How’s That “Free” Healthcare Treating You

When people demand that government get into the healthcare business what they’re really saying is the government knows how to spend our money better than we do. The other problem is when the government is “providing” (they’re not doctors so they aren’t actually providing jack shit) healthcare they get to deem what operations are necessary, not you and not your doctor. Britain, for example, just added several operations to the “non-urgent” list:

Hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and removal of tonsils are among a list of ‘non-urgent’ operations being rationed by the cash strapped NHS in a bid to drive down costs by billions.

Two thirds of England’s Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are now limiting treatments they deem to be of ‘low priority’ in efforts to save over £1million each, an investigation has revealed this week.

On average, PCTs expected to save £1,051,000 through restricting procedures they deemed ‘non-urgent’, of ‘limited clinical value’, ‘low priority’ or ‘cosmetic’.

And just like that those operations are removed from the “free” healthcare list. Let us make no mistake either, these operations weren’t removed because medical researchers have found them to be unnecessary, they were removed to save money. The British government isn’t telling people they are going to pay less taxes for healthcare in return for fewer covered operations either, those in Britain are still going to be gouged for the same amount in taxes but will receive less.

I know how to spend my money better than the government does. If I feel getting my tonsils removed is necessary then it’s necessary and I can get them removed. That is if I had the money… unfortunately the government takes tons of my money in the form of taxes and have legislated free market alternatives for providing healthcare to the poor, like mutual aid societies, out of existence. It’s a typical ploy performed by governments, tell the people they need something, provide that thing, legislate any potential competing sources for that thing out of existence, and make the population more dependent on the government.

What people never seem to realize (even though the lesson has been learned time and time again) is the simple fact that eventually the government runs into a problem of paying for the services they’ve obtained a monopoly on and then start to either increase taxes, reduce quality, or a little of both. There isn’t a single government provided “service” that has ended up working well. Government built roads are full of potholes and constantly shutdown due to construction, more and more operations are added to “non-ungent” lists where governments “provide” healthcare, the fucking water supply keeps getting more and more unneeded chemicals added (why the fuck is fluoride still added after all research demonstrates it doesn’t benefit people in any way), etc. Everything government touches turns to shit and people need to wake up and see that simple fact.