loved ones in the same predicament; but wait, we know from history that the people at the top of nationalized networks are always allowed choices.
There is a certain irony that Greece was the home of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. The twisted philosophy of the Greek cronies misses the point of medicine. We are all going to die eventually, and all of our healing techniques are merely intended to stall that eventuality. Once again, we see how humanitarian the socialized systems really tend to be.
"... not avoid amputation of the leg, just delayed for a couple years and the expected benefit would be less than the estimated cost."
— Benefits Division of the Greek Department of Social Security
There is ample evidence to suggest that diabetic shoes can prevent the need for amputations in some patients, but this just costs too much money. In centralized systems, it is inevitable that moral decisions for entire populations will be made by fiat to favor kick-backs and competing agendas. So much for a morally superior and more humanitarian system.
Some people believe that a nationalized system will stop the corporate greed that we see in our current system of medicine, thus leading to cheaper prices. Instead, it will ensure that those who would never use the system must pay its tax anyway, thus further pillaging the economy, and leaving absolute control to a government which has so far worked directly for the multi-national pharmaceutical companies, and against all cheaper alternatives that are unequivocally superior.
A free market is a wondrous thing, and the very basis behind it is freedom itself. The problem with our current system is that it is not free. It has not been free for a very long time, and turning it over to governmental agents who are already pandering to the pharmaceutical billions will make it even less free. Competition to the established medical cartel is kept out by governmental agencies that require millions for the 'approval process', and who will always gleefully say 'no' anyway.
"I never have and never will approve a new drug to an individual, but only to a large pharmaceutical company with unlimited finances."
— Dr. Richard J. Crout, Director of the FDA's Bureau of Drugs
(Spotlight, January 18, 1982)
At least he was honest. With communism or socialism, if you are not already at the top of the political party, then you will never get yourself there, or anywhere, except the position of a slave. There has been no free market in medical care since the allopathic establishment forced its two-tiered system (chemicals and butchery) down our throats, nearly a century ago.
America has historically taken pride in being different, and better, than other nations around the world. Right now, we can see that the socialized health care systems are failing in other countries. It should serve as a warning to us, and remind us that we should not sacrifice our freedoms to make deals with the old Soviet Devil, and follow in the example of lesser nations.
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money".
— Margaret Thatcher
Epilogue
A thread of Judeo-Christian morality has historically tempered and somewhat balanced capitalism for most of America's history. America's moral code of ideals was the oil of its industry, and a shield that protected us from ourselves. Sometimes Americans failed to uphold their own ideals, but what was wrong was always set right again. Among the values that separated Americans from their peers elsewhere was a fundamental distrust of government, and a deeply rooted respect for the basic human rights of individuals as God-given rights. Of course, Americans had some failures in this regard too, but no other people on Earth embrace these values as modern Americans do, or as its founders did. Socialism, and its uglier twin communism, are the very antithesis of what it means to be American. The gist of socialism is that the rights and needs of individuals may be removed by the state at will, for the overall benefit of the society. Self-sacrifice may be a noble quality, but only when it is by choice. Slavery is when it is not by choice.
We may soon find ourselves running for a better life as illegal aliens in Mexico, like the thousands who risked their lives jumping the Berlin wall. History shows that such mass migrations are always in the direction from the socialized nations to the freer ones.
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