On The Deification Of French Healthcare

Great. Just when we're at the point in our Nation's history when, thanks to the two Democratic Presidential candidates, we might actually be unfortunate enough to get saddled with Socialized Medicine in the next few years, ABC has decided its time to try and re-introduce another round of deifying the French Healthcare system into the American media. Afterall, us idiots in the American proletariat might not be smart enough to, you know, buy into all this socialized bullshit, so we need to be shown just how amazingly-wonderful-awesome the French system is so that we'll be more willing to take that last step over the edge and into the abyss.

I chose the word abyss in that last sentence because, in fact, that's exactly where adopting a French-style Healthcare system would lead us to: the bottom of a very dark and scary abyss. But alas, Ms. Mary Cline, a freelance writer living in Paris, doesn't see it that way at all; which means it's time to examine her short article on French healthcare and dispel her of such bullshit notions. (Yes, we like to pretend that the people at ABC News might, actually, read this pithy blog. Just keep quite, and don't shatter our illusions of grandeur.)

The first and most obvious problem with Ms. Cline's assessment is her admiration of just how cheap, in many cases "free," visits to French hospitals and Doctors are. Sadly, this is, to an extent, true; at least for Ms. Cline. You see, Ms. Cline is not a French citizen; she's an American who just happens to be staying in Paris; which means that she doesn't really pay taxes to the French government, because she files her taxes with the IRS. Thus, while the system is "free" to her, it's really not. She is, in actuality, a leech on the backs of French taxpayers, who are financing all of her healthcare for her. If any of this sounds familiar, it should, as this is one of the biggest problems we have in the United States from illegal immigration - namely, that the illegals become leeches on all of our social services, which costs us more and more money, all while they, as undocumented workers, don't actually contribute anything to the financing of such programs.

But hey, considering we're running up deficits and that all of our big time programs are going to be going bankrupt in like 20 years, what better way to improve the American Healthcare system than to adopt a system which not only doesn't solve that problem but in fact exaggerates it?! Of course, herein lies one of the fundamental lies underlying the myth of the French system, that its money supply is somehow endless - it's not. The rising costs of this "free" and "cheap" system, are one of the reasons why France has a national debt which is some 65% of its GDP. In other words, it only seems cheap to idiots and fools like Ms. Cline, who have no understanding of how exactly it is that governments raise money to pay for such fantabulous programs.

(As a side note, its kind of funny that when talking about how wonderfully cheap French care is, she's giving the example of when she took her son in to get stitches; which, as we all know, is just a horribly expensive, outrageously difficult, and monumentally impossible procedure to do in our meek, stupid American Healthcare system.)

Then, after amusing us with anecdotes about her son's stitches experience, she regales us with some statistics which are, apparently supposed to make us bow down before the almighty behemoth of Socialized Medicine. First, she tells us that the French system is ranked number one, 36 spots ahead of the damn U.S, on the World Health Organization's list of best health care systems.

Ah, yes, because, as we all surely know by now, there is nothing on this planet as infallible as a rankings system devised by an organization that is a subdivision of the United Nations. They would never have an agenda. Nope, not the UN.

On a more serious note, it should be pointed out that the study Ms. Cline cites came out in June of 2000 (link here), so it's kind of outdated. But, more importantly, one of the primary means that it uses to measure the quality of the overall health system is how fairly the financial burden of medical care is distributed. In other words, this rankings system is inherently biased towards more socialized systems because these will, naturally, be more likely to have "progressive" (read: Marxist) mechanisms in place for income redistribution.

Next up, Ms. Cline attempts to throw around one of Socialized Healthcare supporters' favorite statistics: life expectancy. Because life expectancy is higher in France than it is in the United States, they argue, France has better healthcare. The argument, however, is false; and that is simply because other factors go into life expectancy besides just the quality of the healthcare one receives. Americans are much more likely than Frenchmen to be fat and overweight, a fact which significantly affects life expectancy, but is a result of lifestyle choices made by the individual citizens, and not their national healthcare systems. Americans have lower life expectancies because they make poorer lifestyle choices, not because they have worse healthcare.

