On October 3rd, President Bush vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have extended Medicaid benefits to lots of poor children.. One newspaper reported that the main reason he did so was that it "moved our health care system toward socialized medicine." I went to the White House Press office website to see if that was a correct quote. It was not. In a speech delivered to the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, he used the words "federalize health care." He prefers that poor children purchase health insurance from privately owned insurance companies. You know the ones I'm talking about, the expensive policies.
I'm not sure of what the President's definition of "federalize" means, but I'm going to take a stab at it. It means a health care system that is run by the government, where the doctors work for the government and the government doctors tell you what to do. Would somebody please tell the guy that the federal government already has such a system, and by all accounts its working pretty well. Its called The Military. Yep, when you go into the military, you enter the world of socialized medicine. All of your doctors are military officers, paid with tax dollars. They tell you when to show up for your physicals and immunizations, and you have no choice but to go. They have a 100% compliance rate with preventative medicine. For some odd reason, the military desires soldiers that are healthy. Their outcomes are some of the best in the world. Of course, the start out with a fairly healthy group of folks. Preventative medicine keeps them that way. Now, there's a concept.
In the same speech, Mr. Bush gave himself credit for being consistent in his decision making. If that were the case, maybe he should abolish the military health care system and tell our troops to go out and buy private insurance.
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