Something to chew on

Sharon Keller (response to a NY Times editorial):
"The health insurance and pharmaceutical companies need to be taken over by the federal government before they are the next ones whining to be bailed out. They have failed to create a private plan to care for the American people and that means they don't get to be the only game in town. Eliminate the middle man. Especially since the middle man is a thief."

Response by Phil Town:
"Apparently she doesn't work for a pharmaceutical company or a hospital. If she did she'd know that these are not the bad guys. They are working people, many of whom are among our smartest people and who spent 8 or more years at university before they started working to pay back their loans.

A simple test of whether we should follow her advice is whether she thinks anything run by the government is less expensive than things done privately. The Post Office, for example, is subsidized by taxpayers, has all their buildings and employees paid for by taxpayers to do the mail and STILL has to charge pretty much what FedEX charges to ship a package... and still loses money.

Does she think unfireable employees are going to work 60-80 hours a week to come up with a new drug? Can she imagine the paperwork they'd have to file to try something unheard of? Were we to go to nationalize health care and drugs, there might be no cure for polio, for instance. Dr. Salk went forward with his research in spite of everyone, literally everyone, telling him it wouldn't work. Do you think he could have gotten the money from a bureaucrat in that case?

China, India and Russia are trying to undo a century (or longer) of socialist policies and implement capitalistic policies in order to meet the needs of their people, and Sharon wants us to nationalize our health care industry to meet the needs of ours? Perhaps she does not realize that all of the inventions of health care and drugs in the last 100 years have come from our system and none from nationalized systems?

Bad idea, Sharon. Nationalize and you throw the baby out with the bath water. The rich will have the health care that you have now and you will have the health care Canada has now. Try to imagine having to wait for six months to get your ACL fixed and then see if you want to vote for nationalization."