We believe that health care is a right and not a privilege.
We will attack the health care crisis with a comprehensive approach. Our goal is straightforward: quality, affordable health coverage for all Americans to keep our families healthy, our businesses competitive, and our country strong.
John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democratic Party believe in a better, stronger, healthier America. Our resolve to fix the health crisis is stronger than ever. In the wealthiest country in the world, every expectant mother should get quality prenatal care; every child should get regular check-ups; every senior should be able to get safe, affordable prescription drugs; and no hard-working family should ever lose everything because illness strikes a loved one.
We believe in an America where health care is available and affordable.
The rhetoric coming from Hillary and Obama is even stronger:
“We now face an opportunity — and an obligation — to turn the page on the failed politics of yesterday's health care debates… My plan begins by covering every American. If you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan is the amount of money you will spend on premiums. That will be less. If you are one of the 45 million Americans who don't have health insurance, you will have it after this plan becomes law. No one will be turned away because of a preexisting condition or illness.”
— Barack Obama, Speech in Iowa City, IA, May 29, 2007
In the healthcare world of Democrats, everybody gets more and pays less.
In fact, the world of Democrat campaign promises is a virtual utopia:
Our plan begins with commonsense investments to harness the natural world around us—the sun, wind, water, geothermal and biomass sources, and a rich array of crops—to create a new generation of affordable energy for the 21st century.
We will also work to make sure that our people have access to an affordable, secure, and reliable supply of electricity at all times.
We will expand efforts to help manufacturers, workers, the long-term unemployed, and communities hurt by imports, including extending trade adjustment assistance to workers in the service sectors and making health insurance more affordable for workers who lose their jobs due to trade. Through our jobs plan, we will bring hope and jobs back to the cities and small towns devastated by the shuttering of factories.
We will make college affordable for every qualified student with a tax credit for four years of college.
In President George Bush's America, drug company and HMO profits count for more than family and small business health costs. The few small proposals he has offered would further divide our health system between one that is affordable for the healthy and wealthy, and one that is unaffordable for the elderly, the sick, and increasingly, for America's broad middle class.
Under the leadership of John Kerry and John Edwards, we will offer individuals and businesses tax credits to make quality, reliable health coverage more affordable. We will provide tax credits to Americans who are approaching retirement age and those who are between jobs so they can afford quality, reliable coverage. We will expand coverage for low income adults through existing federal-state health care programs. And we will provide all Americans with access to the same coverage that members of Congress give themselves.
We will push the boundaries of science in search of new medical therapies and cures. We will secure more funding for aggressive biomedical research seeking affordable and effective therapies based on real science.
Making college affordable. With the leadership of John Kerry and John Edwards, we will make college more affordable, so that more young people get higher education, and more of those who graduate get relief from the crushing burden of debt.
Obviously I just searched the Democrat Party Platform for the word "affordable." More examples could be given. If only the Democrats could rule the world; everybody would have everything they want.
Imagine a wacko-fringe political candidate who offers the following campaign promise:
America is the greatest nation on earth. Americans deserve the best. Ferrari is the best car, but at $100,000 or more, it is priced beyond the grasp of most hard-working, flag-waving Americans. (We should also note that Italy has not always cooperated to the fullest with the U.S. in the War on Terror.) This is unacceptable. If elected, I promise to make an affordable Ferrari available to every American. "Change you can believe in."Most Americans would vaguely sense that this promise cannot be kept. What most Americans can't do is explain why it cannot be kept, and what would happen in the real world if government actually tried to keep this promise, using the only powers government has available: compulsion and fraud.
The government's best strategy for providing everything that everyone wants has been seen repeatedly in the 20th century: rationing.And perhaps more important, most Americans fail to realize that we already have the Ferrari of healthcare systems, and it's affordable to nearly every American, not just the extremely wealthy.