Ms. Cline then goes on to discuss her experiences with receiving Breast Cancer treatment in both California and Paris and decides that her French experience was better. She makes this decision based on the how much more lax the French system is, mainly because they'll let her stay longer in the hospital. This conclusion presents two problems; the first is, obviously, financial (there's a $$ reason American hospitals don't like to keep patients longer than is necessary) and thus, was discussed at the top of this, now rather long, essay. However, the second problem with this conclusion is that it's based entirely on anecdotal evidence, and, thus in need of an important correction. You see, if Ms. Cline had bothered to do any real research on Breast Cancer treatment, she would have likely arrived at a different conclusion. She would have discovered that most all of the technologies and medicines that are used to treat Breast cancer were developed in none other than the American healthcare system. She would have also discovered that, despite the fact that American women are more likely to get Breast cancer than French women, they are also less likely to die from it. Meaning that, shockingly, the American system not only is able to take care of more breast cancer patients than the French system, but also more likely to cure the ones it gets.

Based on this data, the survival rate for breast cancer is 81.2% in the United States vs. 76.6% in France. (As an aside, even the raw numbers here indicate that American women are less likely to die from breast cancer (19 vs. 21.5); again, despite the fact that they are 9% more likely (101.1 vs. 91.9) to contract it - a phenomenal statistic.) Moreover, these statistics showing survival rates are even more impressive (at least for the United States) when applied across the board to all forms of cancer. Basically, the bottom line is that, while the Doctors in France may be friendlier and more accommodating, they're also less likely to keep you alive - which, in my book at least, is a hell of a lot more important than being 'happy' with the nursing staff.

Finally, Ms. Cline really gets me shaking my head when she pines about how her husband once had to wait "several hours" to be seen in a Manhattan Hospital because they couldn't track down his insurance company. This causes her to go on and assert that such a travesty would never befall one in Medical-Heaven-on-Earth, France. Indeed, she claims that

"There's no question you'll be treated in France. Everyone is."

Right, sure. Although, something tells me that the over 14,000 people who died in August 2003 in France during that fantastic heat wave would beg to differ. I mean seriously, you're bragging about this healthcare systems' ability to treat all of its potential patients when 14,000 people died on its watch, mostly from simple dehydration? Is it really that difficult to inject people with fluids and monitor them afterwards? Hell, I know how to do that, and all I have is basic training in First Aid - and I probably won't ask for you tax dollars if you come up to me and ask for help either.

Of course, there are other issues that Ms. Cline doesn't even mention in her article that I could bring up. I could talk about waiting lists, and how the elderly usually don't get seen (most of those heat wave victims were old folks), how under-skilled their Doctors are compared to ours, how our medical technology and equipment is superior to theirs, and, of course, I could go into even greater detail about the financial burdens of "free" French healthcare; but, at the end of the day, Ms. Cline makes perhaps the most eloquent argument against the French Healthcare system when, towards the end of her article, she comments on how it is "an all-encompassing cradle-to-grave system."

Indeed.

It is, ultimately, another in a long line of ill-conceived, nanny-state programs, designed to remove a populace from its own sense of personal responsibility and the often times harsh realities of life (and its finances). But by removing people from responsibility for themselves, you remove them from personal choice in matters of everyday life - afterall, how can you be trusted to make choices for yourself if you can't be held responsible for those choices? - and when those two things come together, the diminishing of both responsibility and choice, your personal rights and liberties are not far behind them on the path away from freedom.

Any system that's "all-encompassing" is simultaneously both all-knowing and, most importantly, all-controlling - and when your very health is being controlled (by a government agency, no less), you don't have near as much freedom.

