Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been wrongly taking a lot of heat from the media about a question he was asked at a recent debate. by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Sunday, September 18, 2011
When Wolf Blitzer demanded to know whether a person who can afford insurance but refuses to buy it ends up in the hospital, it raised an important question. Who should pay? Unfortunately, Blitzer failed to raise an even more important question: why is health care so damned expensive in the first place?
CNN reported that Kent Snyder, former chairman of Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign, died with $400,000 in hospital debts and could not get health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Thankfully, CNN correctly reported that it was Snyder's estate that couldn't pay the bill. Some other less responsible outlets like the Washington Blade incorrectly reported, "He was uninsured and left about $400,000 in unpaid medical bills to his surviving mother." Hey guys! It was the estate which couldn't pay it, not Snyder's mother. She wasn't stuck with the bill. The bill is owed by Snyder's estate and remains (and will remain) unpaid because the estate doesn't have the money in it to cover the final cost.
But the big objection being raised by critics all over the country is that Ron Paul would let his own campaign manager die for lack of health insurance, that Ron Paul thinks anyone who doesn't have health insurance should just die. Too bad for them, that's not what Ron Paul says or believes. He wants people to be able to get medical care. He just doesn't think medical care should have to cost so much. And for having the temerity to try to say that, he is being shot down as being a man with "no humanity", to quote a number of sources.
Where is the humanity of these same people who don't seem to care that medical costs are far too high? Why wasn't Wolf Blitzer asking why medical costs are so high that people can't afford health insurance?
Interestingly, it was the Huffington Post that correctly reported what Paul really said: "I practiced medicine before we had Medicaid in the early 1960s when I got out of medical school. I practiced at Santa Rosa hospital in San Antonia, and the churches took care of them," Paul said. "We never turned anybody away from the hospital. And we've given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves, our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it. This whole idea -- that's the reason the cost is so high. The cost is so high because they dump it on the government, it becomes a bureaucracy."
So let's raise the question here: why is health care so damned expensive? The answer is: Ron Paul was right after all. The government has made health care so expensive.
When Ron Paul first entered Congress in 1976, health care costs for the entire country totaled $52.25 billion with a GDP of $1.824 trillion, meaning that 2.8% of the entire economy was spent on health care. By 2010, $1,054 trillion is spent on health care out of a total GDP of $14.728 trillion, meaning that 7.1% of the entire economy is now spent on health care. In other words, spending on health care has nearly tripled as a percentage of GDP and is up twenty times over since Ron Paul first took office. It should be pointed out that Paul opposed all of this throughout his legislative career, often in direct conflict with his own party.
During that same time, Federal spending on health care has zoomed to 24% of total federal government spending, compared to 9% in 1980. Clearly then, it's federal spending on health care that has led the way over the past 35 years. In other words, it's the huge pouring of federal dollars into the health care pot that has fueled the increase in medical care cost! Ron Paul understands something that his critics don't want to think about: supply and demand. When you increase the supply of money spent in an industry, the prices will go up. Duh!
So the real question isn't whether "he should die". Ron Paul made very plain that he didn't think the man should die, and he certainly didn't want Kent Snyder to die. The question is, "who is going to pay for it, and where it the money going to come from?" If your answer to that question is that the money should come from the government, then YOU are the heartless one, because you believe that government spending should continue to drive up the cost of health care until it reaches the point that no one can afford it anymore, all because you don't give a damn about supply and demand or the consequences this basic economic law has for humanity!
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Posted By: Bentree
Date: September 18, 2011 05:00:21 PM
Walt,
I was discussing the cost of medical care with my Dr. A progressive no less, he was going on about big business getting involved with doctors and hospitals, driving the costs up. I asked him when this started and he without thinking answered, "in the middle to late 60's", before I could respond, I could see the light go on and resignation come over his face. Exactly, Walt, exactly, exactly. The federal wallet was open for business, our wallet. Intellectually dysfunctional progressive's don't get it. They will never give up on socialism, their greed drives them to support doing the same things over and over, hoping that somehow, someway, someone will make socialism work.