If America's Founding Fathers could travel through time, they would be stunned at how many Americans can afford healthcare that even the most powerful kings and richest aristocrats could not afford two centuries ago. Even the most routine visit to the most ordinary doctor's office reveals technology and science that would have been considered unattainable luxuries only a few generations ago. Virtually every doctor in America today could have saved the life of America's first President, George Washington, from the heroic measures that actually accelerated his death. Modern dentistry could have changed the face of our one-dollar bill, which shows the painful effects of George Washington's "Wooden" Teeth. Antibiotics, vaccinations, anesthesia, and stethoscopes, otoscopes and blood pressure measurement instruments from Stethoscope.com are considered ordinary fixtures of modern medicine, yet they would have been the Ferrari of health care when the "Bill of Rights" was written.
Does your neighborhood doctor have all these incredible advances in medicine thanks to Democrats in Congress a century ago?
No.
Thanks goes to those who were raised in a Christian civilization, where the human body has value, treating the sick and injured is considered virtuous, "greedy" capitalists can sell the latest health technologies, and the sick can shop around for the lowest price.
In short, the thanks goes to "Liberty Under God," not government planning.
We have MRI's, catscans, reconstructive surgery, transplants, and cures from stem cell research, not because these things were mandated by Democrats in Congress or the White House, but because voluntary charitable donations funded research, and capitalists created the supply to meet demand.
We have so much to be thankful for, but 73% of all Americans have fallen for the lies and empty promises of politicians, and are convinced that our ability to deal with sickness and injury is "in a state of crisis" or "has major problems" (Gallup Poll. Nov. 11-14, 2007). This is tragic, because that same poll, when asking about "The quality of health care you [personally] receive," revealed that 83% of Americans recognize that they do in fact get "excellent" or "good" healthcare, with only 12% describing it as "fair," and 3% saying it's "poor."
This schizophrenic thinking is all too common among Americans. Deep down we know that the Free Market has been amazingly generous to us, yet we believe the demogogues in Washington D.C. and are willing to trust them to plan our economy, rather than trust "the Invisible Hand" of Liberty Under God.
A Quinnipiac University Poll, Oct. 23-29, 2007, asked "Do you think it's the government's responsibility to make sure that everyone in the United States has adequate health care, or don't you think so," and reported that 57% of Americans think it is. Among Republicans, only 32% said it was, while an astounding 84% of Democrats believe it is. But Republican politicians in Washington D.C. have placed more of American medicine under control of the government during the Bush Administration than Democrats did under Clinton; Bush has created literally trillions of dollars of unfunded government healthcare liabilities.
Capitalism, not socialism, raises the standard of living of all Americans. Today's poor benefit from medical advances which were available only to the ultra-rich a few decades ago. This is true in every area of life, including air conditioning, automobiles, communication (phone, TV, etc.), agriculture, and the transportation of goods from all over the world into the homes of ordinary Americans. When a nation "under God" enjoys liberty, the result is prosperity for all, especially for the poorest and weakest members of society. The "poor" under capitalism are better off than the "middle class" under socialism.
Health care is not a right, it is a privilege.
A high-tech prostate screening or a mammogram are not "rights" which are presently being "denied" to three billion human beings around the world by some nefarious conspiracy of pharmaceutical corporations and rich doctors. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, and Warren Harding were not guilty of denying anybody's "rights" just because only a few in their day had access to the level of healthcare we today take for granted. Nobody's "rights" are being denied today, except by socialist dictators and superstitious people. The Constitution speaks of "the blessings of liberty," that is, the privileges of a capitalist society. Such blessings come about when the people as a whole recognize their duties under "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." Duties to "work six days," "exercise dominion over the earth," and meet the physical and material needs of "the least of these," are duties that Americans for the last 200 years have recognized, and their obedience to these duties has laid the foundation for the greatest levels of health and medical advancement in human history. We live off the interest of the spiritual capital they accumulated.
Atheistic communism in the 20th century Soviet Union has given us an example of where the Democrats are taking us.
And the Republicans can't wait to join them.
No comments:
Post a Comment