Because It Works

It's been a while since we've done an article on tort reform and the need for it, insofar as the Medical Industry is concerned - but, now, we get to fix that particular mishap. Five years ago, in 2003, the Great State of Texas passed Proposition 12, which capped damages in Medical Malpractice lawsuits; and so, with 5 years now in our rearview mirrors, the Texas Medical Association has done a nice little piece on the many benefits that reform has provided to Texan Healthcare. Here's some of the highlights:

- "Charity care rendered by Texas hospitals rose 24 percent in the three years following the passage of Prop. 12."
- The number of Doctors in the state has been rising at higher-than-normal rates
- This Doctor growth is especially true for specialists, particularly those most affected by malpractice abuse, such as obstetricians and orthopedic surgeons.
- "Hospitals are upgrading equipment, expanding their emergency rooms, launching patient safety programs and expanding their level of charity care"
- "All major physician liability carriers in Texas have cut their rates since the passage of the reforms, most by double-digits. Texas physicians have seen their liability rates cut, on average, 24.3 percent"
- "Claims and lawsuits in most Texas counties have been cut in half"

So as you can see, this system has worked out well for everyone except, well, the trial lawyers who used to make millions on these lawsuits. On the other hand though:

- Hospitals are better able to care for the uninsured, and are able to afford better medical equipment to do it with.
- Doctors don't have to pay as much for malpractice insurance (and thus, can make more money).
- Patients now have an increasing number of Doctors from whom to seek treatment, and they don't have to have the financial burden of rising malpractice insurance costs passed on to them (since they are the consumers in this business).
- And, finally, taxpayers don't have to finance near as many of these bullshit lawsuits with their hard-earned cash.

In other words, everyone who matters, wins.

Seriously, how long will it take the rest of the country to figure this stuff out? If you want to make the American Healthcare system better, the way to do it is not Socialized Medicine (a.k.a Universal Healthcare); and there are 2 primary reasons for this. Number 1, it doesn't do anything to address the real problem, which is rising health insurance costs; and, number 2, it does absolutely nothing to improve the quality of the actual healthcare services being offered.

As demonstrated by Proposition 12 in Texas, Malpractice reform does, in fact, address both of these problems. By reducing the cost of Malpractice insurance and increasing the number of Doctors competing for patients, it reduces the fees Doctors will charge their patients for care; and by increasing the number of Doctors and freeing up hospital funds from fighting frivolous lawsuits, it increases the quality of the care being given to patients.

This is what Capitalism does people, and this is why it works! Competition breeds increases in quality and decreases in price; and, furthermore, when Doctors and Hospitals don't have to be looking over their shoulders every 2 seconds, worrying about potential lawsuits, they're more likely to give charity care - and this is why tort reform is crucial, because it so obviously has these positive effects on Health Care in the United States.

God, I feel like I'm just repeating myself over and over again - hell, if you already understand the basic principles of market economics you're probably screaming at me to finish this damn post already. But I think I'm going to say it one more time, just for emphasis: tort reform enables Capitalist forces to better enter the healthcare market, which is good, because Capitalism works!

Ok, there, I'm done now - kind of like some of Texas' healthcare industry's problems...

Barack Obama - Elitist Snob

The best part about following politics is when one of these idiots running for public office slips up and actually tells you what they really think about the voters they're trying to woo, and you get to sit back and watch them try to deal with the fallout. And now, much to the pleasure of this blogger, Mr. AudacityOfChangeHopeSunshinePuppiesAndUnity, Barack Obama, has done us the courtesy of providing such a viewing opportunity.

To quote Obamarama himself from a fundraiser he recently held among his true kindred, San Francisco multi-millionaires:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Yes, small-town America, you heard that right - Barack Obama thinks not only that you're bitter xenophobes, but that your beliefs in God and your 2nd Amendment Rights are merely a crutch that you hold onto because, well, you're just too stupid to see how enlightened and wonderful the US of A would be if we were all just anti-gun, open-borders, atheists.

To be fair, you honestly can't blame him for thinking that religion is a crutch for bitter people; afterall, he did spend 20 years listening to that preacher of his who thinks that 9/11 was a government conspiracy to keep black people oppressed (or something like that). If I went to that Church, I'd probably associate religion with bitterness too. Which is really too bad, because, at its core, the true message of Christianity is one of the least bitter and most genuinely hopeful messages the world has ever heard. But hey, what would I know, I'm just one of those immigrant-hating, gun-loving rednecks who has to use the Christian faith as a crutch to help me overcome my bitterness. So I probably can't provide any real perspective....

As a side note, for your own enjoyment, it's absolutely hysterical that Obama included "anti-trade sentiment" as one of the things that us bitter rural people cling to, given that one of the major parts of his platform has been his stringent denouncement of things like NAFTA and the Colombian Free-trade deal. In other words, he's upset that they're holding the exact same positions as his campaign.

However, the real key, in my opinion, to Barack's remarks though is the part where he mentions guns; because this is, far and away, the most revealing and disturbing part of his comment. To Obama, guns are just a crutch that people lean on when they are bitter about losing their job - or, to turn that around and put it a different way, if everybody was happy, and the world wasn't so screwed up, rural folks wouldn't need or want guns. And herein lies the ultimate problem with Obama and the rest of the anti-gun lobby; to them, guns are not enjoyable or respectable or useful in any way. As far as they're concerned, guns are just things purchased by stupid rednecks with inferiority complexes because they either don't know any better or just have an innate desire to kill people. It never occurs to them that guns might actually be useful in deterring/preventing crime, or that some folks might actually enjoy hunting or taking a trip down to the local shooting range without having it give them the desire to shoot up their local high school the next morning.

No, in their minds, guns are bad; and if we just banned guns, we'd reduce crime to nothing. In other words, to Obama, guns are yet another example of something that, were you to just let him and all the other bureaucrats in Washington take care of, could be taken care of. It's very European, if you think about it; for, deep down, Obama believes he knows what's best for these rural voters. But why, you ask, does Obama think he knows this? Simple. In his mind, these voters are too blinded by their own damn bitterness to understand the 'reality' surrounding gun ownership, and thus unable to know what's best for them.

How very telling a glimpse into the deepest, darkest parts of Barack Obama's political soul.

Not only is it a revealing glimpse of the real Barack Obama, but it is indeed a reminder of why the man is truly unfit to be President, and just how far outside the mainstream of American political thought he is. It reminds of this because it highlights that Barack Obama is not an average American left-winger, but a European, Social Democratic one. The Barack Obama's of the world think that you and me are just a bunch of sheep who have gone astray and need to be led back to the correct path by a well-trained government elite who know what's best for us and will surely make things work the way they ought to. They are, more or less, Socialists.

Some of us, however (and in America, I think it's actually 'most of us'), still believe in what the Founding Fathers taught us all those years ago. We know that government is not best administered from the top down, but rather, from the bottom up; and furthermore, we know that, ultimately, people are better suited to make decisions for themselves, not their governments (especially one run by a one-term Senator and his favorite bureaucrats).

Indeed, in America, Constitutional and Natural Rights matter - too bad Obama hasn't figured that out.

Michael Monsoor - American Hero

Michael Monsoor, a Navy SEAL, has become the 4th American to win the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in the War on Terror; when, earlier today, President Bush presented our Nation's highest Military Decoration to his parents at the White House. Monsoor received the Medal for action he took on Spetember 29, 2006 which ultimately cost him his life. To quote:

"...Monsoor was part of a sniper security team in Ramadi with three other SEALs and eight Iraqi soldiers....an insurgent fighter threw [a] grenade, which struck Monsoor in the chest before falling in front of him. Monsoor then threw himself on the grenade....'He never took his eye off the grenade, his only movement was down toward it,' said a 28-year-old lieutenant, who suffered shrapnel wounds to both legs that day. 'He undoubtedly saved mine and the other SEALs' lives, and we owe him.' "

I should note that, after the grenade was thrown, Petty Officer 2nd Class Monsoor could have escaped and saved his own life; but instead chose to remain, and sacrifice himself for his comrades-in-arms.

The only thing I can think of to say is; 'Thank you, Good Sir, and may God bless your family and friends.' Aside from that, words simply fail me.

(The video of the entire ceremony is linked here, if you would like to watch it.)

Reality Punches Hillary In The Face - She Fails To Notice

You just gotta love listening to Democrats talk about the economy; I mean, even someone like me, who's economic knowledge is pretty basic, can find these huge gaping wholes in the very premises of their arguments. Exhibit A, today, is none other than everyone's favorite sniper-fire dodging, former First Lady, Hillary Clinton. Last night, in an appearance on Leno, she was talking about why she continues to keep on truckin' with this campaign of hers, and she told some sob story about a little boy who's mother makes minimum wage; and how she keeps on going on because she knows she can "really help" people like this mom.

(Here's the actual video. If you really feel like watching, the story starts at about 3:23 in; otherwise, I've summarized it below.)



Basically, this little boy told the Hildabeast that even though the Democratic Congress recently raised the minimum wage, his mother still wasn't making anymore money because - get this - they cut her hours after the minimum wage increased! After saying this, in almost those exact words, Hillary goes on, unfazed, to some new point - completely unaware of the fact that she just got smacked in the face by a perfect example of why raising the minimum wage doesn't work; and why it doesn't actually increase people's overall earnings.

You see, an employer already has a specific budget for employee salaries that is calculated into his overall budget; and he's not just going to increase that budget in direct proportion to every single increase in the minimum wage; afterall, he's trying to make money and turn a profit in his own right. Thus, a minimum wage increase leads to one of two outcomes in a typical workplace: either A) the employer will have their employees work less time, for the same amount of pay; or B) they will fire some employees and give those that remain higher pay, but with longer hours.

Most employers choose Option B) because it makes things easier for them, which is why increasing the minimum wage will generally cause increases in the unemployment rate. In the case of the young Hillary supporter's mom, it seems the employer didn't want to fire anyone, so he chose Option A); which, if you think about it, could be beneficial to this woman - if she were to use the extra time she now has to, say, get a second job. Working more! Now there's a sure-fire way to make more money! Of course, that's not how Hillary (or any welfare liberal, for that matter) sees things. Heck, she's probably already formulating some new 'free' handout, 'free' training program, or other ill-conceived piece of Legislation to 'solve' the problem.

Reagan once said the 9 scariest words in the English language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" - but, personally, I think "Don't you worry, Hillary Clinton is here to help" sounds infinitely more frightening.

Hey, At Least 15 Of Them Are Responsible

Just recently, Citizens Against Government Waste came out with its annual report detailing the cost and exact number of pork-barrel projects each member of the House of Representatives and the Senate received (You can see the info yourself here); and I am proud to report that one of my Senators, Jim DeMint, was one of only 5 Senators to waste $0 of your tax money on pork-barrel projects.

(Unfortunately, the other two members of my Congressional delegation didn't do quite as well: my other Senator, Lindsey Graham, was 67th in terms of dollar amounts, and had his 59 projects total $99.2 million; and my Congressman, Henry Brown, had only 17 projects for $31.5 million, and managed to be in the top third of the House's porkers.)

However, you'll also be happy to know that another one of those 5 Senators who didn't request pork money was the Republican nominee for President, John McCain (who has never requested a pork-barrel project during his entire Congressional career); a fact which should indicate to you that the man does have a pretty decent sense of fiscal responsibility about him - something which we could use in the Oval Office come next January.

On the other hand, you'll be disappointed to know that, well, only 5 out of 100 U.S Senators didn't request pork projects. Oh, and you'll be further disappointed by the fact that this 5% success rate is actually the higher of the two houses of Congress; as only 10 out of the 435 members (a measly 2.3%) of the House of Representatives were able to refrain from wasting your tax dollars.

But hey, a few million here, a few million there, what's the difference, right?